Planning and Optimization Methods for Advanced Urban Logistics Systems at Tactical Level - Sustainable Urban Logistics: Concepts, Methods and Information Systems - page 144

the different customers on better loaded, more energy efficient, less road occu-
pancy impacting and eventually green vehicles. To do this, it is important to ensure
the coordination of shipments, carriers and consignees into collaborative transport
systems that need to be accepted by both public and private stakeholders (Morana
et al. 2013 ).
The most popular example of such systems is that of the city distribution center,
also known as urban consolidation or distribution center (Boudouin et al. 2013 ),
which is defined by Allen et al. ( 2007 )as''a logistics facility situated in relatively
close proximity to the geographic area that it serves (a city centre, an entire town
or a specific site such as a shopping centre), to which many logistics companies
deliver goods destined for the area, from which consolidated deliveries are carried
out within that area, in which a range of other value-added logistics and retail
services can be provided''. Those urban terminals emerged in the 1990s, when
there were more than 100 of them, but they ran up against difficulties related to the
difficulties of ensuring their economic balance without public funding support and
the hesitancy by municipalities to continue subsidising them (Ville et al. 2012 ).
Today, there are less than 20 genuinely significant consolidation terminals of this
kind in Europe, notably in Italy (Morana et al. 2013 ), and less than 5 in Japan
(Dablanc 2010 ).
UCCs are also called City Distribution Centers (CDCs, van Duin et al. 2008 )or
Urban Distribution Centers (UDCs, Boudouin et al. 2013 ). Although many dis-
tribution companies and logistics service providers have at their disposal facilities
where shipments are consolidated prior to distribution, defining and developing
urban consolidation centres involving different companies, sometimes in compe-
tition, is not evident. Beyond the fact that an efficient use of such facilities implies
changing habits and current organizations, which is not always easy for several
carriers, the possible locations of this type of platforms do not belong to large sets
of alternatives. Indeed, city centres are expensive, in terms of real estate prizes,
and logistics activities take part in peripheral areas of the conurbation (Dablanc
and Rakotonarivo 2010 ; Adriankaja 2012 ). This fact concerns also existing plat-
forms that would be adapted to become urban consolidations facilities. The most
usual UCCs in practice are located at intermodal platforms, logistics centres or
former wholesaling facilities that are adapted to have enhanced functionalities to
provide coordinated and efficient freight movements within the urban zone. Hey
can also be part of terminals (mainly maritime or fluvial ports, airports and train
stations). However such facilities are usually located at the outskirts of cities
(Gonzalez-Feliu and Morana 2010 ), close to highways. In any case, most UCCs
are adapted facilities not originally built for City Logistics.
From those facilities, different distribution schemes can be defined. They can be
grouped into two main categories (Benjelloun et al. 2010 ): single-tier systems
derive from a direct shipping using LTL schemes to deliver customers from the
UCCs; two-tier systems aim to better rationalise flows by grouping freight sent by
well-loaded medium vehicles to cross-docking platforms call satellites, and then
small vehicles deliver customers from satellites.