A location-based accessibility analysis to estimate the suitability of urban consolidation facilities (original) (raw)

How the location of urban consolidation and logistics facility has an impact on the delivery costs? An accessibility analysis

Urban consolidation is a popular subject in city logistics. Moreover, public authorities need adapted decision support methods to analyse the interaction between their land-use choices and the transformations in trip behaviour, for both personal and commercial trips. This paper proposes a simulation method to carry out a landuse and transport interaction analysis based on the notion of accessibility, and applies it to the real urban network of Lyon. First, a literature review on accessibility and simulation of goods flows is made. Second, the proposed method is presented on the form of a sequential procedure. First, a demand generation model estimated the weekly number of demands to deliver to each customer, to what we convert the generated number of deliveries into a daily number of freight transport demands including a quantity of goods to deliver and a customer, via an empirical procedure. Then, a spatial analysis to choose the most suitable sets of potential logistics facilities is proposed. Finally, each platform is associated to a distance-based accessibility indicator. Computational results are presented and discussed. Finally, recommendations to public authorities for their land-use policy assessment in terms of impacts on freight transport are proposed.

A multi-criteria spatial evaluation framework to optimise the siting of freight consolidation facilities in inner-city areas

Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 2020

Location analysis for a consolidation facility is a multi-criteria challenge, compounded by spatial constraints in real-world scenarios such as those found in inner-city areas. However, most decision support models in location studies of consolidation facilities are limited to numerical computation or multi-criteria analysis while ignoring spatial factors in location selection. This study aims to characterise suitable locations for an inner-city consolidation facility based on spatial aspects, operational requirements, and societal concerns. Accordingly, this study presents an integrated spatial multi-criteria location framework to identify and rank optimal sites for a proposed freight consolidation facility in an inner-city area using 11 decision criteria identified from key stakeholders. Real geographic data from Inner Melbourne, Australia, are used to identify 20 candidate sites which are then evaluated and ranked using the TOPSIS method. The suitability analysis confirms that the most suitable locations are in zones with affordable industrial land with excellent accessibility to major roads and goods receivers. Sensitivity analysis indicates that assigning more significance to the operational requirements and decreasing the priority weight for proximity to residential areas tip favourability towards areas with low real estate costs and more industrially-zoned parts. The multi-criteria spatial modelling allows decision-makers and transport researchers to apply value-decisions at the onset of the process, and it also allows for improved understanding and visualisation of the results and of the significance of the chosen criteria in the evaluation process.

Investigating the theoretical cost-relationships of urban consolidation centres for their users

Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 2017

Urban consolidation centres (UCCs) are a popular measure in city logistics. Although there are numerous pilot projects and test cases, many UCCs are granted only a short life because they fail to attract a sufficient number of customers. Evidence from literature shows that the cost-attractiveness of UCC solutions for their users plays a major importance in their decision to use these facilities. Indeed, since UCCs involve additional service costs for their customers, in order to be financially attractive, they must demonstrate their ability to decrease delivery costs further in the transport chain, through distance or time gains. Despite the significant interest of the practitioners and the research community in these facilities, there is a lack of knowledge and quantitative tools for assessing the costs of delivery operations and the potential savings by use of UCCs. In this paper, authors propose an analytical approach to estimating costs of deliveries with and without the UCC based on the description of the logistics behaviour of the urban stakeholders from the literature. The analytical framework is then applied to a case of a UCC servicing Brussels. The study shows that the main costs of deliveries are time-related costs and that the use of the UCC can indeed decrease them. The main elements that influence the cost attractiveness of the UCCs are the characteristics of a delivery operations (e.g. number of stops, average number of cargo units per stop or the type of actor who performs the delivery), the characteristics of the UCC (e.g. its location, the service price or the possibility of overnight deliveries) and the characteristics of the services area (e.g. size of the town or delivery density).

Location of Freight Consolidation Centres Serving the City and Its Surroundings

This paper investigates small road hauliers' spatial location and road network accessibility in relation to proposed freight consolidation centres (FCCs). For many decades, the overall load factor in freight vehicles has decreased; smaller volumes of goods have been transported over longer distances. To counteract this, a well-planned localisation of FCCs has been suggested as a measure to improve transport efficiency. Based on 3,024 road hauliers, road haulier associations, freight forwarders, and delivery firms/couriers located in the Western part of Sweden, the analysis show a high concentration of small road hauliers towards the largest city, its immediate surroundings, and towards existing facilities of large freight forwarders and road haulier associations. Furthermore, the accessibility analysis shows that a very large majority of the small road hauliers as well as large forwarders and haulier associations are reached within a short time distance from the proposed FCCs, indicating the potential to establish FCCs serving small road hauliers. While it is not possible to conclude that the 'proposed' FCCs are optimally located, the paper provides a basis to further investigate the most appropriate locations of FCCs serving the city and its surroundings, and whether and under what conditions FCC establishments are viable.

Different Urban Consolidation Centre Scenarios: Impact on External Costs of Last-Mile Deliveries

Transport, 2018

The identification and mitigation of negative externalities from goods deliveries in urban areas are important aspects of sustainable urban development. Previous studies have shown that urban freight consolidation increases the load factor of Delivery Vehicles (DVs), reducing the vehicle-kilometres driven and thus reducing negative freight transport externalities in urban areas. The objective of this paper is to explore the possible impact of the number of Urban Consolidation Centres (UCCs) on the external costs of last-mile deliveries in freight transport and to determine the possible contribution of such consolidation scenarios to external cost mitigation. Therefore, several consolidation scenarios are considered assuming different numbers of UCCs in operation. A new consolidation scheme is proposed with more than one UCC to serve a given city area. Input data are obtained from a roadside questionnaire survey with a sample of 1617 drivers at 9 access roads to an urban area as part...

Sustainability SI: Logistics Cost and Environmental Impact Analyses of Urban Delivery Consolidation Strategies

Among new, innovative city logistics strategies, urban delivery consolidation has received increasing academic and practical attention mostly in Europe and Japan. It is believed to bring cost savings and environmental benefits with the right setting. This paper demonstrates an alternative modeling framework to examine, from the strategic planning perspective, the effectiveness of urban delivery consolidation in terms of monetary logistics cost, energy consumption and PM 2.5 emissions with respect to a number of operational (e.g., rent cost, customer demand) and policy factors (e.g., commercial vehicle size restriction in city centers). The framework consists of two key modeling components: the Continuous Approximation (CA) method to model urban delivery (the so-called last-mile delivery) and the Motor Vehicle Emission Simulator (MOVES by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) to estimate the energy consumption and PM 2.5 emissions associated with the logistics activities. It is found that the potential logistics and environmental benefits of UCC could come from either improving the utilization of the vehicle capacity through consolidation, or shifting the more expensive storage cost from customers in the city center to the less expensive UCC rent cost—due to a less centralized location and/or government subsidy or other cost sharing mecha-nisms—outside of the city center. However, UCC could achieve those benefits compared to non-consolidation strategies only under certain conditions, for example when there is an economy of scale or high customer density (i.e., high shipping volume) in the service area. The paper discusses in detailed under what assumptions and conditions UCC could work. Study limitations and future work are also presented.

The Kaldor-Hicks Criterion Applied to Economic Evaluation of Urban Consolidation Centers-review under responsibility of WORLD CONFERENCE ON TRANSPORT RESEARCH SOCIETY

15th World Conference on Transport Research, 2019

Urban Consolidation Centers (UCC) cases, like in Tenjin, Japan, or in Lucca, Italy, have shown vehicle optimization and a decrease in environmental and social impacts of freight transportation activities. Nonetheless, financial sustainability is a barrier for their operation, especially because it is not common to consider environmental and social impacts in cost-benefit analysis. There is a lack of literature about the economic evaluation of UCC addressing stakeholder's cost-benefit with reduction of externalities. The objective of this paper is to present an example of how to incorporate social and environmental impact in a UCC economic evaluation and according to the Kaldor-Hicks criterion, to demonstrate that UCC implementations might be justified even when public subsidies are necessary. A neighborhood of São Paulo city, Brazil, was used as a reference for a simulated UCC implementation. The simulated direct costs of the UCC operations were 13.7% higher than the baseline scenario, however, using the Kaldor-Hicks criterion and incorporating benefits for stakeholders, the benefits compensate the additional operating cost. This new approach to UCC economic evaluation that monetizes and incorporates environmental and social benefits for stakeholders might support decision-makers to optimize freight transportation systems while reducing negative effects of this activity.

An Evaluation of Urban Consolidation Centers Through Logistics Systems Analysis in Circumstances Where Companies have Equal Market Shares

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2012

Urban goods distribution is crucial for the economic vitality of cities but at the same time it causes several problems with regard to traffic congestion and environment. This paper proposes a strategic solution combining cooperation between freight carriers through the use of a consolidation terminal to reduce operational costs, and consequently the negative impacts on the city. The current system without consolidation center is compared in terms of operational costs with a future system where a consolidation center is implemented. Continuous analysis is used to formulate a basic model to estimate costs and benefits. Finally, general results are discussed and a case study in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat (Metropolitan Area of Barcelona) is analyzed. Results are promising with a 12-14% of operational cost savings in a general case. From the case study we conclude that the commitment of the 40% of demand allows covering the costs of terminal implantation.

The potential demand for a urban freight consolidation centre

Transportation, 2008

This paper reports the results of a stated-preference study aimed at investigating how transport decisions are made by receivers or by transport operators about the potential use of an urban freight consolidation centre in the city of Fano, Italy. Because there are no revealed preference data, a stated-choice methodology is used. The statedchoice experiments present two alternatives-one using a private vehicle subject to various traffic regulations and one using the urban freight consolidation centre with varying cost and efficiency levels. Conventional discrete choice data modelling shows that the potential demand is influenced mainly by the distance of the parking bay from the shop, by access permit cost, by the service cost of the urban freight consolidation centre, and by the delay in delivery time. Simulations are then performed to assess how the potential demand is affected by various incentives and regulations affecting urban goods distribution.