Supply Chains and Urban Logistics Platforms - Sustainable Urban Logistics: Concepts, Methods and Information Systems - page 10

potential problems. In the logic of environmental respect, it contributes to rein-
force the acceptability of urban goods transport.
For its part the requests of cities inhabitants can be seen as schizophrenic.
Indeed, the majority of city-dwellers refuse to see the installation of equipments
made for activities they perceive as a degradation of their environment (essentially
due to visual and phonic nuisances). This position is often relayed by decision
makers, which leads to planning documents limiting the possibilities of installation
for logistics activity. Paradoxically, their behaviour as consumers requires the
goods to be available near their home, or be delivered to them directly in quantity
and on time. Thus, the behaviours and expectations of the consumers are usually
incompatible and in total rupture with those of a citizen.
3.1.2 The Demand Expressed by Companies (Business to Business)
It is expressed differently according to nature of the addressee (professional or
individual), and the nature of his activity. Indeed, depending on the sector, the
logistics expectations are radically different. The expectations of the logistician-
carrier bear on the enhancement of their conditions of activity. They are echoing
the ''extreme'' external constraints met in a city:
• Conflicts of use of the road network between the others modes of transport
(congestion, pollution, nuisances): enhance the fluidity of the traffic, managing
the parking of vehicles, acknowledge the most virtuous operators and help the
use of low-carbon vehicles.
• Difficulty to perform delivery and shipping operations (regulatory incoherencies
from an area to another, enlargement of pedestrian zones, clients-addressees
with different expectations in time and space): bring to coherence the regulatory
measures to the scale of the conurbation; make responsible customers about
their requirements in terms of deliveries.
• Dispersion and remoteness of logistics equipments of the city (multiplication of
vehicle movements, increased supply costs and environmental degradation):
possessing sites in the city (multi-modal if possible), to implant logistics
equipments in the proximity and reduce approach costs.
3.1.3 Exchanges Destined to Individuals: Business to Customer
We live in a period where the commercial tool is in complete mutation. The
supermarkets come back in the city centres through new formats of shops that can
be classified as convenience stores, but also with shopping malls implanted in the
heart of cities. The e-commerce segment is widely expanding and pulls new
schemes of urban deliveries and other organizations. Hence, customers are now
delivered at home, at their workplace or through relays, and depending on the