Fighting the Windmills: Survey Results on Urban Freight Policies between Spain and the Netherlands

As mentioned in the white paper of the OECD the main policy objective to be tackled is the development of sustainable urban goods transport (OCED, 2003). Sustainable urban goods transport should facilitate a continuing economic growth and meanwhile protect the environment and ensure a better quality of life for future generations. In Europe various regulations have been implemented with the aim to maintain the urban living environment with sustainable qualities and to facilitate smooth and safe traffic flows. Most of these regulations, like access restrictions based on time and/or vehicle size and weight, have been widely implemented. However, the diversity and different applications of these regulations among municipalities can cause serious (planning) difficulties for logistics operators organizing worldwide supply chains. That’s why it is interesting to compare and evaluate differences in policy measures between countries. In this paper an inventory of policy measures has been carried out among Spanish and Dutch cities (due to the nationalities of both authors). The inventory of measures has been classified according to a transportation system’s view. The cities in Spain and the Netherlands have been ranked according to the number of inhabitants. With the use of a classification of towns into large, medium and small towns, a more detailed comparison can be made towards the effectiveness of policy measures. A detailed evaluation of the measures can give us an insight into how policy measures should be implemented in order to reach long-term sustainable urban goods transport. Also interesting to evaluate on this level is, the rate of harmonization and standardization of policies between cities. In this respect, it is possible to get some idea of what the impact of the OECD white paper on municipalities in European cities.