Contributing to resolving urban problems of congestion through enhanced logistical systems is a key aim of the project ‘Consolidation and Coordination in urban areas’, in short, CONCOORD. As one of ten projects funded by the JPI Urban Europe Pilot Call 2012, this project is a collaboration between researchers and companies from Denmark, The Netherlands, Turkey and Austria. Existing knowledge about city logistics is gathered and implemented, resulting in a so-called ‘European Urban Transportation Experience Lab’.
“Various stakeholders and industries, such as cities, shipping and service providers can build and organise trials in big lab simulations and business cases for effective and efficient urban distribution,” Van Woensel explains.
“In addition, a number of Master and PhD students focus on aspects of urban distribution. The results of their research will help cities in Europe to calculate the effects of their policies, both financially and environmentally.”CONCOORD approaches city logistics as a comprehensive system, instead of only looking at individual units. It also takes an integrative approach by including different perspectives and values.
“The project allies business economics perspectives with softer values such as liveability, that is, how good cities are for their citizens to inhabit and traverse,” says Associate Professor Allen Larsen from DTU Transport of the Technical University of Denmark.The universities participating in CONCOORD: the Technical University of Eindhoven (Netherlands), the Vienna University of Economics and Business in Austria, the Technical University of Denmark, the Middle East Technical University in Turkey and the University of Twente, also in the Netherlands. Other partners in the project include Procter & Gamble, Innercity Services Netherlands and Heineken. Van Woensel:
“For these partners, the research is highly relevant because they benefit from efficient distribution.”
For more information, please download ‘Better logistics to reduce lorry traffic in European cities’ by the Danish Council for Strategic Research for more information about this project.
Please download the Project summaries Pilot Call 2012 for the summary of this project as well as of the other projects that have been awarded funding.
