Planning for the future: urban freight transportation

This chapter explores how existing planning processes and policies can be used to address urban freight challenges. Urban freight planning and policies must focus not only on creating efficient freight movement but also on integrating freight into communities and negating harmful freight-related impacts (e.g., emissions, noise, safety, etc.). While many freight planning efforts are valiant efforts to understand freight movement in particular jurisdictions, they often fall short of affecting change. Often, this is caused by a gap between planning and implementation — specifically, a disconnection between planning and implementation agencies or groups within a single governmental organization. The chapter will outline how to successfully bridge that gap using performance-based planning, regional cooperation, new data tools and cross-functional leadership. Case studies will highlight successful real-world approaches to bridging this gap in North America and Europe.