Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
of different nature and with different degrees of detail with respect to project
evaluation. Freight data is also required to ensure that requirements of European
Commission Directives are met, to produce national estimates (also related to
public authorities), for security and safety controls (for both public authorities and
transport carriers), commercial monitoring, strategic development and market
analysis (transport carriers and loaders) but also for legal requirements and crime
investigations.
In most countries the national government is the main collector of freight
transport data. This usually takes place as part of larger, national surveys made for
regional and inter-regional freight transport, but can include an urban component.
Much of this freight data collected by national governments is reported at a national
scale (i.e. it does not distinguish between urban and non-urban freight). It can be
possible to disaggregate some urban freight data from these sources. However,
extracting urban freight data from those national surveys is not always easy for the
following reasons. First is that the data granularity and accuracy on national surveys
is usually dependent on time availability of the national government survey staff
and the budget that is disposed to invest on such campaigns (Holguin-Veras and
Jaller
2013
). The second reason is that several surveys are often based on vehicle
activity
1
or on shipment tracking,
2
not specific geographical location, so both urban
and non-urban data is collected (and is sometimes difficult to separate). Last but not
least, it is important to highlight that sample sizes for smaller urban areas are likely
to be relatively small in such surveys (Allen et al.
2012
).
Many urban authorities also carry out either periodic or occasional vehicle
traffic counts that include goods vehicles but do not tend to carry out surveys of
goods vehicle operations. Often, the only data collection efforts that focus solely
on urban freight transport are surveys carried out in specific towns or cities. These
have usually been conducted on a one-off basis as part of a review of urban freight
strategy or to assist in making an urban planning decision.
This chapter is based on work carried out in the EC established the Co-ordination
Action (CA) on BEST Urban Freight Solutions II (BESTUFS). The purpose of the
task carried out in BESTUFS was to collect, compare and describe urban freight
transport data collection approaches in different European countries in order to
better understand what currently takes place and to identify examples of good
practice. The chapter contains a synthesis of information provided by freight
transport experts to the questionnaire carried out at a national level in the following
European countries: Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands,
Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. The chapter is
organized as follows. First of all we propose a synthesis of the current state of urban
freight data collection, including national reviews of freight data collection, the
1
This is the case of vehicle operator surveys carried out to meet the requirements of the EU
Directive on Freight Statistics or German Commercial Transport Surveys, made at regional level.
2
This is the case of French Loader's surveys (ECHO), whose urban flows are difficult to be
identified and analysed (Dablanc and Routhier
2009
).
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