Recent Advances in City Logistics

Urban freight transport has become an essential issue in urban planning. There are many challenges and problems relating to increasing levels of traffic congestion, negative environmental impacts and energy consumption. To cope with these complicated problems, new city logistics schemes are required that are aimed at increasing the efficiency of urban freight transport systems as well as reducing traffic congestion and impacts on the environment. Recent developments in ICT (Information and Communication Technology) and ITS (Intelligent Transport Systems) help tackle these difficult problems. As well, the corporate social responsibility of shippers and freight carriers promotes public-private partnerships in urban freight transport planning. This book, "Recent Advances in City Logistics", is an outcome of the Fourth International Conference on City Logistics (City Logistics IV held in Langkawi in 2005) organised by the Institute for City Logistics. It includes recent developments in the modelling, evaluation and planning of city logistics schemes. Since city logistics measures have already been implemented in several cities, a review of the performance of these innovative schemes is presented. As well, an overview of the data collection for modelling, evaluating and benchmarking city logistics schemes and intermodal freight transport for city logistics is given. Recent developments and applications of ITS (Intelligent Transport Systems) in city logistics are covered. It outlines developments in modelling, evaluation, and planning of city logistics schemes. It reviews performance of existing innovations, and presents an overview of data collection techniques.