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Netherlands
During the 1970s British planners and environmentalists frequently cited
examples of urban transhipment working effectively in Dutch cities and
saw them as a model for what could be developed in the UK. These
transhipment centres were operated by co-operatives of small road haulage
firms, in some cases with financial support from the municipal authority.
One of the largest centres, in Groningen, was run by a co-operative
comprising 92 hauliers3. Most of these centres did not simply provide an
urban break-bulk transhipment function: they also facilitated the groupage
1
It was envisaged that the typical UDC would have a floor area of 8000
square metres, with a fleet of 40 vehicles handling 1500 shipments per
day5. It would serve only the inner city area and cater mainly for retail
deliveries.
Coopers and Lybrand 6 were commissioned to analyse the pattern of freight
flow in the pilot municipalities and assess the potential benefits of the
transhipment scheme.
Pattern of freight flow and level of UDC usage:
To estimate the volume of freight likely to pass through the average UDC,
the consultants excluded various categories of traffic, such as fresh
produce, waste material and other items requiring specialist handling,
comprising in total 30% of the freight delivered in urban areas. They also
excluded consignments larger than 1 cubic metre, amounting to a further
10% of freight volume. Setting this volume constraint at a relatively low
level effectively targeted the UDC scheme on smaller parcel-type
deliveries. The remaining 60% of freight was considered suitable for the
UDCs. Only a quarter of this freight, however, had a destination in the
inner urban area, representing 15% of all the freight delivered within the
towns. It was estimated that the UDC would capture around two-thirds of
this traffic, i.e. 10% of all freight tonnage delivered.
2
Economic evaluation:
The consultants calculated that the consolidation of loads at the UDCs
could cut transport costs in the inner urban area by approximately 75%.
This would more than offset the additional costs of the transhipment
operation, yeilding significant cost savings overall (Table 2.2). The
commercial viability criterion would therefore have been satisfied.
Transport
Transhipment
Total
Without UDC
20.4
0
20.4
With UDC
5.0
10.5
15.5
View of Business
Despite the positive results of the feasibility study, the UDC plan was
strongly opposed by much of the business community 5. Its concerns
closely resembled those of British firms consulted about transhipment over
the past 20 years. Organisations representing haulage firms denied that
there was a need for new UDCs, especially if they were to be publicly
operated, claiming that existing freight facilities in urban areas were
adequate. A particular fear was that publicly-owned UDCs would become
monopoly providers of inner-urban transhipment services. Firms were also
suspicious about the dual role of municipalities in being the regulatory
authority imposing vehicle access restrictions while also being fully or
partly involved in running UDCs. It was found that many of the larger
retailers would also be reluctant to use UDCs as they regarded logistical
support for their shops as a competitive differentiator and hence
something they wished to control themselves. The validity and accuracy of
the empirical analysis and economic modelling was also challenged. It was
asked why, if there were significant economic benefits to be obtained from
channelling goods through UDCs, they had not been developed by the free
market. No explanation was given of why such a market failure should
have occurred.
Following this welter of criticism, the Dutch government scaled down its
plans for UDCs, narrowing the scope of the project and concentrating on a
single pilot scheme in Maastricht. Greater emphasis was placed on
establishing public-private partnerships and closely involving local
businesses. A UDC was established in Maastricht in 1991. Despite heavy
promotion, the centre has attracted relatively little traffic and is generally
regarded as having been a failure7. This experience has undermined
confidence in the traditional form of transhipment as a means of
rationalising freight movement in urban areas.
Attempts to bring the large retailers and parcel companies into these
schemes have so far had limited success. The retailers argue that they
already achieve a high degree of consolidation, while the parcel companies
are fiercely competitive and loath to accept any encroachment on their core
business.
Guterverkehrszentren (GVZs)
These are large freight terminals, closely resembling the freight
complexes that were proposed for the UK by the LEC in the late 1970s,
though with a stronger intermodal function. In 1993 the German
government, in association with the railways and post-office, published a
plan for a network of 38 GVZs around Germany. These were to serve
mainly as modal interchange points, though they would also act as nuclei
for the development of a broad range of logistical services offered at
various geographical scales. It was anticipated that they could develop an
urban transhipment / consolidation function.
The largest GVZ to develop so far is located in Bremen. It serves as an
urban transhipment centre and has been portrayed in the UK as a good
example of a successful transhipment operation9. In practice, however, this
is only a small of the total activity, with most of the traffic it handles
moving inter-regionally or internationally. It does illustrate, however, how
integrated freight complexes can exploit synergies between freight handling
requirements of carriers operating at international, national, regional and
urban scales. Very few GVZs have so far been established elsewhere in
Germany.
Modelling the Impact of Urban Freight Initiatives
As one of the main contributors to the EUs COST 321 programme the
German government modelled the effects of 20 measures on urban traffic
levels and the environment 10.
Several of these measures have direct
relevance to the transhipment issue. Table 2.3 shows the predicted effect of
these measures on a series of key variables, averaged across five of the
cities. It shows that in most cases the % changes are very small. Use of IT
systems (measure 3) would yield the greatest benefit in terms of emissions.
Surprisingly, transhipping into smaller vehicles would have only a marginal
effect on fuel consumption and emissions. It should be noted that these
measures are not mutually exclusive and could be combined in a way that
reinforces their beneficial effects.
Table 2.3: Percentage changes in key variables resulting from selected
urban freight measures: average values for 5 German cities*
Measure
HGV
Fuel
Particulates NOx
traffic
consumption
1
-0.49
-0.13
-0.44
-0.22
2
-0.48
-0.99
-0.51
-0.61
3
-0.33
-3.55
-6.36
-1.50
4
+1.32
+0.05
+0.28
+0.01
* Bliefeld, Bremen,Cottbus, Dortmund,Dusseldorf.
5
Noise
(daytime)
-0.27
-0.06
-1.31
+0.72
Measures:
1. Transport co-ordination and co-operation of retailers
2. Establish goods distribution centres with co-operation of carriers
3. Guidance and information systems for goods transport
4. Replace large trucks with smaller trucks and vans
France
In recent years attempts have been made to establish, on an experimental
basis, urban freight platforms in Arras and Lille. Little information is
available as yet on these initiatives.
At a national level, French government has taken the view that there is a
pressing need to rationalise the movement of freight in urban areas but that
too little was known about the pattern of freight flow to develop and
implement new initiatives. It has therefore sponsored three major studies
of freight movement in Bordeaux, Marseilles and Dijon involving the
collection of large quantities of primary data. These data have been used to
calibrate a new freight trip generation and distribution model called
Freturb. It is hoped that this model will be able to simulate the urban
freight transport system enabling planners to assess the impact of a range of
initiatives including the transhipment and consolidation of retail supplies.
10% are transit traffic. In the case of London, it is estimated that less than
30% of movements have origins and destinations within the urban area.
The COST 321 programme attempted to model the effect of different urban
freight measures on various European urban areas: this suggested that the
effect of any one policy, or any combination of policies, was very unlikely
to be the same in different urban areas. This exercise suggested that
metrics such as number of inhabitants, the density of inhabitation, the rate
of employment, car ownership, lorry ownership per employee, road length
per lorry, the relationship between, and absolute values of, car kilometres
and lorry kilometres all have to be considered when modelling the freight
system within urban areas. It many cases, the same measure may have the
opposite effect in different urban areas.
The measure with the most to promise in terms of improved urban freight
transport was the reduction in packaging volume; the second most
promising measure was the adoption of light goods handling equipment and
the third city logistics based on the German definition outlined above.
Traditional transhipment centres do not find favour (in fact, they are cited
as failing in Mastricht, though successful in Bremen).
Other measures which the Cost 321 programme favours are those aimed at
reducing the impact of lorries in the urban area: promoting noise reduction,
cleaner fuels and electrically powered vehicles, for example. It is also
suggested that the impact of any one individual measure is likely to be
slight, and that combinations of measures must be designed on a bespoke
basis for each city.
In the longer term, a network of rail-connected city centre transhipment
depots is identified as offering significant benefit. However, this would
require a large investment in the supporing infrastructure.
Considerable care is required in evaluating possible measures. Often
measures conflict: the increased use of mechanical handling systems and
reducing the volume of packaging could, for instance, be in conflict.
Measures can also have perverse effects: e.g. greater use of information
systems could lead to an increase use of secondary roads (as shortcuts or to
avoid congestion) which may optimise transport performance but increase
the impact of transport in environmentally-sensitive neighbourhoods.
One must also consider counter-intuitive measures. For example, banning
large vehicles is often proposed. However, banning small vehicles is also
possible. This might force operators to consolidate loads in large vehicles
to recover the increased running costs. This effect could be reinforced by
requiring specialised urban vehicles conforming to low (or zero) emission
standards and suited to urban operations (manoeuvrable, road friendly, low
deck height, sophisticated handling equipment for fast loading and
unloading). As these are expensive to purchase and run, they may have to
be large enough to earn their operators an adequate return.
Conclusions
There have been several general assessments made in recent years of the
prospects for urban transhipment in Europe. A Delphi study undertaken in
1993 by five research institutes in the UK, the Netherlands, Germany,
Sweden and Spain asked a large panel of logistics specialists12:
When will most goods for urban delivery pass through multi-user
transhipment facilities?
The average estimate was that this would happen in 2008, though there was
a large measure of disagreement between the Delphi panellists, reflected in
a standard deviation value of 11 years. Almost a quarter of the respondents
thought it would never happen.
Club EUROTRANS13, a group of logistics researchers drawn from six
European countries, reviewed the development of urban transhipment in
Europe in the context of a broader study of the polarisation of European
logistical space. Reporting on the work of this group Whiteing sees the
prospects for the break-bulk form of transhipment on the outskirts of towns
as bleak 14.
Finally, it is worth noting that this traditional form of transhipment does not
feature prominently in the final report of the COST 321 programme. This
is only one of 27 measures reviewed by the programme. Indeed, several of
the transhipment-related measures, including goods distribution centre
(with or without the co-operation of carriers), consolidation by means of
urban containers and transport co-ordination and co-operation of retailers
are predicted to have only a weak effect on goods transport by road.
On the other hand, city logistics is one of six measures which are
reckoned to be strongly effective. Overall the study recommends the
adoption of package of measures to address the worsening problems of
freight delivery in urban areas.
References:
1. McDermott,D.R. Urban Goods Movement: State of the Art and Future
Possibilities Transportation Journal, 20, 2, 1980.
2. Wood, W.G., Suen,L. and Ebrahim,A. Urban Goods Movement
Research: Canadian Experience in the Seventies Transportation
Planning and Technology, 7, 2, 1982.
3. Lorries and the Environment Committee Report on Transhipment
London, 1976; PE Consulting Group Transhipment London, 1976.
4. Research Science Policy Unit Consolidation and Transhipment
Department of the Environment / Transport, London, 1980.
10