Decision Support System for City Logistics: Literature Review, and Guidelines for an Ex-ante Model☆

The world is inexorably becoming urban. Since 2008, urban population is higher than the rural population. Therefore, cities are increasingly important systems for contemporary society. Phenomena such as urbanization and globalization have contributed to make urban centers more and more complex. One of the most important aspects is urban freight transportation, which is affected also by the spatial distribution of activities and residences. It follows that role of decision-makers is increasingly difficult due to limited economic and space resources that concern the urban areas. Besides, recent trends promoted by European Commission in the field of sustainable development require a profound reflections concerning the choice of transportation policies, and design of infrastructures. On the path towards to cities sustainability, local authorities have to make important decisions related to urban freight distribution. In this complex framework, the present paper describes the first phase of a two-year research project called “SIPLUS - Systems for Sustainable Urban Planning of Logistics”. The goal of SIPLUS is “development an ex-ante model for evaluation of interventions and investments in urban goods distribution, in favor of the municipalities”. It is a decision support system for authorities and decision-makers. At the end of the project, there will be a pilot actions with the application of proposed models in at least one European city. This paper describes the first results, which mainly concern literature review, state of the art, analysis of European best practices in city logistics, and the general framework of proposed model.