Assessment of innovative city logistics solutions

This chapter reviews methodologies for the assessment of innovative City Logistics solutions from a public perspective, with a focus on goods distribution. The review addresses general characteristics of the methodologies as well as the peculiarities of applications to City Logistics. A framework is proposed which includes four levels: objectives, impacts and indicators, strategies and measures. Objectives refer to the traditional definition of sustainability and are grouped according to the areas of economy, environment and society. Impacts and indicators are identified in the transport and economic systems, the physical-environmental system and society. The achievement of the objectives is obtained by strategies which either reduce road traffic volumes, preserve and increase road capacity or which improve the environmental performance of vehicles. Prioritisation of measures is supported by cost-benefit analysis or multi-criteria analysis. These are not necessarily mutually exclusive approaches, because the economic assessment provided by the former can be used as a criterion in the latter. The multiplicity of stakeholders characterising City Logistics makes group multi-criteria analysis of particular relevance. Finally, qualitative and quantitative risk analysis identifies the events affecting the outcomes of the assessment, checks the robustness of the outcomes and identifies prevention and mitigation measures.