governance of logistics infrastructure policy and business approaches for frei

Association for European Transport and Contributors 2011

European Transport Conference 2011 Thematic area Freight and Logistics

GOVERNANCE OF LOGISTICS INFRASTRUCTURE: POLICY AND BUSINESS APPROACHES FOR FREIGHT VILLAGES

Seraphim KAPROS Associate Professor

Department of Shipping, Transport and Trade University of the Aegean

Chios-Greece

1. INTRODUCTION Logistics were mostly known as the exclusive playfield of private economic stakeholders all along their impressive last thirty-years history. And yet, it is obvious that a remarkable potential lies in them, still unexplored by governments and public authorities, namely, the means to achieve the strategic goal consisting in decoupling transport and traffic demand from economic development. Despite the fact that, at the business level, private economic actors are indeed the norm in logistics, the role of the public domain is not to be underestimated, for the latter can stimulate its development and enhance the national and regional development. It is true that in the past, the public authorities have shown a certain interest to logistics and more specifically to its territorial aspects, notably by the creation of public logistics platforms (in other terms, Freight Villages). Their intervention has been unequal, shaped as it was along the lines of the various logics ruling the diverse European settings where such interest was shown. It follows that the public sector has not always been able to spot the real stakes of the logistics and to articulate the perspectives they open in the context of a coherent political plan. The sustainability of logistics is strongly related to the creation, management and governance of logistics platforms (Freight Villages). Since Freight Villages act as the interface between various logistic scales it follows that their governance calls for an implication at various nested institutional levels. The models of governance developed in this perspective by various European countries deserve to be studied and taken into account in a more systematic fashion. This paper attempts to analyze the various governance patterns of Freight Villages, based on examples from various European countries. It firstly provides a brief history of the development of Freight Villages during the last decades. It analyses the actors involved and their respective roles in the Fright Village creation process. It also provides a typology of Freight Villages


and particularly highlights the role of public authorities. Finally, the paper tries to identify concrete regional and national policies on the matter, taking into account the increasing importance that various actors progressively pay to Freight Villages as tool for sustainable mobility and transport efficiency. The methodological approach of the paper is that of benchmarking, of comparing international policies for logistics infrastructure planning, and more specifically for promoting Freight Villages. The criteria of the analysis correspond to distinct aspects of governance models and the roles played by private and public stakeholders.

2. RATIONALE OF FREIGHT VILLAGES CREATION The concept of a Freight Village is related to specialized -and institutionalized- zones offering space, premises and common services to transport operators, logistics companies and shippers. Consequently, Freight Villages develop various activities related to consolidation, warehousing, storage, handling operations, coordination of shipments, transshipment and change of transport mode, services to transport means, transport units and human resources, banking and other administrative services for cargo. Usually, a Freight Village constitutes a legal body,-an enterprise itself-, which owns and organizes the site, manages and provides certain services and facilities to firms established in the site, providing open access to them. Freight Villages can generate internal and external effects. The internal effects refer to the advantages accruing for the users from sharing the total acquisition and operating costs of common facilities, equipment and services offered; that is without having to proceed in heavy and risky investments for building their own, fully private, logistics centre. They also refer to the benefits from the increasing interaction between users. Besides the above, Freight Villages also generate larger-scale or external (network) effects, such as traffic diversion and modal shift, land use reorganization, changes in local economy, employment, energy consumption and the environment. This socio-economic dimension of Freight Village impact justifies a progressively more intense involvement of public authorities, beyond their traditional role in physical and urban planning procedures.

3. EXPECTED IMPACT

The rationale of involvement of various actors in the Freight Villages development is strongly related to their expected impact at various levels. Freight Villages generate multiple positive effects, at different levels and scales, thus affecting various actor types involved. Positive effects can be identified at the user firm level and at the users firm network level (internal effects), as well as at the socio-economic level (external effects).


The effects identified at the user level mainly concern benefits for the enterprises established in the Freight Village or companies using the Freight Village without owning an installation there. These benefits are:

Reduction of transport cost due to a) the economies of scale carried out, dependent on the increase of the occupancy rates of vehicles, b) important economies coming from sharing heavy investments in infrastructure and common equipment with the other companies which are presents in the FV,

Benefits derived from synergies developed within a Freight Village,

Benefits related to strategic locations of Freight Villages in an expensive sub-urban land market, the ground being often a rare good,

Benefits related to accessibility to various transport modes allowing to users alternative intermodal chain combinations.

Finally, these benefits significantly increase competitiveness of companies established in Freight Villages. These expected internal effects are in their turn - and in part the generators of external effects, whose general outline is presented hereafter.

Decrease of road traffic The increase of occupancy rates of vehicles leads to impartant economies of scale on one hand and to decrease of road freight traffic on the other. In addition, intermodal Freight Villages can further decrease the road fleets used due to modal shifts to be achieved. This optimization in road fleet management creates further impact with cost and time savings for the whole road flow network. Since the road infrastructure is common for passengers and freight, this impact more generally contributes to sustainable mobility.

Decrease of transport external cost: environmental protection, road safety, quality of life.

The decrease of road traffic is obviously related to reduction of transport external cost, since it leads to reduction of gas emissions and favors road safety. Therefore, beyond the economic dimension, these impacts affect more generally a quality of life dimension. Being a tool of spatial concentration of transport and logistics activities, Freight Villages contribute to the optimization of urban and regional land use plans. Through appropriate locations, they also become tools of flow management; they contribute to more rational flow patterns by attracting freight flows on certain corridors and avoiding a random flow dispersion.

New potential for regional and local economy Regional and local economy are also beneficiaries of Freight Villages. These benefits are related to the increase of competitiveness of Freight Village


companies. They can be achieved through new jobs in short and long term and the contribution to the local and regional income. In addition, local and regional products can enlarge their geographical markets through the access local production has to wider transport and logistics networks and supply chains. Moreover, this process based on modern added value logistics services stimulates the creation of a new business environment. Finally, the creation of international logistics poles might constitute, in their turn, the driving force for the attraction of other economic activities in medium and long term.

Modernization of the transport and logistics sector Beside the minimization of the costs, the increase of quality of transport and logistics services is also an expected impact from the creation of Freight Villages. It relates to know-how, best practices and advanced technologies and techniques that companies-members of wider distribution networks usually bring to a new location. Synergies and cooperation in a new Freight Village allows diffusing modern practices, organization schemes and methods. The modernization process affects various functions such as advanced tools for inventory and fleet management, organization of shipments and final deliveries, notably with the use of new Information Technologies. In certain cases, the development of Freight Village networks can create negative effects, such as:

The random proliferation of Freight Villages in certain regions, conducting to oversupply phenomena and economic viability problems for them

A distortion of the market in cases stakeholders benefit from very favorable economic and financial conditions to participate in a Freight Village project.

These negative effects mainly result either from failures in the coordination of regional planning procedures or from irrational business models.

4. BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE EVOLUTION OF FREIGHT VILLAGES IN EUROPE

From the early 1960's, when the first Freight Villages appeared in Europe most of these projects have been created following initiatives of the public sector; particularly the Local authorities and the Chambers of Commerce and Industry. The first Freight Villages were created in France, notably Garronor and Sogaris in the wider Paris region. They mainly responded to urban transport policy criteria and focused on cross-docking operations for performing the last mile logistics (final deliveries in Paris) with light vehicles, according to new regulations at that time. In the late 1960s and in the 1970s, Freight Villages have also appeared in Italy and Germany, mainly centered to treat the freight traffic of intermodal terminals and big ports.


During the years 1970 and 1980, some European countries with long tradition in transport and logistics knew a proliferation of the Freight Villages, in particular France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and England. The development of Freight Villages and Freight Village networks related to a great diversity of primary objectives and national contexts. Beyond any initial reason and any specialization, the Freight Villages were mainly oriented to inventory management and control. Their emergence was often connected with a strong logic of urban planning intervention, usually associated with a real estate approach. In several countries, as in France, their proliferation was disordered, due to the absence of centralized planning procedures. Thus, several Freight Village projects did not achieve their goals due to over-supply phenomena and the respective strong internal competition. Even the scientific and methodological tools of planning and evaluation of Freight Villages were for a long time inappropriate and confused, insufficient to take into account the complexity of the issue. Since the years 1990 and in the years 2000, Freight Villages were transformed into tools of flows acceleration, optimization of the resources and innovation, following the evolution of logistics systems. The public authorities and the other actors concerned entered into a phase of rationalization of procedures for the development of new projects. The large Western European countries instituted central planning procedures for optimizing the network of Freight Villages in the late 1980s Italy, followed by Germany and France. From the early 1990s, the European Common Transport Policy promotes the concepts of Intermodality and elaborates strategic plans for the Trans-European Transport Network. In this policy context, intermodal Freight Villages are perceived as tools with the ability to promote intermodal transport and to offer competitive advantages to small and medium enterprises of the transport sector. In the United Kingdom, the examples of public actions on the Freight Villages are diversified as well by the size as by the nature of the projects. Activities of Public-Private Partnership we can be seen in the infrastructures of Eurotunnel as also in the Urban Centers of Consolidations of Goods in London, Bristol and in other cities, as well as in the centralized logistics management of the Olympic Games in London 2012. In Belgium, a conscience of the strategic importance of Freight Villages starts to be established. In Flanders, the concentration of flows out of the terminals is currently faced with programs of financing the construction of private terminals of inland navigation along the channels. This is also done for the expansion of the ports and the flows which they generate. In Wallonia, there is a focus on a number of intermodal Freight Villages, for example around Liege. In Germany, the GVZ (Gterverkehrszentrum-Freight Villages) concept has been promoted by local and regional authorities. Lander governments, private investors and interest groups have participated in these initiatives. Since the GVZ projects were the responsibility of local/regional authorities, the federal


government emphasizes the need to coordinate the regional plans, as well as to coordinate GVZ projects with the railways companys network. In Italy, the transport sector had to cope with the growth of Trans-alpine trade, the imbalance of domestic traffic flows and the highly fragmented haulage industry. Italy became the first country to introduce national legislation in support of Intermodal Logistics Centres (Interporti). The development of Italian Interporti has been focused on rail-road terminals for transport operations. The cases of Verona and Bologna Freight Villages are legendary in the literature. They usually offer large scale logistic facilities and have been established as principal nodes of the Italian road/rail combined transport network. Interporti should be integrated into local and regional land-use plans. Indirectly, the government policy enforces restrictions to the eventual number of Interporti as it obliges their size should be related to the traffic volume handled. Thus, the development of Interporti is considerably advanced in the north, while viable projects have not been developed in the south, adding such disparities at the level of physical planning. In the last 15 years, a number of initiatives have been related to new concepts of development of Urban Distribution Centres that are specialized forms of Freight Villages. A very interesting concept is that of collaborative Distribution Centers in small and medium European cities, particularly in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium. Successful Urban Distribution Centres are based on common strategies and efficient collaboration among local governments, receivers (retailers) and freight carriers. Initiatives for the development of Urban Consolidations Centres more and more frequently appear in city logistics policies. Many of these initiatives need governmental subsidies to be operational in practice. The main idea of such an urban consolidation centre is that separates the distribution activities in activities inside the city and outside the city. An innovation in implementing distribution centres in the cases studied is to focus on receivers rather than carriers. The success has important logistics impacts, but also positive effects on the environment such as air quality, noise and hindrance. Generally, Freight Villages constitute nowadays nodal points of breaking bulk, of transshipment, consolidation and flow redistribution. In the European context, the road mode represents the dominant share in the modal split with light differentiations from country to country. Intermodal Freight Villages constitute important tools for the development of Intermodality. Consolidation of flows and Intermodality represent the most effective operational form of transport in order to reduce the road traffic and the relevant external costs of transport (pollution, safety, etc, external costs in other words), to rationalize modal split and to contribute to environmental strategies. Current European and national transport policies stress more and more the need of adjustment of logistic needs with intermodal techniques, in order to achieve more rational modal split. Therefore, Freight Villages constitute the turntables of modal shares redistribution. In a more general way, the progressive insertion of logistics in the public policies of transport goes hand in hand with the promotion of the Intermodality.


5. TYPOLOGY

Considering the variety of Freight Villages in Europe, an attempt to structure a typology might facilitate the analysis and, possibly, assign governance models to operational types. A typology of Freight Villages can be developed on the basis of the following criteria:

Size and Technical Infrastructure Freight Villages can be categorized

a) according to their size (small/medium/big) and b) according to the characteristics of the technical infrastructure: modes of

transport served. The respective modal shares in the FVs total traffic can be used as an indicator.

Geographical range of activity/catchment area Freight Villages can be distinguished according to their geographical range of influence or impact on supply chains organization. A Freight Village can be of local, regional, national, or international importance. Certainly, a Freight Village is usually an interface or interchange point between multiple logistics geographical scales: between long distance and short distance, between inter-urban freight flows and urban delivery chains etc. As far as the catchment area is concerned, the particular character of a Freight Village relates to the dominant flow types handled by the companies located.

Role of the FV in the transport and logistics networks Freight Villages offer a large spectrum of services involved in logistics operations. This typology criterion mainly deals with those logistics operations, which reveal the dominant role of a Freight Village on the configuration of supply chain networks. More concretely, it can be specialized in one or more of the following operations:

a) Concentration of massive flows and dispatch of diffuse flows to the final destination

b) Collection diffuse flows, consolidation and routing of massive flows c) Attraction and redistribution of massive flows d) Cross-docking operations for redistributing diffuse flows (classic hub

and spokes scheme). Therefore, under this criterion Freight Villages are perceived as tools of supply chains optimization and characterized according to their main role in the flow networks.

Commodity types and related services offered Different specializations of Freight Villages can be appeared based on the types of goods handled, e.g. general cargo, perishable goods, dangerous goods etc. This criterion can be also extended to the loading and handling techniques. Loading types used: general cargo, dry, bulk, use of loading units


such as maritime containers, swap bodies, semi-trailers. It may finally refer to character of the load: full loads or consolidated loads.

Type of actors located A Freight Village can be categorized according to the professional category of participants. Therefore, a Freight Village can be a pole of concentration of the small road carriers, a center of wholesale traders and so on.

6. GOVERNANCE MODELS

6.1. Actors involved and motivations

The Freight Villages are open zones for the establishment of companies concerned by freight transport and logistics: carriers, forwarders, logistic services providers, as well as wholesale trade companies, which are the internal users of the site. The expected impact at the user level, presented in previous section of this paper, clearly reveals the motivations of private actors to be located in a Freight Village. Similar motivations lead private firms to take initiatives for the development of a Freight Village project. However, the actors taking the initiative and becoming responsible for the creation of a Freight Village vary. In some cases Freight Villages are developed from fully private actors initiatives, as the first Freight Villages (the case of Sogaris in Paris region). More often different types of Public-Private Partnerships acquiring adequate legal forms promoted Freight Village projects. In these bodies, private companies (carriers, forwarders), railways operators, public or professional institutions (such as the concerned Professional Chambers) and in some cases, Local and Regional Authorities participate. The principal motivations for the involvement of Local and Regional Authorities relate to the expected macro-economic and environmental impact of Freight Villages already presented. In addition, Local Authorities perceive projects related to Freight Villages as a method for filling important gaps of national policies related to freight. The increase of freight traffic and its spatial distribution, particularly the effects on urban areas, have led Local Authorities to consider the issue of public space management in relation to freight traffic. Measures such as restrictions to types of vehicles, circulation and parking have not been sufficient in resolving the problems. In addition, such restrictions create additional problems: the necessary reorganization of delivery systems, derived from these restrictions, needs adequate sites in the urban peripheries, thus giving a reasoning for the appearance of freight villages. Consequently, Local Authorities have included projects of Freight Villages in larger urban and regional plans. On the other hand, these projects meet the relevant demand, as free space for their installation at sub-urban areas becomes more and more rare while -being in conflict- the trends of location of transport companies is to converge to urban areas. Moreover, the expected impact of Freight Villages on the employment, the attractiveness for


new installations and traffic produce important direct or indirect effects on the economic development For that reasons, not only private actors belonging to the transport and logistics sector but also public authorities are involved under various forms in all phases of a Freight Village creation process: conception, planning, implementation, commercialization of land and premises, exploitation and operations.

6.2. Business models and financing schemes If initiatives in the conception phase of a Freight Village project are successful, then various financing schemes and profiles of responsible bodies can be established for the implementation phase. The status of responsible bodies, to be usually the operator of a Freight Village can acquire the following forms: a) Public corporation The operator of a Freight Village is a public corporation in cases where the financing is entirely ensured by public funds. However, it is rare that a local government agency constitutes the operator of a project. Generally, they are establishments of a No profit. The Chambers of Commerce and Industry are in several countries the operators and managers of the project. b) Private company Private consortium It is initially the case of a Freight Village entirely financed by the private sector. Also, one finds a private economic actor deprived as operator at the conclusion of certain cases of concession. Between the two preceding types, one finds also examples where a Port Authority constitutes the operator. After reform recent in Europe, the ports are now public limit companies. Thus, their case can be classified in this category. c) Joint-venture between Private and Public Sector Joint-venture corresponds to a common engagement of public actors and private investors, who share the risks, the responsibility, the benefit and the losses, by constituting a structure shareholding company. In a joint venture all parties involved are equally concerned with achieving the objectives established for the project, and each one is contributing to the areas it has the more expertise. An extreme form in the spectrum of alternative options of Public-Private Partnerships relates more particularly with Concession. Concession provides a better allocation of risk and less cultural conflicts between the public and private sector. The Principal, usually a government agency or a regulated monopoly, grants a concession to a promoter (one or more private firms)


sometimes known as the concessionaire. The promoter is responsible for the construction, financing, operation and maintenance of the facility over the granted concession period, before transferring the fully operational facility to the Principal. During the concession period the promoter owns and operates the facility and collects revenues in order to repay its part of the financing and equity, maintain and operate the facility and make a profit. The most widely encountered concession is the BOT type (being a generic term for buildoperatetransfer), according to which the investor pays for the facility construction, but the concessionaire owns the facility. The private investor maintains and operates the facility during the concession period. Some variants of the approach are:

BOT (Build- Operate- Transfer): the investor builds and exploits for the period of concession, but the owner is a public authority.

BOO (Build- Own- Operate): the investor retains the property for an undetermined period.

DBOT (Design- Build- Operate- Transfer): as in BOT, but the investor is also responsible for the design

BOOS (Build- Own-Operate- Shell): at the end of the period of the concession, the public authorities pay the residual value (terminal pay).

BOOT (Build-Own-Operate-Transfer): as in BOOS, without the terminal pay.

BOTT (Build-Operate-Training-Transfer): as in BOT, but the investor is obliged to offer the formation and the know-how to the successor

Considering the motivations and mutual involvement of both public and private sector in the creation of Freight Villages, these can be regarded as a blend of public facilities and business firms. The rationale behind the public investments is that of a public good, which reflects the external or network effects of a Freight Village and can be combined with larger-scale, regional policy objectives and plans. The rationale behind private investments relates to the economic viability and financial profitability of the project. The Public-Private Partnerships then arise as the most appropriate financing schemes since they justify the mutual interest and motivations even if the logic behind is of different nature. For that reasons, Public-Private Partnerships become the most frequent form of Freight Village developments at our days. Moreover, in the majority of cases it represents the only realistic solution to implement a project of a public Freight Village, the latter meaning an open site to multiple owners. This because the investment is relatively heavy and the private actors hesitates to take alone the purely financial risks, as well as risks relating to various local conflicts. On the oher hand, the public institutions at their side have a large range of priorities during the development of their programs of public investments. Thus, the co-financing of a Freight Village at the same time by public and private actors combines in a compatible way the objectives and the expected benefits of the two sides, even if in the beginning the two basic problems are radically different.


The internal organization of Freight Villages varies significantly, according to the mode of allocation or concentration of competencies. In some cases, the legal body responsible for the creation of Freight Villages ensures the coordination of activities. These bodies can additionally be transport and logistics services suppliers, in cooperation with the private actors located at the site. In other cases, the bodies responsible for the Freight Villages creation proceed to the acquisition of land, distribution of estates into the actors to be installed, construction of infrastructure networks as well as of common facilities and equipment. The individual installations can be private ownerships, hired or used on a concession basis. In certain cases, the enterprise managing a Freight Village remains the owner of the entire site; it is responsible for renting premises (warehouses etc) and space and commercially exploiting services. In other cases, the managing enterprise sells (part or all) premises and keeps the ownership of the common facilities and equipment. In the case where private investments are involved in the projects financing, they mainly derive from companies located in the Freight Village. These companies are present in the ownership and operations of the Freight Village.

6.3. The Freight Villages in the political agenda

Public authorities in various European countries recently integrated the Freight Villages in their transport policies, learning from the lessons of the international experience. For example, Greece prepared a national plan of Freight Village network in order to avoid their anarchistic proliferation; the national plan is associated with a law defining the procedures, evaluation criteria and monitoring of these projects. In the framework of the co-operation with the non European Mediterranean partner countries, the European Union installs specific financial instruments (in particular funds of the European Investment Bank within the framework of Europaid) for the study and the development of a network of the euro-Mediterranean Freight Villages; these are regarded as a factor of modernization of logistics networks in third countries, in order to facilitate the commercial exchanges with Europe. The Freight Villages are now included in the agenda of the public authorities. They are often subject of political discussions as a element of modernity. However, the public authorities, in particular the local authorities, are not always able to really seize the stakes of logistics and to develop the prospects in a coherent political plans. In many cases, interactions between public authorities and private actors are still limited. The establishment of regular consultation procedures is necessary for a more effective integration of the logistic infrastructure in the future policies. Recently, the European Transport Policy also included the logistics infrastructure in its high priority agenda and encourages the creation of Freight Villages, especially in the framework of Public-Private Partnerships.


Supranational institutions, like Europlatforms, are very active on this matter. Europlatforms is a European association of over 60 managing companies from nine countries (Denmark, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain, and Ukraine), that provides a field for exchanging experiences and ideas on the development, management, and operations of Freight Villages and other types of freight facilities. The Frame Programs of Research of the European Union integrate work on Freight Villages. The European authorities particularly combine the rational development of the European Freight Villages with their concerns of promotion of Intermodality and viability of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

6.4. Barriers to Freight Village projects development The main barriers for the development of Freight Village projects relate to the complexity in the coordination process between stakeholders, considering that such a project can involve various levels of governance and various private actors. Furthermore, the initiators might face with strong competition and lobbying from other market actors (e.g. large international forwarders and road hauliers), who may prefer to keep the control of supply chains based on their own network organization. Some restrictions are also of crucial importance concerning the site selection for a Freight Village project since the identification of the appropriate land is the major component of the success of such project. Freight Village is perceived as an integrator of various transport modes, able to promote intermodal transport. It is mainly an intermodal terminal, which is the principal component of the intermodal transport chain, constituting the node where the transshipment of goods from one mode to the other takes place. Due to their nature of operations, they provide integration at a local or interregional level, depending on the modes served and the purposes accommodated by the type of freight handled. Therefore, land availability for location in appropriate sites offering physical and commercial accessibility to infrastructure networks and production/consumption areas is not always guaranteed. Finally, the initiative for a new Freight Village project might face with Inertia of potential users in changing their modal organization, lack of resources for government subsidies and, eventually, policy restrictions.

6.5. Scientific tools and development of specialized know-how

The important increase of logistics has as result a more specific know-how, not only in logistics, but also in the scientific and operational steps of the Freight Villages projects. This know-how, very local and not very visible, is being diffused quickly in Europe these last years. Due to the dispersion of initiatives and the variety of Freight Villages along their historical evolution, the evaluation methods developed for assessing new projects were focused on certain project particularities without any attempt to achieve larger applicability. In this context, some project-specific, economic


evaluation methods have been developed for the assessment of large-scale multimodal Freight Villages. These methods were limited to partial quantification and description of the expected impacts without paying any attention to the assignment of direct money values to the external macro-economic effects. The only quantification employed however, concerned the traffic estimates in which empirical findings were used for the assessment of the unit values. In most cases, the methods used for the assessment of Freight Villages were based on simple financial analysis, applying for the project the same principles as the case of a commercial company. The employed criteria and indicators were related to mandatory impacts, such as costs for owners and operators (construction, property, maintenance, operating costs) and revenues from the Freight Village operations. For their estimation inputs from various traffic modes has been used. The methodological approaches and the actual tools used for these estimations go beyond the scope and focus of this paper.

7. CONCLUSIONS The concept of a Freight Village is related to specialized zones offering space and common services to transport operators, logistics providers and shippers. This spatial concentration of logistics activities through institutional interventions firstly appeared as an innovative concept during the 60. The Freight Villages can be regarded as a blend of public facilities and business firms that generate internal and external network and socio-economic effects. Until now, the initial concept progressively knew important evolutions, with respect to various aspects: technical/technological, organizational, operational, financial and governance models. The co-financing of a Freight Village by public and private funds has become the most frequent, realistic and desired business model, as it meets the specific nature of a Freight Village. As Freight Villages act as the interface between various logistic scales (urban, interurban, specialised etc), their governance and business models involve various institutional levels of authorities and various alternatives of funding schemes as well. Various alternatives mainly relate with the interaction between the public domain and private actors in all stages of a Freight Village project. The field of application of the actor responsible for the creation and management of a Freight Village can be either limited to the management and maintenance of common infrastructures, equipment and services or be extended to the coordination of activities of the enterprises located on the site. It is also possible the manager develops and offers his own logistic services, acting as one of the logistics operators of the site. One can thus distinguish three main categories whose nomination has to be discussed.


Public authorities for regional planning and transport adopted in the last decade more centralized procedures for monitoring and rationalizing national Freight Village networks. In addition, the European Common Transport Policy very recently put the logistics infrastructure and facilities issue in its political agenda; Freight Villages are thus indirectly affected. The European authorities particularly combine the rational development of the European Freight Villages with their concerns of promotion of the intermodality and viability of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). A scientific know-how specialized in Freight Villages planning and evaluation has been very local and not very visible; however, it starts to be diffused in Europe these last years. For the time being, it mainly deals with transport infrastructure planning issues and financial assessment. A large room for extending the aspects of research on the field is offered nowadays. REFERENCES Bentzen et al., Best Practice Handbook for Logistics Centers in the Baltic Sea Region; EUROPLATFORMS EEIG, Logistics Centres: Directions for Use; EUROPLATFORMS, About Us http://www.freight-village.com/aboutus.php (Accessed 3/20/08). Browne, M., M. Sweet, A. Woodburn and J. Allen (2005). Urban freight consolidation centres final report. Transport Studies Group, University of Westminster, London. Dablanc Laetitia, Goods Transport in Large European Cities: Difficult to Organize, Difficult to Modernize, Transport Research Part A 41 (2007): 280-285. FREIGHTWISE (2007) Freight Market Structure and Requirements for Intermodal Shifts, EU FP6 Kapros, S, et al., Evaluation of Intermodal Freight Villages Using a Multi-Criteria Approach, in Proceedings of the 2005 Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting (Washington, DC: TRB, January 2005); Patier, D. (2006). New concept and organization for the last mile: the French experiments and their results, in E. Taniguchi and R.G. Thompson (eds.), Recent advances in city logistics, Elsevier, Amsterdam, pp. 361-374. Rooijen, T. van, B. Groothedde and J.C. Gerdessen (2007). Quantifying the effects of community level regulation on city distribution movements for the retail sector within the Netherlands. Paper City logistics congress, Crete 11- 13 July, 2007. Rooijen, T. van, Quak, H., Binnenstaadservice.nl, a new type of urban consolidation Centre, Proceedings of the European Transport Conference 2009, Leeuwenhorst Conference Centre, The Netherlands.


Roumboutsos A. and Chiara N. (2009) Public Private Partnerships: A Strategic Partnering Approach, CIB TG 72 HK workshop 28 Feb 2009. Savy, M., Logistique et territoire, DIACT, La Documentation franaise, 2006. Tsamboulas, D.A., Kapros, S. (2003) Freight village evaluation under uncertainty with public and private financing, Transport Policy, 10, 141-156 Quak, H.J. (2008). Sustainability of Urban Freight Transport Retail Distribution and Local Regulations in Cities. PhD thesis, ERIM, Rotterdam. Quak, H.J. and M.B.M de Koster (2009). Delivering Goods in Urban Areas: How to Deal with Urban Policy Restrictions and the Environment, Transportation Science, 43(2), 211-227.

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