Urban freight challenge needs to mix ambition with reality

Transport planners and policy makers tend to see issues relating to trucks and vans as either not part of their home territory, or beyond the normal levers they use to reshape activity to meet wider social and environmental objectives. It is almost a wholly commercially driven sector. Arman Farahmand-Razavi looks at a new report on urban freight by the Urban Transport Group and what it addresses - and doesn’t

31 January 2022

In 2020, DHL launched London’s first riverboat parcel delivery service, working with TfL and the Port of London Authority. The boat is loaded from electric vehicles at Wandsworth Riverside and then travels at high speed into central London, docking at Bankside.

Leeds City Council wants to convert its whole fleet to zero or ULEV by 2025 and already has 300 electric vehicles in use. It has made a further 44 available to SMEs, public sector, third sector and other businesses including private hire drivers to trial since 2020.

Green Link offers emission free deliveries in Darlington, York and Luton, typically carrying 60-70 parcels a day. These are consolidated at their centres and then the last mile deliveries made using different types of cargo cycles, depending on the job.

There are now many ‘metro’ and ‘express’ mini supermarkets in urban areas which have to be serviced with their stock as part of the chains’ distribution patterns. This means regular movements of trucks, difficult to replace though conversion to new fuels is a possibility.

Tackling the issue of urban freight is an effort to be complimented by the Urban Transport Group. Its new report on the subject is a reminder that this topic is an important part of the transport sector and that it has still not been embraced properly by the planners and policy makers - particularly in the context of decarbonisation and sustainability.

But while the two dozen or so case studies of operational and technological innovation highlighted in the report offer a wealth of...