Planning and sustainable development of urban logistics: From international goals to regional realization

Abstract

Urban transport has negative impacts on sustainability development in environmental, economic and social terms. The freight flows must be organized in such a way as to achieve sustainable development objectives through measures generating benefits and reducing costs on different levels of the supply chain. To promote sustainable urban logistics it is necessary to analyze the city development collecting the main data on the stakeholders behavior and planning actions for virtuous behavior to provide the best practices. The paper will focus on the rules about city logistics, considering the framework of the international and national goals to identify the way of transmission from one level to another. The rules processed at different territorial levels will show the absence of a well-defined link between one level and another and the voluntary choice of each administrative level to agree, or not, to the sustainable development process. The case of Calabria will be described. Calabria, achieving goals derived from the UN, the EU and by the Italian State, through planning tools, such as the Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) and the Economy and Finance Document of Calabria Region 2019–2021 (EFD), is an exemplary case of best practices. It is promoting and driving city logistics rules for implementation of sustainable development.