Supply Chains and Urban Logistics Platforms - Sustainable Urban Logistics: Concepts, Methods and Information Systems - page 13

The urban planners rely on these equipments to answer quality of living
objectives and balanced development, for professionals these tools of flows
management are fundamental for the optimization of the cost/quality duet along
the supply chain (Boudouin 2006 ).
ULSs can be classified in two categories: generalists and specialists. The first
would rather be dedicated to urban logistics professionals, the latter would be used
for vehicles or goods going to specific zones.

4.1 Generalist ULSs

High turnover storage platforms (as articulation points between urban and inter-
urban flows), have in most of the cases left dense urban areas. This tendency,
started in the 1970s, is explained by multiple reasons: urbanism (regulatory
impossibilities to settle), politics (rejection of tools perceived as a nuisance),
economics (prohibitive prices). However, a remote localization from the urban
barycentre induces longer delivery distances implying congestion of the road
network, a loss in the global efficiency leading to higher delivery costs and an
increase in GHG and other pollutants emissions resulting in environmental

degradations.
Hence, an INRETS 15 study on hauliers' platforms in the region of Paris shows
that the average distance from the centre increased from 6 to 16 km (300 m a year)
between 1974 and 2008 (Dablanc and Rakotonarivo 2010 ).
The integration of platforms in cities recently became a major stake, but cannot
really be operable without the public sector involvement. Indeed, these sites have
to be easily accessible and located near delivery zones, making them very coveted
spaces. The added value of this segment of activity is however insufficient to
generate enough benefits and to win a highly competitive market against shops,
accommodations, or other services.
Concretely these platforms designed for transport and logistics professionals
can takes many forms: we will distinguish three of them, described in the next
parts.

4.2 Urban Logistics Zones (ULZ)

These dedicated zones allow the actors of urban logistics to position themselves
near their clients in order to limit their vehicles movements. The ULZs have two
functions: firstly the transhipping and secondly the operations before the final
delivery (for example: short storage). The delivery practices remain unchanged.

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French Institute of Transport and Security Research.