The Freight Space Race: Curbing the Impact of Urban Freight and Parcel Delivery: Corporate Partnership Board workshop

15:00-18:00 CET 

This is a closed event for ITF's Corporate Partnership Board member companies. 

Coordinating the efficient supply of goods in complex urban environments is a critical challenge impacting economic vitality, traffic efficiency, road safety, emissions and the use of public space. Against a backdrop of changes in urban population and density, an evolving mix of commercial services and the emergence of new consumption patterns (particularly with respect to e-commerce), the daily movement of freight and parcel delivery are placing pressure on street and curb space – two scarce public assets in dense urban contexts. In response, public authorities and carriers can cooperate to improve the performance of urban logistics systems, without eroding other valuable uses of street and curb-space. New digital solutions, platform-based consolidation of deliveries, geo-fencing street access and delivery bays, on-street real-time slot reservation and new business models can all contribute to improved outcomes. Many of these services will require new forms of data management, new types of vehicles and coordination amongst actors. The rapid growth in parcel deliveries driven by e-commerce will inevitably lead to tighter regulation and control of freight delivery services. The impact of these new approaches cannot be examined in isolation of other uses for these shared spaces. This project will, therefore, explore in what ways data, new partnerships and methods and alternative space allocation models can help improve the integration of goods delivery in a changing urban ecosystem.

A first workshop, held on 17 November 2020, covered the scope of the project and helped set up the report framework. This second workshop on 31 March 2021 with look into plausible scenarios to examine in the report.