Freight transport for development toolkit : urban freight

Cities need freight but they tend to ignore this specific category of urban transport. Freight transport, despite providing thousands of jobs and services to the urban economy, has been neglected by transport surveys and models, transport strategies and regional master planning. In the meanwhile, freight operators have carried on their businesses, which is to provide the goods required by shops, companies and households at the right place and the right time. In most cases, they succeed, but not always in a good environmental or social manner. In large cities, one fourth of carbon dioxide (CO2), one third of nitrate oxides and half of the particulates that are emitted by transport are generated by trucks and vans! Municipalities, today, have to target freight transport as one of their priorities in order to make it more efficient and sustainable. A methodological foreword will briefly present issues of urban freight data collection and comparison and show the diversity of urban freight situations in the world (section one). Major features of urban freight are then presented including its environmental impacts, followed by a description of policies undertaken by cities around the world (section two). Some selected issues are discussed in order to show the main challenges local governments face on urban freight (section three). Policy recommendations to local and regional governments are then provided as a conclusion, with examples of best practice (section four).