Financing Urban Logistics Projects - Sustainable Urban Logistics: Concepts, Methods and Information Systems - page 240

1 Introduction
Planning and management issues in terms of urban goods are not something new.
The first documented proof of the interest of public authorities on regulating the
traffic flows for urban supply is found in the Ancient Rome (Quak 2008 ). Indeed,
the oldest known urban freight transport restriction dates from the first century BC:
pickups and deliveries were banned from the ancient city of Rome during the day by
an edict attributed to Julius Caesar (i.e. the 'Lex Iulia Municipalis'), based on
references in conserved letters of Cicero to a comprehensive law of Caesar that
deals with municipal affairs (Smith 1875 ). However, it is not the only ancient
example of urban logistics interest by public authorities: several researches in
history and archaeology show the importance of urban goods management to feed
big cities like London or Paris (Britnell 1995 ). Also the Islamic medieval cities
accorded a particular importance to urban goods distribution (Boone et al. 1990 ).
Moreover, the economic context in the late medieval period had a direct impact on
the urban consumption, then on the flows of goods in urban zones, having an
indirect impact on employment. This lack of planning concerning the supply of
cities is one of the consequences of what is called the ''medieval decline'' (Bailey
1996 ).
Focusing on recent and contemporaneous event, the integration and develop-
ment of urban goods strategies passes through different stages. After the 2nd World
war (1944-1960), Europe and Japan are on a reconstruction period. Although
delivering primary materials is an important, it is seen as an emergency case by
public authorities that make big economic efforts on rebuilding cities and primary
infrastructures. With the development of the industry during the Cold War (mainly
in the U.S.A., Europe and Japan) and the popularization of private cars, the period
between 1960-1980 is characterised by two related phenomena: City expansion and
need of understanding personal mobility. The aims of local authorities and even
several countries' governmental offices are focused on expanding urban areas and
creating core infrastructures to incite internal mobility (of both people and goods).
However, local economies remain important and cities start to be populated
resulting on a constant increase of cities' supply flows.
It is why between 1980 and 1990 the first congestion problems start to be
observed. Urban goods trips co-habit with personal trips, and the first conflicts are
in general solved by punctual interventions or market regulations (Gonzalez-Feliu
2008 ). It is during the 1990-2005 period that the main concepts of urban logistics
will be developed. The notion of Urban Goods Movement is introduced by Ogden
( 1992 ) and extended by Ambrosini and Routhier (2004). Several coordinated
actions take place in different countries during those years (mainly in Germany,
France, Japan, The Netherlands), supported by the research community (Taniguchi
and Thompson 1999 , 2001 , 2004 , 2006 , 2008 , 2010 , 2012 ; Maccharis and Melo
2010 ). Public authorities being the most active during that period, the private
stakeholders start to strongly being implicated in urban logistics projects since
2004, mainly in France, Germany and the Netherlands.