A multistakeholders multicriteria decision support platform for assessing urban freight transport measures

Abstract

Urban road freight transportation significantly affects the quality of life in urban areas. City logistics constitute a major component in the urban economy, and when smartly implemented they may contribute in the city sustainability and livability by alleviating traffic congestion and mitigating emissions and noise impacts. The present research aims at deepening the knowledge and understanding of urban freight transportation (UFT), and enabling guidance provision for selecting and implementing effective and sustainable policies and measures in a city. This is seen from the prism of an integrated evaluation framework, which has been developed for city logistics policies and measures. The framework assesses the complexity of UFT systems, through selected performance indicators, taking into account divergent stakeholder interests, conflicting business models and operations. Evaluation components are formulated in a hierarchical process; sustainability disciplines (economy and energy, environment, transportation and mobility, society), applicability enablers (policy and measure maturity, social acceptance and user uptake), criteria and indicators, capturing the lifecycle impact of the policies and measures. An index is estimated and reflects each evaluation component and stakeholder category; the overall performance of the policy and measure for the city is depicted in the Logistics Sustainability Index.