urban freight distribution: assessing the opportunity of

Master of Science in Maritime Science

Master Dissertation

Academic Year 2015-2016

Urban Freight Distribution: Assessing the opportunity of using

waterways in Ghent.

Student: Alicia Chevalier

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree of:

Master of Science in Maritime Science

Supervisor: Professor Frank Witlox

Assessor: Professor Cathy Macharis

I

Acknowledgements

I would like to start this thesis by thanking all the people who have helped me writing it and

encouraged me throughout the process.

First of all, I express my gratitude to my supervisor Professor Frank Witlox for its valu-

able inputs and recommendations. His interesting lectures have raised my interest for urban

freight distribution and city logistics and have thus influenced my choice of topic. His pre-

cious advice then helped me throughout the thinking and writing process.

Then, I would also like to thank my family and friends for their support and useful com-

ments and recommendations.

Finally, I am grateful to the University of Ghent and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and

the professors of the Master in Maritime Science for the very interesting program I have

followed this year.

III

Executive Summary

In the challenging urban context, freight distribution can be difficult and often has negative

impacts on the city. City logistics therefore aims at better organizing it through the use of

different transport modes and cargo consolidation for example. This thesis explore this field

for the city of Ghent. The aim is to assess whether this city has the required characteristics

to successfully use the waterways to distribute products to the city center.

The first step of the analysis is a literature review on city logistics in general and on the

use of waterways in freight transport. This part defines and develops the main theoretical

concepts. It already allows identifying several key success factors of a city logistics project

that are thus assets to evaluate the case of Ghent:

• A project should include technological, political and logistical aspects in order to be

well adapted to the local context and to fit the needs of the different stakeholders.

• A good public private partnership facilitates the implementation of the project.

• A project should start with a trial phase so that its effects can be identified and ana-

lyzed.

• A project should take advantage of the local physical characteristics and be adapted to

them.

Then, several existing projects are studied in order to complement this theoretical analysis

with practical inputs. Five cases were selected:

• Utrecht and the Beerboat: a ship is used to deliver beverages to the restaurants and

bars located in the direct vicinity of the waterways.

• Bristol and the Broadmead Consolidation Scheme: deliveries to the shops in the Broad-

mead area are consolidated in a warehouse outside the city and then transported to

the receivers.

IV

• Amsterdam and the Mokum Mariteam: an initiative of private players to distribute

their products via waterborne transport on the canals of the city.

• Lille and the Multimodal City Distribution Center: goods transported by rail, truck

or barge are brought to a warehouse outside the city where they are consolidated and

from which they are then delivered to the receivers.

• Paris and the Vert Chez Vous project: a barge sails on the Seine and makes regular

stops from which bicycles deliver goods to clients all over the city.

Valuable lessons on ingredients for a successful city logistics projects have been learned from

these cases. The involvement of the different stakeholders and the extensive support from

the public authorities is a first one. Then, it appears to be key for the long term viability

of the project to develop a strong business case. In addition, to increase the chance of a

project to be successful, it is important to adapt it to the local context and to make use of

its features. Moreover, to be adopted by the market, the project needs to bring valuable and

measurable benefits to the users. Finally, using suitable equipment and infrastructure also

appears to facilitate success.

The case of Ghent is then developed. The city has advantageous geographical character-

istics with a wide waterway network in a dense area not easily accessible by truck. There

are also reasons to change the current urban freight scheme. The Ghent road network is

highly congested, the air is polluted and many citizens suffer from noise nuisance due to

transport activities. The carriers and receivers also experience several difficulties in freight

distribution such as the scarce loading and unloading areas, the numerous road works and the

time windows. It seems thus interesting to develop new initiatives to improve this situation.

Waterborne transport is an opportunity in this respect, as it pollutes less than trucks and

does not suffer from congestion.

In order to see whether it would be valuable to develop a project of waterborne urban

freight transport, the success factors identified above are confronted to Ghent’s context. It

appears that they are in general present in this city. There is however a threat for the long

term viability of such a project that is the financial results of the system. Due to the high

operating costs, many users would have to be involved in order to secure enough revenue.

That is nevertheless not an easy thing to do. Public subsidies would therefore be needed.

The project should furthermore be very well adapted to the needs of the potential users and

to the local context so that its chances of success are maximized.

V

Contents

1 Introduction 1

2 Literature Review 3

2.1 City Logistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

2.1.1 Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

2.1.2 European view on City Logistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

2.1.3 Key Challenges in City Logistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

2.1.4 Factors for Successful City Logistics Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

2.1.5 Key Performance Indicators of City Logistics Projects . . . . . . . . . 11

2.2 City Logistics and Waterborne Transport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

2.2.1 Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Transport by Water in City

Logistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

2.2.2 Challenges in Using Waterways in Intermodal City Logistics . . . . . 14

3 Case studies 17

3.1 Utrecht and the Beerboat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

3.1.1 Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

3.1.2 Project Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

3.1.3 Project Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

3.1.4 Project Impacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

3.1.5 Key Success Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

3.2 Bristol and the Broadmead Consolidation Scheme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

3.2.1 Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23



3.2.4 Project Impacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25


3.3 Amsterdam and the Mokum Mariteam Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

3.3.1 Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

VI



3.3.4 Project Impacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30


3.4 Lille and the Multimodal City Distribution Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

3.4.1 Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31



3.4.4 Project Impacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34


3.5 Paris and the Vert Chez Vous Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

3.5.1 Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35



3.5.4 Project Impacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37


3.6 Lessons learned . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

4 City Logistics through Waterways in Ghent 43

4.1 City Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

4.1.1 Physical Aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

4.1.2 General Transport Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

4.1.3 Freight Distribution Characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

4.1.4 Existing Actions Regarding City Logistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

4.2 Discussion: Assessment of Key Success Factors in the Case of Ghent . . . . . 53

4.3 Recommendations: Elements for a Succesful Project in Ghent . . . . . . . . 58

5 Conclusion 65

Bibliography 69

5.1 Web Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

1

Chapter 1

Introduction

Cities are important centers of activities that require intensive transport operations. Prod-

ucts need to be delivered to shops, people have to go to work and to school, waste needs to

be removed,... This extensive demand for transport puts pressure on the urban road net-

work. The different users have to share the same infrastructure and that can create conflicts.

Transport can also be a burden for the environment and the citizens. It is thus important

to organize urban transportation carefully and to develop initiatives to limit the transport’s

negative effects on the city. This is the main focus of city logistics and of this thesis. It

is an interesting topic as it affects the day-to-day life of the growing number of people who

live in cities around the world. It also has a significant impact on the economic activities

in the urban area. Another reason why this topic is interesting is its environmental aspects.

Transport is a major contributor to air pollution that is endangering for human life especially

in highly populated areas such as cities. Improving urban distribution participates thus to

the improvement of the quality of life of urban citizens and is thus valuable.

One way of reducing the burden of freight transport is to use waterborne transportation

in cities with a significant waterway network. This network is indeed an important opportu-

nity for urban transport. It is, as a matter of fact, often free of congestion and pollutes less

than road transportation. Waterborne transport would therefore allow reducing the negative

effects transport has on the city environment and livability. Waterway networks are in many

cities neglected resources. It is however starting to be reconsidered in numerous urban areas

due to the high pressure on the road network and the importance of environmental matters.

Urban waterborne transport is however not an easy thing to put into practice and to make

economically viable. There are indeed several challenges associated with it such as high op-

erating costs and constraints on navigability.

The topic of this thesis is thus to explore this opportunity and more specifically in the case

2

of the city of Ghent. This medieval city has, as a matter of fact, a wide network of waterways

and numerous small streets that make road transportation difficult. The road network suffers

thus from congestion and the accessibility of the city center can be challenging. The aim of

this thesis is therefore to assess whether this particular city has the required characteristics

and context for a project of city logistics using waterways to be successful. Success means,

on the one hand, that it achieves its objectives of reducing the negative impacts of freight

transport in the city. On the other hand, it must also be feasible and viable in the long

run. This thesis voluntarily takes a broad approach to answer this question. It is the aim to

take a wide perspective on the topic and to assess its different aspects. The focus is there-

fore not solely on financial results but also includes physical feasibility and qualitative aspects.

In order to achieve this objective, the first part of this thesis will present theoretical

concepts. It will give a broad background on the main topics of this thesis that are city

logistics and waterborne transportation. The main findings of the literature on those topics

will be presented. The aim of this part is to acquire a strong theoretical basis on which to build

the remaining parts of the analysis. Then, the next part of this thesis studies several cases

of cities where city logistics projects have been implemented. The case-study methodology

was chosen because it complements a theoretical analysis by bringing new practical elements.

Cases allow identifying reasons for a particular project’s success or failure. Studying several

of them in their respective context then allows pointing out what are the most important

lessons that can be learned from them and applied to another urban area. Finally, the

last part of this thesis will analyze the case of the city of Ghent. The current situation

regarding urban freight distribution will be introduced and problems linked to it will be

pointed out. Then, based on both the theoretical and the case-based analyses, the conditions

under which an urban freight transport could be successfully developed in the city of Ghent

will be determined.

3

Chapter 2

Literature Review

2.1 City Logistics

More and more people live in urban areas around the world. In 1950, 30% of the world

population lived in cities. This proportion further increased in 2014 to reach around 54%.

This trend is foreseen to continue with an expected 66% people living in urban areas by 2050

(United Nations, 2014). This increases the need for transportation of goods from, to and

within those particular regions. Cities have however specific features such as a high density

of population, sometimes narrow streets and a high demand for passengers transportation.

They often make freight transport difficult. Urban freight distribution and city logistics are

therefore very specific topics that are linked to important issues.

As city logistics is one of the core subjects of this report, it is important to define it, and

to get a good understanding of what the key challenges associated to it are. Part of this

section will also present the European vision on urban freight distribution as Europe has an

important role in issuing guidelines and giving support to projects in this field. Attention

will also be given to key success factors of city logistics projects that should be kept in mind

for the next steps of the analysis.

2.1.1 Definitions

Urban freight transport is defined by the OECD (2003) as “the delivery of consumer goods

(not only by retail, but also by other sectors such as manufacturing) in city and suburban

areas, including the reverse flow of used goods in terms of clean waste”. It therefore includes

activities that are essential for the city’s economy such as restock of food and other merchan-

dises to shops, waste collection and removal as well as distribution of documents and packages

to offices (MDS Transmodal Limited, 2012). It is not only focused on transportation but

4

it also encompasses other operations such as handling and storage of goods and inventory

management (CITYLOG, 2010).

Urban freight distribution furthermore plays an important role in the local economy both

as a support for wealth generating activities and as a provider of employments (Diziain,

Ripert & Dablanc, 2012). Each activity taking place in the city indeed generates a specific

pattern of freight movements. A worker, for example, on average, requires a delivery or a

pick-up once a week whereas shops require deliveries several times a week. All in all, the

demand for movements of goods in urban areas is therefore rather independent of the local

context but depends on the type of activities performed (Dablanc, 2007). In addition, urban

areas are important centers of activities, a more dynamic city will attract more attractive

jobs, shopping centers as well as housing, cultural and educational developments (Witkowski

& Kiba-Janiak, 2014). Urban freight transport has thus an important role to play in facil-

itating economic activities, sustaining citizens’ life style and making a city more attractive.

There are however other reasons why urban freight distribution is important and should be

carefully managed, the main ones are presented below.

First, it influences the competitiveness of the local industry and the efficiency of the econ-

omy through its impacts on transportation and logistics cost (Anderson, Allen & Browne,

2005) as well as on delivery reliability. It also affects the local industry by the frequency and

the quality of delivery it offers. Shipment integrity and high frequency of deliveries are key

elements to ensure its competitiveness.

Then, urban freight distribution is also of interest because it has negative environmental

and social effects on the urban area. The movements of vehicles (most of the time trucks)

add to the city congestion. Freight vehicles indeed represents on average around 20 to 30% of

the total urban traffic (in term of vehicle kilometers) (Dablanc, 2007). Furthermore, trucks

have to park to collect and/or deliver goods and that can add to the congestion level if they

do so outside of the foreseen parking spaces. Urban freight transport also contributes to air

pollution through vehicle emissions. It, as a matter of fact, accounts for around 6% of all

transport emissions (European Commission, 2013b). It results in bad air quality that is dam-

aging for public health especially in densely populated areas such a cities. It also has other

social impacts such as noise pollution (especially at night) and accidents. Those negative

impacts are furthermore not internalized in transportation costs (van Lier & Macharis, 2014).

Finally, urban freight distribution is rather complex and can therefore be difficult to

organize. Many different suppliers require their various products to be delivered to numer-

5

ous clients that each have their own preferences in term of delivery time and service level.

Distribution operations have furthermore to take place on limited infrastructure and with

restricted access to the city center (Sonnabend, 2012).

For all these reasons, a new concept has emerged, that is city logistics. It aims at better

organizing the urban freight distribution and at reducing its negative impacts on the city.

According to Taniguchi et al. (2003), city logistics is “the process for totally optimizing the

logistics and transport activities by private companies with the support of advanced infor-

mation systems in urban areas considering the traffic environment, its congestion, safety and

energy savings within the framework of a market economy”. City logistics is thus, accord-

ing to these authors, the optimization of the urban freight distribution activities involving

private players and taking into account the specific context of the city. As for Benjelloun &

Crainic (2008), city logistics aims at better understanding freight transportation to reduce its

impacts on living conditions without penalizing city activities. The core idea of city logistics

is therefore, in their opinion, to stop considering each vehicle, shipment or firm individually

and to rather see them as a whole system and enhance consolidation and cooperation. As

stated by Taniguchi (2015), city logistics has thus three main objectives that are mobility,

sustainability and livability in the urban area. It aims at reaching these objectives through a

better organization of the freight transport activities in the urban area and its very particular

environment.

City logistics is a wide term that encloses different types of measures and projects. Pa-

poutsis & Nathanail (2015) propose to group city logistics initiatives in six clusters that

each tackle different parts of the urban freight distribution problem and each have different

objectives.

• New distribution and logistics models for operators : They often are initiatives of the

private sector to better organize their urban freight operations. They include measures

such as off-peak deliveries and consolidation schemes.

• Capacity sharing : The idea of this type of measures is to improve the capacity uti-

lization of the available infrastructure and vehicles. An example of such a measure is

multi-use lanes.

• Infrastructure development and vehicle characteristics : Building new infrastructure or

developing and adopting new technologies to improve urban freight distribution are

part of this cluster.

• Access control : This type of measures aims at restricting the access to certain areas of

6

a city in order to alleviate the effects of transportation on the environment. Examples

are vehicle weight restriction, emissions restriction and traffic calming measures.

• Regulations on enabling activities : This cluster includes measures taken by the public

authorities that have an impact on the organization of logistics operations including

loading and unloading areas, time windows and parking regulations.

• Enforcement, routing optimization and training : These activities can also help improv-

ing the efficiency of urban freight distribution. They are therefore often part of city

logistics projects.

This wide range of city logistics measures is needed to cover the different aspects of urban

distribution and to effectively meet the complex context of those activities. The conditions in

which city logistics activities are performed are indeed very specific and challenging. Goods

have to be delivered to destinations all over the city including in its inner part and that

is not always easy especially in medieval cities with narrow streets. Congestion is thus

frequent which affects the reliability and the cost of the distribution service. Moreover,

freight transportation has to compete on space with people transportation for which the

demand is quite high in cities (OECD, 2003). There is increasing awareness on transport

contribution to noise and environmental pollution, that gives urban freight distribution a

bad image. Besides people living in cities have increasing expectations regarding their life

standards. Furthermore, as space is limited and often expensive in cities, shops tend to rely

more and more on frequent deliveries rather than on inventory in the shop itself (BESTUFS,

2002). This together with the trends of just in time and fragmented supply (CITYLOG,

2010) as well as the rise of e-commerce and of reverse logistics increases the demand for

transport and the risk of less than truck load voyages. In addition, the transport sector is

also highly competitive, companies are thus highly sensitive to their costs and are not willing

to increase it (MDS Transmodal Limited, 2012). They will thus only participate voluntarily

in city logistics projects if it allows reducing their cost and improve their competitiveness.

Finally, the transport sector is also highly regulated. Players decisions are thus bounded

by numerous regulations and policies such as vehicle emission levels, time windows to enter

the city and vehicle weight restriction. City logistics is thus a broad concept that includes

projects trying to improve urban freight distribution taking into account the complex urban

context.

2.1.2 European view on City Logistics

The European Commission (2013a) has set a policy goal for 2030 to attain “essentially CO2

free city logistics in major urban centers”. This goes with the European vision stated in the

7

White Paper on Transportation of 2011 that aims at both environmentally and economically

efficient urban freight distribution.

In practice, the European Commission further recommends several measures to achieve

this objective and this vision. The first important measure is to promote development of

urban freight distribution plans in European cities. Many cities focus indeed mainly on

people transportation and forget the importance of freight transport planning. Then, modal

shift should be encouraged and supported by the cities authorities as it can often offer valuable

solutions for certain types of cargo and deliveries. The European Commission also advocates

for an improvement of freight distribution efficiency. The aim is to better match vehicle

selection with the city and customers requirements so that empty trucks are avoided. A

useful tool identified by the European Commission is Intelligent Transport System. Finally,

another measure is the promotion of a shift to low emissions vehicles that are often suitable

and easily usable for urban freight distribution (European Commission, 2013b).

2.1.3 Key Challenges in City Logistics

As explained above, city logistics has to be done in a very complex context that leads to

several challenges. The latests have to be handled carefully in projects aiming at improv-

ing urban freight transport efficiency and sustainability. Here are several of those attention

points.

City logistics involves many different stakeholders that each have different priorities and

interests but that still have to collaborate. The first group of players is the shippers which

includes the manufacturers, the wholesalers and the retailers who have goods to be shipped

to clients. They require their products to be delivered on time and with reliability. The

second group is the one of the freight carriers, the transporters and warehouse companies

that physically transport products from shippers to customers following the shipper’s re-

quirements. Those two first groups are mainly driven by the maximization of their profit and

thus the minimization of their delivery cost. They have to take the available infrastructure

and the existing regulations into account. The next group involved is the one of the resi-

dents of the urban area, who are also the consumers for most of the goods delivered in the

city. The last group is the one of the administrators (at national, regional or city level) who

influence city logistics through regulations, policies and measures. These two last groups are

primarily concerned with the reduction of the negative social and environmental impacts of

transport, the improvement of the quality of life in the city as well as the vitality of the

economy (CITYLOG, 2010; Taniguchi, 2015). A first challenge in city logistics is thus to

achieve collaboration between all these different players and to define a common objective

8

that is a good balance between all their different interests.

Furthermore, a second challenge is the fact that local public authorities often do not really

know how to efficiently arrange freight distribution. In practice, the primary determinants of

logistics and transport decisions are the requirements of the receivers rather than those of the

public authorities. Most cities do not realize they have an important role to play to improve

urban freight transportation efficiency and that this goes through communication and negoti-

ation with the different stakeholders. In order to put in place efficient measures, it is decisive

to involve the different players and to adapt policies to their needs rather than to impose

regulations and to simply restrict truck movements (Dablanc, 2007). City authorities should

initiate, motivate and coordinate city logistics projects through a collaborative process that

includes the different stakeholders. Important steps of this process are identification of the

needs of the players including the city authorities, trust building between them and finally

achieving their commitment to collaborate with each other (Witkowski & Kiba-Janiak, 2014).

Another challenge is linked to the goal of improving sustainability that often drives city

logistics projects. It is indeed hard to find efficient measurements of sustainability (Anderson

et al., 2005). It is therefore hard to measure and quantify consequences of city logistics on

the environment. Important factors such as noise or emissions levels are hard to quantify

and monetize. It is thus hard to objectively assess all the consequences of urban freight dis-

tribution and therefore to convince people of the need to improve it. If the situation without

the project is not that bad, it seems hard to persuade users to take part in it especially if it

increases their costs.

Besides, another difficulty in city logistics is to find efficient incentives and methods to

reduce inefficiencies while not impairing the city activities. Several inefficiencies are indeed

often observed in urban freight distribution. A first area for improvement is the fact that

low load or even empty runs are relatively frequent (European Commission, 2013b). Those

voyages pollute, add to the level of congestion while not bringing any added value to coun-

terbalance those negative effects. They should thus be avoided. Another inefficiency is the

significant dwell time at loading and unloading locations. This can generate parking issues

or increase congestion if the truck has to stop on the road. Furthermore, delivery time is a

cost and should be minimized. A third inefficiency is the fact that a same location is often

delivered several times during a short period of time. It would be more efficient in term of

city logistics to group several deliveries together in order to reduce the number of voyages

that have to be performed. However, that is not an easy thing to do as it often requires

collaboration between different suppliers that may be competitors. One of the reasons why

9

those inefficiencies are relatively frequent is the fact that, for many products, transportation

cost only represents a small proportion of their value. There is thus not any strong incentive

to reduce it by avoiding those different types of unproductiveness (MDS Transmodal Limited,

2012). The public authority has here an important role to play in developing measures and

policies that give these incentives.

In addition, surviving in the long term seems to be very difficult for city logistics projects.

The main challenge in achieving this objective is the financial result. City logistics initiatives

often rely on public subsidies and tend to disappear as soon as the financial help ends. The

problem appears to be that benefits are not made clear enough to motivate the users to pay

more for the service or to invest in it. Building a strong and sustainable business case is thus

another important challenge in city logistics projects (Quack et al., 2014).

A last challenge resides in the fact that urban logistics services do not evolve as fast as and

together with customers needs. E-commerce and home deliveries are for example becoming

very important in today’s cities but the logistical response to these trends is quite poor and

insufficient (Dablanc, 2007).

2.1.4 Factors for Successful City Logistics Projects

City logistics aims at improving the efficiency and the sustainability of urban freight distri-

bution. In order for a project to achieve these goals and in light of the challenges pointed

out above, there are some key success factors that have been identified in the literature.

The main ones (a good mix between logistical, technological and policy-oriented aspects, a

successful public private partnership and a trial period) are briefly presented here.

First, there are three main types of solutions to tackle city logistics issues: logistical,

policy-oriented and technological. It is important for a project to be successful that it bal-

ances those three aspects (Quak, 2012). They indeed cover different parts of the urban freight

distribution problems:

• Logistical solutions : Logistics and its different operations play a significant role in

urban freight distribution and can be adapted to improve it. Solutions of this type

often include a better coordination between players and consolidation of goods to be

delivered.

• Policy-oriented solutions : Policies are other useful tools to force a behavior change of

the private players and therefore increase efficiency and sustainability of city distribu-

tion. Private players will indeed only take part voluntarily in projects that improve

10

their internal results, it is thus sometimes important to constrain their decisions in the

common interest.

• Technological solutions : Technology can be another important solution direction. It,

for example, allows collecting, storing and sharing data among stakeholders or reducing

the environmental impact of vehicles.

These three possibilities must be associated effectively with each other. Successful projects

often combine all of them. It is, for example, important, in order to be effective, that a new

technology fits the need of the logistics operations and meets the regulations and measures

taken by the public authorities (CITYLOG, 2010). A first ingredient of success is thus the de-

velopment of a comprehensive solution that combines technology, policy and logistics aspects.

Another important success factor of city logistics projects is an efficient public private

partnership. Urban freight distribution improvements can indeed have two different origins;

they can be market-oriented or policy driven. In the first case, private companies will adapt

their behavior and reduce their environmental impacts because it will bring them internal

benefits. This type of change is really efficient as the market is pulling it. In the second

case, governing bodies influence private companies behavior through policies and measures

in the interest of the common good. Companies are thus pushed by public authorities to

adapt their urban freight distribution practices in order to alleviate their burden on society.

A combination of those two types of change is often needed to achieve improvements for the

common interest of society. Private players indeed often lack the global picture on the situa-

tion (Anderson et al, 2005). Furthermore, as seen above, not all the externalities of transport

activities are internalized in private companies costs. This fact justifies a public intervention

to bring the cost closer to the societal cost (van Lier & Macharis, 2014). A second success

factor is thus to achieve collaboration between public and private stakeholders in order to

develop sustainable and efficient measures.

A last key success factor of city logistics projects is the use of a trial program. As ex-

plained above, it can be rather hard to measure environmental impacts of urban freight

distribution. A trial period can thus be useful in giving clear proofs of what would be the

consequences of the new project. Furthermore, costs stay a major success determinant of a

project. To be adopted by the market and seduce users, a project has to have positive impact

on financial results. A trial project allows assessing these monetary effects by giving a sense

of what would be the operating costs of the new system. It also helps verifying the technical

feasibility of the project. For all these reasons, starting with a trial period is an important

success factor of city logistics projects (Maes et al, 2015).

11

From the literature, three important factors for successful city logistics initiatives have

thus been identified: a comprehensive solution including technological, policy-oriented and

logistical aspects, a public private partnership and the use of a trial project. Those are

interesting points to keep in mind for the case studies that will be performed in the next

chapter.

2.1.5 Key Performance Indicators of City Logistics Projects

In order to assess the success of a project, it is important to define key performance indicators.

City logistics aims at improving the efficiency and sustainability of the urban freight distri-

bution. Sustainability is however hard to measure (Anderson et al., 2005). Russi and Comi

(2012) therefore present the key objectives that a sustainable urban freight transport project

should reach. According to them, it should guarantee accessibility to the city by offering

a reliable transport system. In addition, it should help reducing air pollution, green house

gas emissions as well as waste and noise levels in order to limit the negative consequences

of transport on health and nature. Another important objective is the improvement of the

resource and energy efficiency together with a better cost-effectiveness of freight transport.

Lastly, a sustainable freight distribution system should also play a role in the strengthening

of the city’s attractiveness and quality of life. It should do so through a reduction in the

number of accidents and in land use. Such a project should also help ensuring good mobility

of the citizens. Sustainability has thus three main parts: economic, social and environmental.

Key performance indicators can be derived for each of these aspects:

• Economical sustainability : It includes all the aspects of transport that impact in one

way or another the economic activities of the city. As for urban freight transport, the

most important ones are congestion, trip duration and length, as well as infrastructure

cost. All of them can thus be used in order to assess the success of a project. If the

project helps improving the performance of those criteria, it is a positive sign.

• Social sustainability : This part of sustainability focuses on the interaction between

transport activities and the people living in the urban area. It consists of the limitation

of road accidents and of conflicts between different infrastructure users, reduction of

the number of vehicles and the improvement of the livability of the city. Again, those

aspects can be used to get a sense of the performance of a project.

• Environmental sustainability : The focus here is on the relationship with the natural

environment. Concerning urban freight transport, it covers the reduction in pollution,

noise and habitat losses. These are again interesting factors to consider while assessing

the performance of a city logistics project.

12

The impacts assessment of a measure on one of these factors depends on the context of

the city where it is implemented. But according to Papoutsis & Nathanail (2015), a project

can be considered as having a very positive impact if it generates a change of 20% or more

compared to the situation without the measure.

2.2 City Logistics and Waterborne Transport

The aim of this thesis is to assess the opportunity of using inland waterway transport to im-

prove the sustainability and efficiency of urban freight distribution in Ghent. It is therefore

interesting to evaluate what is the current general situation concerning inland waterways and

what are the main advantages and disadvantages of using them for urban freight distribution.

Special attention will be given in this section to the key challenges associated to the use of

waterways in intermodal transportation as this is often required in city logistics solutions.

Inland waterways offer, in some parts of Europe, a deep network that reaches the center

of several large cities where a significant part of the European population lives. Using them

to deliver goods to cities seems thus to be an interesting opportunity. Waterways are both a

disadvantage and an advantage for urban freight transport. They indeed make it more diffi-

cult for trucks to circulate in the city. However, they, at the same time, allow for waterborne

transportation that can relieve road traffic intensity. Inland waterways in fact used to be a

very important transport mean in last centuries in Europe. Natural waterways are the basis

of the network that was further extended with canals. With the apparition and extension

of road networks and the efficiency of trucks as well as the life style and industrial changes,

waterborne transportation has nevertheless lost its advantageous position. In recent years,

inland navigation share of the modal split has been rather small but stable in the EU28. In

2001, inland navigation only accounted for 6.4% of the total freight transport modal split

(in billion ton kilometers), while in 2013, barges were used for 6.7% of the trips (Eurostat,

2015). There are however big differences in inland waterways modal share between the dif-

ferent European countries. In the Netherlands, for example, it represents almost 35% of the

ton kilometers, in Belgium around 20% whereas in Poland it accounts only for 0.1% (CE

Delft, Planco, MDS Transmodal Limited, Viadonau & NEA, 2011).

2.2.1 Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Transport by Water

in City Logistics

As explained above, urban freight distribution often generates issues in the city especially

when operations are conducted by truck. Achieving a modal shift to inland navigation can

13

thus be an interesting solution to limit the negative effects of transport activities. There are

several ways water can be used in city logistics. A first example is the use of canals or river

passing through the city to directly deliver products to the receivers. Another possibility

is to built an urban consolidation center primarily served by barges near the city and then

use green and small vehicles to deliver the products to their final destination. Then, it is

also possible to use water for the transportation of different types of cargo including waste,

pallets, packages and building materials. In any case, using inland waterway transport has

several advantages and disadvantages. Here are the main ones.

A first important advantage of using inland waterways transportation is the fact that it

could help alleviating the negative effects of urban freight transportation on the city. It has

indeed several favorable attributes compared to road transportation. First, there is often,

currently, spare capacity on the waterway network whereas the road network suffers from

congestion. Using waterborne transport could therefore help meeting the increasing demand

for transportation while not adding to the congestion of the road network. Then, the nega-

tive environmental and social impacts of waterborne transportation is smaller than the one

of road transportation. It allows thus reaching the goal of reducing CO2 emissions and im-

proving energy efficiency (Caris, Limbourg, Macharis, van Lier & Cools, 2014; CE Delft et

al, 2011). Barges are indeed safe and almost silent, the probability of accidents is very low.

The energy efficiency of inland transportation is moreover better than the one of rail and

road transportation. As for air pollution, the situation is more complex, for certain pollu-

tants such as CO2, inland vessels perform better than trucks but for other types of damaging

components (SO2, PM and NOx), the opposite is true. All in all, waterborne transportation

is still considered as a more sustainable mode than road haulage.

Inland navigation is also characterized by very low direct movement costs, low congestion

and high reliability, safety and security (CE Delft et al, 2011). Barges also allow transporting

large quantities of goods at once. Instead of several dozens trucks, only one ship is needed.

Inland vessels are therefore also suitable for the transportation of unusual loads in term of

weight and/or size (NAIADES, n.d.).

Another advantage is the existing network of waterways in some parts of Europe. Major

cities and industrial centers are linked through canals and rivers that are available for effi-

cient waterborne transport. Several important seaports also benefit from this network. The

fact that the ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam are well linked to inland waterways partially

explains their growth and importance in the European and global shipping industry. Choos-

ing for waterborne transportation allows thus benefiting from this wide network (NAIADES,

14

n.d.). There is however a noteworthy challenge linked to the infrastructure needed for inland

navigation. The maintenance of the waterways and their facilities is indeed often neglected

and that leads for some of them to poor quality levels. The canals and rivers exist but some

of them are therefore not navigable. Some investment would thus be needed to make full use

of the waterway network.

All these characteristics are considered as playing in favor of inland waterways transporta-

tion attractiveness. However, several other of its characteristics are rather seen as weaknesses.

A first one is its relatively low speed that means longer transit time. That is often seen as

a barrier to use it even though inland waterways transportation is often cheaper than long

distance road or rail haulage (CE Delft et al, 2011). It indeed reduces delivery flexibility.

Another disadvantage of inland waterborne transport is its dependency on weather and

water level conditions. The load level authorized on a specific waterway depends on its water

level (Caris et al, 2014). This water level is however in most waterways not constant, it

evolves with tidal periods and with the weather. The load level then affects the transporta-

tion costs, the more a barge can be loaded the smaller the cost per unit transported will be.

The cost of transport thus depends, to some extent, on water level and this is a disadvantage

compared to road and rail transportation where the permissible load is constant. Further-

more, traffic on inland waterways can be completely blocked because of ice (Caris et al, 2014).

In light of those advantages and disadvantages, one can easily understand the growing

interest in using inland waterways to transport goods in urban areas. There is however one

important weakness that has still to be addressed, the fact that it almost always requires

pre- and/or post-haulage. In order to reach customers and to collect goods from shippers,

waterborne transport often has to be combined with other modes. This adds to cost and to

the complexity of the system. Important challenges linked to this requirement are presented

in the next subsection.

2.2.2 Challenges in Using Waterways in Intermodal City Logistics

Intermodal transport is defined by Diziain, Taniguchi & Dablanc (2014) as the “use of at least

2 different modes of transport in an integrated manner in a door-to-door transport chain”.

The idea is thus to combine different modes in an efficient transport solution that benefits

from the strengths (and weaknesses) of each mode. A key point in this type of solution is

the connectivity between the modes chosen. For a solution to be efficient and attractive, it

must be relatively easy to go from one mode to the other. A first attention point in using

waterways in intermodal transport is therefore to ensure its good connectivity with other

15

modes. This means, in practice, efficient terminals and suitable infrastructure as well as

reliable information sharing systems.

Diziain et al. (2014) identify a number of other challenges linked to the use of waterways

in intermodal city logistics projects. The first one is the total cost of the solution taking

into account the transshipment expenses. It stays indeed quite high compared to the one

of road only projects. The combination of several modes of transport stays for the moment

more expensive and complex than the use of a single one. Then, another attention point

lays in the technical characteristics of the waterways in and around the city. The challenge

here is to have enough capacity suitable for sailing. The water should be deep enough to

allow for a sufficient load factor, there should be enough clearance under bridges to allow

barges to go underneath them,... Furthermore, natural conditions can affect the reliability of

inland transportation and that can be a challenge in areas where floods are rather common

for example.

In addition, the land used to build waterborne infrastructure could also be useful for

other projects. New developments for inland navigation have thus to compete for land with

other developments that may have more public support, this problem is often present in a

city where space is a scarce resource (INE, EBU & ESO, 2011). It can thus be hard to insert

waterborne transportation facilities inside the urban area (Diziain et al., 2014). Another

part of this challenge lays in the fact that infrastructure to ensure good connectivity between

modes is often lacking and is thus also competing for space. And finally, climate change is

foreseen to impact water level and therefore navigability, infrastructure may thus have to be

adapted to the new requirements (INE et al., 2011).

Another challenge that limits the use of waterborne transportation in intermodal trans-

port is the poor connectivity of information systems. Many systems exist and are used but

they do not communicate with each other easily which makes inter-modality difficult (INE,

n.d.).

To sum up, this chapter has defined and explained the main theoretical concept of this

thesis that is city logistics. Several challenges in implementing such projects were then

identified and will be interesting for the case studies. The main ones are the involvement

of all the stakeholders, the financial sustainability, the measurement of benefits, the lack of

knowledge of public authorities on the topic and the availability of infrastructure especially for

projects using waterborne transport. Next to that, a few success factors were also presented

such as a good public private partnership, the mix of technological, logistical and policy-

16

oriented solution, a trial project and the local physical characteristics. All these findings will

be interesting in the next chapters to analyze the different cases and more specifically the

one of Ghent.

17

Chapter 3

Case studies

Based on the previous chapter and on the background on city logistics and inland waterway

transport, this chapter aims at analyzing several projects of urban freight distribution im-

provement in different European cities. The main objective here is to identify success and/or

failure factors that could be interesting for the case of Ghent.

Five cases were chosen in order to cover a wide range of city logistics projects with

different specificities: launched by public authorities or private players, involving water in

different ways, concerning different types of products, successful or not... The idea was to

select cases that bring valuable lessons and that share some similitudes with Ghent with

respect to the city characteristics or the freight distribution system. The selected cities

are Utrecht, Bristol, Amsterdam, Lille and Paris. Utrecht was chosen because it is a well-

known successful case of waterborne urban distribution in a city that is similar to Ghent in its

physical characteristics. The Bristol case does not make use of water but is still interesting as

it is a successful city consolidation center. Such a center is often needed in a urban distribution

scheme involving water, its analysis is thus interesting for this thesis. In Amsterdam, the

initiative to use waterborne transport to distribute goods was taken by private players. That

is the main reason why this particular case was selected. Lille uses water in a different way

than the previous cases which makes it a notable case. Barges are used to bring products to

a consolidation center from which parcels are sent by small trucks to their final destination.

Finally, Paris is a noteworthy case as well because the project analyzed was not successful,

it is therefore interesting to understand what explains this failure. The five cases selected

bring thus each valuable lessons to this analysis and complement each other well.

18

3.1 Utrecht and the Beerboat

The first case to be studied here is the one of the city of Utrecht and its Beerboat project.

This case was chosen because of the physical similitudes between Utrecht and Ghent. They

both are medieval cities with narrow streets and canals. The Beerboat project is furthermore

an interesting and successful example of how to use waterways in urban freight distribution.

3.1.1 Context

Utrecht is the fourth biggest city in the Netherlands with around 334,000 inhabitants. Its

population is furthermore expected to grow in the coming years up to 390,000 citizens in

2030. Due to its central location in the country, Utrecht is also an important transport

region where the Dutch rail and road network intersect. Its train station is thus the most

important one in the country in terms of junctions and the second one in terms of passengers.

The city also has an inland port that is the largest one in the Netherlands. All in all, around

10% of all the internal transport of the country goes through Utrecht at some point. In total,

around 6 million tons of cargo are handled in the city every year (Gemeente Utrecht, n.d. b).

The urban freight distribution in Utrecht had several interesting characteristics before

the full deployment of its city logistics measures. On average, each business in the city had

7 different suppliers and was delivered 7 to 8 times a week. The majority of the shops were

delivered between 9am and 3pm by vans (TURBLOG, 2011).

Aside from the important freight transport, its wide labour market and the significant

number of jobs in the city also generate a high number of commuting movements from and

to the city. Most of them are done by car (51%), but a significant part of the commuters

rather choose for public transportation (15%) while around 34% choose for other solutions

such as biking or walking (Gemeente Utrecht, n.d. a). Those high demands for transport

bring mobility as a key challenge for the city.

Utrecht is furthermore characterized by its noteworthy cultural heritage and historical

premisses. A number of old churches, buildings and cellars are important parts of the city

landscape. The city moreover encompasses a significant number of canals and narrow streets

that constrain freight transport (Gemeente Utrecht, n.d. a).

3.1.2 Project Description

The Beerboat project started in 1996 when a first diesel boat began operating on the city

center canals. The municipality launched this project when breweries complained about

their difficulties to serve their clients because of the load restrictions imposed on trucks

(TURBLOG, 2011). The boat serves around 65 bars and restaurants located by the water,

19

delivering them with products coming from four different breweries and one wholesaler from

the catering industry (BESTFACT, 2013). The boat is owned by the city but is leased to

private companies that operate it (TURBLOG, 2011). There are two people on board that

take care of the navigation on the canals as well as of the loading and unloading operations

thanks to an crane installed on board (Trojanowski & Iwan, 2014).

Figure 3.1: The Beerboat in Utrecht

The stakeholders involved in the project are thus the city authorities, the boat operators,

the freight carriers, the four breweries and the wholesaler as well as the 65 customers (i.e.

bars and restaurants) and also the residents and visitors of the city who are also affected by it.

In order to further reduce emissions, the boat was replaced in 2010 by a zero-emission

electric vessel. Then, based on the success of the project, another zero-emission boat was

put in use in 2012. This particular ship is used to transport different types of goods such as

waste (BESTFACT, 2013).

The operations of the boat still require subsidies from the local authority. Its utilization

does not cover all of its costs (TURBLOG, 2011). As seen in the previous chapter, the

financial viability of the project is here an important challenge and still relies on public help.

3.1.3 Project Objectives

Utrecht has an important cultural heritage within its historical center. The city center is

also characterized by the multitude of canals it contains as well as the numerous businesses

located in the area. Those businesses generate an important demand for transportation that,

if entirely met by trucks, generates a high level of congestion. Road transportation also

20

results in high emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases. All together it therefore de-

creases the quality of life of the residents and of the tourists. The city decided thus to take

several measures to temper road traffic. Time windows for deliveries, one-way traffic and

restrictions on load factor as well as the Beerboat were implemented (BESTFACT, 2013).

The main driver of the project was thus to improve the quality of life in the city through

reducing emissions and congestion as well as preventing damages to the historical heritage

caused by truck movements.

In practice, several urban transport problems were identified in Utrecht: a very high

frequency of deliveries that could be lowered by a better organization, only few deliveries

made during the early morning or in the evening to limit traffic and congestion at peak hours,

cars that often take the spots dedicated to loading and unloading operations and finally the

fact that the majority of the businesses in the city center were reluctant to collaborate with

each other to improve the efficiency of urban distribution (TURBLOG, 2011). The Beerboat

project together with the other measures aims thus at alleviating those issues.

3.1.4 Project Impacts

As the Beerboat has been operating for several years now, the impacts on the stakeholders

have been identified. Here are the main ones.

As to the residents and the city authorities who, as explained in the previous chapter,

mainly aim at an improved quality of life in the city, they are pleased by the decreased

number of trucks in the center. This leads to less congestion, fewer accidents, less noise and

less emissions what make the city a better place to live. Furthermore, since the electric boat

has replaced the previous diesel one, emissions have further decreased. Studies have shown

that the zero-emission boat has allowed the CO2 emissions to be reduced by 17 tons, the

NOx emissions by 35kg and the PM10 emissions by 2kg every year. This improves the air

quality and is thus positive for the public health. Moreover, the Beerboat helps protecting

the historical heritage as it allows reducing the number of trucks that often cause damage to

the city (BESTFACT, 2013). The public authority and the residents are thus pleased that

historical buildings have lower chance to get damage and that the quality of life is improved.

Concerning the breweries and the catering wholesaler, they were the ones asking for a

solution to their difficulties in delivery. The Beerboat has allowed their heavy products to be

efficiently and reliably delivered to their customers, the impacts are thus positive for them.

Furthermore, the city is still supporting the project financially. This support has kept the

service price reasonable (TURBLOG, 2011). Besides, they only have to organize the delivery

21

of their goods to one place where they will be loaded on the boat rather than to every bar and

restaurant independently. The Beerboat has thus decreased the complexity of their delivery

scheme.

As for the customers (i.e. the bars and restaurants), the Beerboat allows more flexible

deliveries. There are indeed not any time window or load restriction affecting the boat’s

operations whereas there are for trucks. The city has indeed, as said above, introduced those

measures in order to restrict truck traffic (BESTFACT, 2013). The Beerboat also allows

them to stay profitable while making their operations more environmentally friendly which

is good for their image (TURBLOG, 2011). They also benefit from the public subsidies that

keep the service price quite low. Then, the improvement of the quality of life of the city

also has an indirect effect for the bars and restaurants. It makes the city more attractive for

residents and tourists and will thus probably bring more clients in the city center.

Finally, with respect to the freight carriers, the Beerboat with its built-in crane allows

delivering heavy products while ensuring safety and good working conditions for the operators

(BESTFACT, 2013). Then, for the shippers accountable for the transport from the breweries

and wholesaler to Utrecht, the Beerboat has made the situation easier. They only have to

go to one location where the goods are gathered and the boat is loaded instead of having to

go to each different bar and restaurant.

3.1.5 Key Success Factors

Utrecht’s Beerboat is a quite successful project. As explained above, it has allowed improv-

ing the quality of life in the city and protecting its historical heritage while improving the

efficiency of city logistics operations. There are several factors that explain this success.

First, all stakeholders were involved from the early beginnings of the project till its imple-

mentation. The reason why it was first launched is the delivery problem of breweries. Private

partners were thus involved from the start. The project was then lead by the city authorities

but with regular consultations of the different players. All stakeholders worked together on

the project through their participation in discussions and in the implementation of the dif-

ferent measures (TURBLOG, 2011). This is very important to get support and ensure that

the project will be picked up by the potential users as it was explained in the previous chapter.

Then, Utrecht’s city authorities have gathered extensive knowledge on urban freight dis-

tribution and were willing to assign to this topic sufficient administrative resources (TUR-

BLOG, 2011). Support from the public authority is key to make sure measures are adapted

22

to the local context and to the needs of the different stakeholders as well as to be able to

implement them efficiently. Furthermore, the Beerboat project is only one piece of the city

urban freight distribution plan. Other measures taken to make road transportation less at-

tractive have helped convincing users to take part in the delivery by barges. An important

success factor is therefore the integration of this particular project in a broader policy context

widely supported by the local authority.

Furthermore, the city started with very practical and of reasonable size solutions that

allowed convincing stakeholders of the benefits of the project and of a better organization

of urban freight distribution (TURBLOG, 2011). This is important to get concrete proofs

of what would be or are the impacts of the project suggested. This confirms thus what was

said in the previous chapter about the importance of a trial period.

Besides another important success factor is the city geography. A significant number of

bars and restaurants are located along the canals with direct access to the waterside. Deliv-

eries from the Beerboat to them is thus easy and efficient with only a few meters to cover

once the goods have been unloaded. This is a very specific characteristic of Utrecht. It means

thus that this particular solution may not be easily transferable to other cities that do not

have this success factor (BESTFACT, 2013).

Finally, another reason of the success lays in the fact that it has positive impacts for the

customers (bars and restaurants) and that those impacts are valuable for them. The Beerboat

makes deliveries more flexible and reliable which are two important quality attributes for a

delivery service (Van Duin, Kortmann & van den Boogaard, 2014). As for the costs, the city

subsidies the service in order to decrease the end-customer costs. This is also important to

convince them to take part in the project (BESTFACT, 2013).

3.2 Bristol and the Broadmead Consolidation Scheme

The second case studied in this thesis is the freight consolidation scheme developed in Bristol.

It was selected because it is a quite successful case for which the impacts have been thought-

fully analyzed. It does not however involve waterborne transportation but still brings some

interesting lessons as cargo consolidation is very often required in city logistics projects using

waterways.

23

3.2.1 Context

Bristol, located 120 miles west of London, has a population of around 400,000 inhabitants

that is expected to grow by 22% by 2037 (Sustrans, n.d.). It is the biggest urban area in the

South West of England. It is a port city and several industrial sites are located near its port.

It also attracts many workers and visitors. The different activities of the city thus generate

high demand for transport (European Commission, n.d.a.).

Bristol is located on the national motorway network and on the rail grid. It is also, as

stated above, connected to the waterways. Those interesting links offer a wide range of op-

tions for transport in and around Bristol. The city is still however facing congestion problems

on its road network. Furthermore, as those transport infrastructures pass through the city,

noise pollution affects a significant part of the inhabitants (European Commission, n.d.a.).

Transport activities also contribute to the local air pollution.

The city council has developed mobility plans to alleviate the externalities of transport on

the city. The objectives of these plans include the reduction of carbon emissions, the support

of economic growth through an advance of transport quality, the improvement of quality of

life, safety, health and security and the enhancement of the city accessibility. Bristol received

moreover the European Green Capital Award in 2015 for its extensive efforts towards a more

sustainable city and therefore also greener transport. Bristol is indeed the greenest urban

area of the United Kingdom (European Commission, n.d.b.).


The project implemented in Bristol is a freight consolidation scheme. It started in 2004 as a

trial project funded by the European Commission. Thanks to a survey conducted on more

than 100 retailers, the freight delivery structure and constraints were clearly defined. This

study also revealed that the medium size retailers of non high value and non perishable goods

were the ideal targets for the project. They were the ones with the highest opportunity of

gains from this new consolidation scheme. A first group of 20 of them was chosen to take part

in the trial phase based on their answers to the survey. The project was then extended and

became a permanent solution for more retailers in the city. The area targeted by the project

was first the Broadmead important retail area (Hapgood, 2008). It was then broadened to

Cabot Circus shopping area. In 2011, the scheme was further extended to also serve the

nearby city of Bath (Bristol, 2015).

In practice, the scheme works as follows. First, all the goods coming from the different

24

Figure 3.2: A truck of the Broadmead Consolidation Scheme

Figure 3.3: Map of Bristol area (source: Hapgood, 2008)

suppliers are gathered in the urban freight consolidation center. This warehouse is located

on the western part of the city at around 10 miles (25 minutes) from the center as it can be

seen on Figure 3.3. It is also close to the main road network which ensures easy access to the

facility. Then, the goods are consolidated in order to reduce the number of deliveries to the

city center. Orders from different suppliers to different retailers are transported in the same

truck. The consolidation center also offers value-added services such as packaging collection

or remote stock storage to the retailers (Hapgood, 2008).

The project serves now more than 100 retailers. But it still needs subsidies from the

city council to operate. It does not in itself generates enough revenue to cover all the costs

(Bristol, 2015). Again, economical sustainability appears thus to be a challenge.

The stakeholders involved are the freight carriers, the city authorities, the residents and

25

the retailers.


The project was launched in order to improve the quality of life of the residents through a

more sustainable freight delivery scheme. The idea came from the acknowledgement that

freight movements were partly responsible for the congestion and the pollution in the city.

Freight transport also decreases the feeling of safety of the pedestrians and cyclists. In a

sense, urban freight deliveries decreased thus the quality of life of the residents (Bristol,

2015). In practice, several precise goals were defined (Hapgood, 2008):

• The reduction of the number of freight vehicles,

• The improvement of the quality of air in the city,

• The reduction of conflicts between freight vehicles and the other road users and pedes-

trians,

• The improvement of the delivery service to urban retailers,

• The creation of the opportunity to offer value-added services to retailers.

It is interesting to note that most of them were identified as key performance indicators of

city logistics projects in the previous chapter.

The urban freight consolidation center was therefore chosen as it helps attaining these

goals. It is also important to note that other measures have been taken in order to fur-

ther improve the quality of life in Bristol. Residents are for example invited to use public

transportation, measures are taken to discourage commuting to the city by car and alter-

natives to car ownership are promoted. The city policy is thus not only centered on freight

transportation but also include people transport.


The impacts of the urban freight consolidation scheme were analyzed between 2011 and 2012

(Bristol, 2015). From this study, it appears that for 100 trucks delivering products to the

consolidation center, only 26 are then needed to carry the consolidated goods to the inner

part of Bristol. So the new scheme has allowed avoiding 74% of the truck movements in the

city center (Paddeu et al., 2014). Furthermore, the trucks used from the consolidation center

to the retailers are smaller and cleaner than the ones coming from the suppliers. As for the

emissions, the study did not succeed in quantify the exact impact of the center. It shows

26

once again the difficulty of quantifying benefits of a city logistics project. But as the number

of trucks is reduced, it seems straightforward that the emissions must have decreased. Public

health is thus probably improved. The study also assessed the cost impacts for the freight

carriers. As they have to cover less kilometers, their fuel cost has decreased which is positive

for them.

This study thus shows that the impacts for the residents are positive. They indeed enjoy

a better quality of life as fewer trucks enter the city center. Congestion, emissions, noise and

feeling of vulnerability have therefore decreased.

As for the retailers, the city conducted a satisfaction survey in order to asses the impacts

the scheme has on them and how they value these impacts. From this survey, it appears that

75% of all the retailers chose the consolidation scheme because it improved the quality of

the delivery service and because it decreased their costs. Then, the poll also showed that for

a majority of retailers, the average delivery time has decreased by around 20 minutes. The

scheme also has positive impacts for the workers that are less stressed (45% of the retailers)

and can spend more time with the customers (38%). Besides, the city still subsidies the

project in order to keep the costs reasonable (Hapgood, 2008).

As to the city authorities, they still have to bear part of the cost of the scheme. They

would like in the future not having to participate financially. In order to achieve that goal,

the city council wants to extend the scope of the project and to convince more users to use

the consolidation center (Bristol, 2015). It would allow benefiting from economies of scale

and further reducing the number of trucks in the city. They would also like to strengthen the

use of the value-added services for which retailers pay and that therefore are an important

source of revenues (Hapgood, 2008). However, the city has difficulties to convince new users.

Most of the benefits indeed go to the carriers. The retailers have to pay more to use the

service than for their normal delivery scheme. They are thus only willing to take part in the

consolidation system if the service quality is improved (Bristol, 2015).

Concerning the carriers, the urban freight consolidation scheme has allowed reducing the

kilometers they have to cover to distribute their products. They benefit thus from a cost

reduction thanks to a reduced fuel consumption (Bristol, 2015).


As shown with the different impacts presented above, the Broadmead urban freight consol-

idation center has been a quite successful project. Here are several facts that contribute to

27

this success.

A first success factor was the survey conducted among the retailers and the trial period

that followed. The poll allowed understanding the needs of the future users and thus design-

ing an adapted scheme. Users were thus involved from the early stages of the process. The

trial period then also made it possible to readapt the system if needed after a few months.

It also helped convincing retailers to take part in the project as it was free of charge for

them during this trial period. After this trial, impacts were clearly assessed and that helped

persuading even more users.

Another factor that partly explains the success of this project is the positive impact it has

for users. Most of them have indeed decided to take part in the consolidation scheme because

it improved the quality of their delivery has shown by the study presented above (Bristol,

2015). At the same time, the city is however now facing problems to get more retailers to

use the scheme. This is probably because, in their opinion, the service does not bring enough

benefits or is too stringent. This clearly shows the importance for the new system to bring

tangible and significant improvements to the users. That was already identified as a challenge

in the previous chapter. This is, as seen in the case of Utrecht, an important factor of success

and sustainability of the project.

Then, the extensive support of the city council also explains the success of the measure.

Without subsidies, the consolidation center would not be able to operate. Furthermore, the

city has given prominence to reducing traffic and its negative consequences (Bristol, 2015).

It has therefore, as mentioned above, developed several measures to attain this objective.

This comprehensive and supportive approach to the problem is also a success factor.

3.3 Amsterdam and the Mokum Mariteam Project

The third case study focuses on a project launched in Amsterdam. This case was chosen

for two main reasons. First, because of the numerous characteristics that Amsterdam shares

with Ghent such as their medieval buildings and design. Then, this project is also of interest

because it was launched by private players rather than by public authorities as were the two

previous ones.

3.3.1 Context

As the capital city of the Netherlands and with more than 800,000 inhabitants, Amsterdam

generates a lot of activities. Those activities require a high demand for transport within,

28

from and to the city. Historically, most of this need was met using the 165 canals that go

all around the area (I amsterdam, 2015). However, with the rise of road transportation,

trucks have replaced ships as the main transport mode used for urban freight distribution.

Nowadays, roads are nevertheless saturated and often congested due to freight and passengers

transportation. Around 20,000 freight trips are indeed required daily on the narrow streets

of the city to serve 40,000 delivery points. Loading and unloading activities are furthermore

in 80% of the cases performed on the road due to the scarcity of space. That further worsens

the congestion problem as those operations takes on average 20 minutes during which the

road is often blocked by the truck (Van Duin et al., 2014). Delivering goods through the

canals seems thus an attractive idea in order to limit those issues.

The numerous canals of Amsterdam serve however nowadays extensively for leisure and

tourist activities. Several pleasure crafts, houseboats and touring boats sail in the city

center. The capacity of the canals is thus partially taken by this traffic, leaving only part

of it available for freight transport. The municipality is therefore concerned that the freight

ships would generate extra nuisance on the waterways such as longer transit times, higher

levels of emissions and noise (Van Duin et al., 2014).


Mokum Mariteam is a project of delivery of goods through the canals in Amsterdam. It

started in 2007 as an initiative of two private companies (Icova and Koninklijke Saan) that

were looking for a more efficient way to organize the distribution of products in the city

(Mokum Mariteam, 2010a). The city authority was thus not the initiator of the project and

has not given any incentives to encourage the use of the canals in urban freight distribution

(Van Duin et al., 2014). The project uses an electric vessel that sails on the numerous canals

of Amsterdam to serve different clients. It has a capacity of around 85m3 equivalent to four

urban trucks. It is both used for distribution purposes and for reverse logistics activities. It

delivers goods to several destinations and collects waste at the same time so that its utiliza-

tion is increased. Products in rolling containers, pallets or mesh containers can be shipped

onboard of the Mokum Mariteam boat, it can therefore be used for the transport of a wide

range of products (BESTFACT, 2015). A hydraulic crane is also available on board of the

ship so that products can be efficiently loaded and unloaded. Furthermore, in case a small

distance needs to be covered after the unloading, clarks or platform trucks can be loaded

on board and used so that a wider range of destinations can be reached (Mokum Mariteam,

2010b).

The main actors involved in the project are the private companies (that use and operate

29

this service) and the city authorities. But it also has impacts for citizens and tourists that

have to experience less congested roads but more frequently used canals.

Figure 3.4: The ship of the Mokum Mariteam project.


The main objectives of this project are to better use the infrastructure, to limit climate

change and to improve the image of the companies involved (BESTFACT, 2015).

The initiative indeed came from the assessment that the infrastructure of Amsterdam

was not efficiently used for urban freight distribution. Roads were used too extensively and

canals and their wide network not enough. The idea behind the Mokum Mariteam project is

therefore to better balance the freight transport flow on the different infrastructures of the

city. The objective of doing so is to improve the quality of the distribution service in the

urban area.

The two funding companies also aim at limiting the climate change. Thanks to the re-

duction of the number of trucks needed in the city, emissions of pollutants such as CO2 are

reduced and that helps alleviating climate change. Furthermore, as the boat used is electric,

it does not generate a lot of emissions and is thus environmentally friendly.

The last goal of the founders is to improve their image. By reducing their environmen-

tal footprint and by launching innovative solutions to limit climate change, they hope to

strengthen their brand name. That is important for a private company in order to attract

new clients and retain the existing customers especially in a society that is more and more

conscious about the environment.

Those objectives are quite different from what has been analyzed in the two previous

cases. The reason behind this is probably the fact that Mokum Mariteam was launched by

30

private players rather than by the public authorities. Those groups of actors have different

priorities, as explained in the previous chapter, that explain the different objectives they set.


The project has had several impacts for the different stakeholders.

For the transport companies, the project has two main effects. First, it is a positive

contribution to their image which has a positive effect on sales. Then, using the Mokum

Mariteam ship to deliver bulk products allow decreasing the transport costs (BESTFACT,

2015). All in all, the project allows thus reaching the main focus of those private players that

is profit maximization and cost reduction.

The public authorities are satisfied by the reduction of the number of trucks on the streets.

Their main focus being the welfare of the inhabitants, they value the reduction of emissions,

noise and accidents this project brings. Furthermore, as the ship used is electric, it does not

cause extra noise and pollution on the canals. Finally, they were concerned with the possible

capacity problems due to the addition of freight traffic to the existing flow on the canals. In

practice, no such problems have however been encountered so far. And a study (Van Duin

et al., 2014) even shows that the system could be extended without creating capacity conflicts.

As to citizens and tourists of Amsterdam, the main consequence of the project is the

reduction of the number of trucks in the city. That leads to less road accidents and thus

more safety for them. It also reduces the emissions of pollutants and noise level and improve

therefore their quality of life (BESTFACT, 2015). They are also affected by the higher num-

ber of ships sailing on the canals as part of them use leisure or tourist boats. However, as

explained above, the Mokum Mariteam project has not caused congestion or nuisance on the

canals (Van Duin et al., 2014). Mokum Mariteam is thus a valuable project for them.

Finally, the receivers of the cargo are also affected by the project. The ones that use

the Mokum Mariteam ship indeed profit from the lighter restriction on delivery time. The

city indeed imposes time windows for truck deliveries but not for deliveries done through the

canals (BESTFACT, 2015). Moreover, as there are not any congestion on the canals, the

deliveries of Mokum Mariteam are more reliable than those coming by trucks that are often

stuck on the congested streets.

31


As explained above, the project is a success and has brought positive impacts for the different

stakeholders. There are several reasons that explain this favorable outcome.

First, even if the initiative came from private players, the municipality has played a key

role in cooperating with them. It is an important success factor as it has allowed developing

suitable and workable unloading bays. Without those developments, the project could not

have been implemented (Van Duin et al., 2014). This shows once again the importance of

the involvement and the cooperation of the different stakeholders in the project.

Then, another key success factor lays in the fact that the different organizations taking

part in the project have a clear understanding of the project advantages (BESTFACT, 2015).

It is key that they assess and value the improvements coming with this sustainable solution

as it was explained in the previous chapter.

A last important reason for the success of the project is its utilization both for distribution

and reverse logistics purposes (BESTFACT, 2015). It allows indeed increasing the utilization

of the ship and thus making the project more profitable. As the city does not subsidize the

project, the private players have to make it profitable in order not to incur a loss. Capacity

utilization is important in this respect. Reverse logistics was therefore chosen to tackle

the challenge of being economically viable. The project also benefits from subsidies from

a private player and the regional authorities which also helps achieving satisfying financial

results (Mokum Mariteam, 2010c).

3.4 Lille and the Multimodal City Distribution Center

This case was chosen because Lille has several characteristics in common with Ghent. They

both have around 200,000 inhabitants and have a port in the urban area. Both cities also

share some architectural similitudes. The Multimodal City Distribution Center project is

also interesting because it includes a logistical and a technological part and because it uses

waterborne transport differently than the other cases.

3.4.1 Context

Lille is a city located in the Northern part of France. As stated above, the city in itself hosts

200,000 citizens but it is located in a densely populated region (Lille-Kortrijk-Tournai) where

more than 2 million people live. It generates therefore a high demand for transport. Lille is

32

also an important industrial area that also requires significant need for transport.

The city of Lille is well connected via the different transport modes to the rest of France

and Europe. As for road transport, the city is linked to seven different highways. It is thus

a major connection point on the road network. As for the train, Lille has an interesting

location on the rail grid. A new beltway has been built in 2015 in order to facilitate the rail

freight transport in and around the city. Lille is also the third biggest French inland port

handling around 7 millions tons of cargo each year. It is located on the river Deule. Lille

also has its own airport (Lille Metropole, 2011; Port de Lille, n.d.)).

Road transport is the most used freight transport mode in the city and its surroundings.

It accounts indeed for around 84% of all the freight transport, rail represents 13% and in-

land navigation the remaining 3%. Every day around 120,000 trucks circulate on the roads

of Lille’s district, accounting for around 10% of all the kilometers traveled. Most of those

trucks serve the local market, only 15% of them are involved in transit transport. This high

number of trucks has a significant impact on the urban environment and on the citizens.

For example, around 25,000 people live in an area where noise is above 65dB and is thus a

burden. Congestion is also an issue in the city, the average speed in the area is indeed limited

to around 20km/h. That is partly due to the fact that many trucks stop to load or unload

on unauthorized parking spaces (Lille Metropole, 2011).

Furthermore, access to the city center is getting even more complicated because of the

growing constraints imposed by regulations. Time restrictions and weight limitations are the

two main measures that make urban deliveries harder. In addition to that, space in Lille is

getting more and more expensive. It becomes thus very costly for companies to store goods

in the urban area (BESTFACT, n.d.a).

In this context, city logistics seems thus an interesting tool to improve the urban freight

distribution and reduce its impacts on the city and its citizens. The municipality of Lille has

moreover defined two goals regarding urban freight distribution in its mobility plan for 2020.

The first one is to promote other transportation modes than road haulage. The second one

is to optimize the road freight transport to limit its impacts on the city and residents (Lille

Metropole, 2011).


The project studied here is the Multimodal City Distribution Center that was launched in

2015 by the Chamber of Commerce of Lille and the port of Lille. It has two sides. On the

33

one hand, it includes infrastructure development with an urban distribution center built in

the port area. It is able to receive cargo from three different transport modes (rail, road and

inland navigation) thanks to the multimodal connections of the port. Goods are then stored

or directly transshipped to their destination in the city with delivery trucks or electric or

LPG vans (BESTFACT, n.d.). The idea is to pool cargo so that delivery is optimized and

fewer trucks are required. The project also includes reverse logistics activities. On the other

hand, it also consists of an information sharing system (ULIS: Urban Logistics Intelligent

System). This system allows the different stakeholders to get reliable information related

to the distribution center activities (Citizen Ports, n.d.). This combination of technological

and logistical measures is part of a wider plan with several policies regarding mobility. This

mix of these three aspects is interesting as it is one of the key success factors of city logistics

projects identified in the previous chapter.

Figure 3.5: The Multimodal City Distribution Center.

This project involves different actors of the economics activities: the public and city au-

thorities, the transport and logistics providers, the shops and distributors. Several research

institutes and an university also took part in the development of the project (Citizen Ports,

n.d.).

The first studies done in preparation of this project started in 2012. Then, a pilot project

was launched with one company that used two transport operators to serve four retail points

around the city (Citizen Ports, n.d.). Finally, the actual distribution center was inaugurated

in 2015.


The general idea behind the project is to ensure good access to the city while guaranteeing

good quality of life for the inhabitants. In practice, the project has three main objectives:

34

optimization of urban freight flows, knowledge sharing and increased use of transport modes

that have a softer impact on the environment than trucks (Citizen Ports, n.d.).

• Flows optimization: The idea is to better organize the last mile deliveries to the city

through cargo pooling so that fewer trucks are needed to serve all shops and customers.

It will thus decrease the problem of congestion on the road network and the noise

nuisance. The aim here is also to ensure that the different activities necessary for the

economic life of the city can efficiently take place.

• Knowledge sharing : Through the ULIS information sharing system, the city aims at

providing the different stakeholders involved in the project with reliable information.

Information shared concerns transport needs and capacity of the different users so that

they can collaborate with each other and take thoughtful decisions.

• Promotion of soft transport modes : The city wants to decrease the level of externalities

of the transport operations through a decreased use of diesel trucks. The project thus

also aims at increasing the use of electric trucks in the city center and trains or barges

to reach the distribution center.


As the project has only be launched recently, there are not, to my knowledge, any compre-

hensive impact analyses that have been conducted yet. There are still a couple of impacts

that have been observed (BESTFACT, n.d.a).

First, for the shops and retailers of the city, the new Multimodal City Distribution Center

offers storage capacity at a competitive price. It is an important advantage for them as the

price of storage and retail space is quite high in Lille. The new system also includes reverse

logistics so that they can easily return waste and empty packaging. The distribution center

brings thus valuable advantages for them, it helps reducing their logistics costs.

Then, as to the citizens and the local community, the new distribution organization is

expected to decrease the level of nuisance of freight transport. Less trucks are now needed

to deliver products and the trucks used are electric or LPG driven. Emissions and noise

are thus reduced thanks to this project. It improves therefore the quality of life of the local

residents which is also positive for the city authorities.

As for the transport operators, trips to the city are better planned and optimized which

allows valuable costs savings.

35


As said above, the project was implemented recently, it is therefore not yet possible to assess

if it is a real success or not. There are still several attention points that were identified as

key in the success of the implementation of the project.

First, the location of the Multimodal City Distribution Center played an important role

in the success of the project development. The fact that it is located very close to the city

center and that it offers connection to road, rail and inland navigation networks are two key

points. It indeed allows easy access to the distribution center for consolidated cargo while

still ensuring quick, reliable and flexible deliveries to the city (BESTFACT, n.d.a).

Then, a trial program was used. As seen in the previous chapter, this is important to

assess the financial and physical feasibility and therefore ensure stakeholders involvement.

3.5 Paris and the Vert Chez Vous Project

Finally, the project of Vert Chez Vous in Paris is the last case studied in this thesis. It was

chosen because even though there were high expectations, it did not sustain in the long term.

It is thus interesting to understand the reasons of this failure in order to avoid making the

same mistakes in Ghent.

3.5.1 Context

Paris, as the capital city of France, generates a lot of activities and therefore also a significant

need for transport. Around 800,000 deliveries are indeed performed daily in Paris region and

only 2% of them are done in innovative urban logistics projects (Dablanc, 2014). Most of

those trips (90%) are done by trucks which generate congestion and pollution. They further-

more suffer from time and weight restriction in the city. Trains and barges account for 5%

of the freight transport each.

Paris is strategically located on the French road, rail and waterways networks and is thus

an important transport area. As for the rail network, many lines converge to the city and

make thus Paris easily reachable. However, the infrastructure is shared between freight and

passenger transport which generate conflicts and decrease the service quality. Most of the

flow is either coming or going to the city but part of it is also transit traffic to other regions

(STIF, 2014).

36

The city of Paris has developed a plan regarding urban mobility at the horizon of 2020

in order to make it more sustainable. One of its objectives is to better organize the urban

freight distribution and to promote and facilitate the use of trains and barges. In practice,

actions will be taken concerning infrastructure especially of rail and river transportation

and measures and policies will be adopted to further control and optimize freight transport

(STIF, 2015).


The urban freight distributor Vert Chez Vous launched in 2012 an innovative project called

“Au fil de l’eau”. The idea was to deliver goods in the center of Paris using a barge and

tricycles. The barge sails on the river Seine and makes regular stops where the tricycles are

unloaded and from which they deliver products to their final destination. The ship, equipped

with a built-in crane, also serves as a floating warehouse on which products can be stored.

During the sailing time, the tricycles are loaded with consolidated orders from different cus-

tomers and the route it will take is planned. The delivery teams, after having served all their

clients, board the ship back at one of its next stops. Then the process is redone and more

goods are delivered (BESTFACT, n.d.b).

The tricycles used have a capacity of around 2m3 and 200kg. This service is therefore

intended for parcels of maximum 30kg both for B2B and B2C clients. On average, each

bike covers around 20km a day to serve clients all over the city. The maximum capacity of

the system is around 3000 deliveries per day with a dozen of tricycles (Vert Chez Vous, 2012).

Figure 3.6: The barge and tricycles of the Vert Chez Vous project.

The main stakeholders involved are the company Vert Chez Vous who initiated the

project, Euroflots who operated the ship, the shippers and receivers of the products and

the citizens. The public authorities did not play an important role in the project develop-

ment but they had a supportive attitude towards it.

37


The objectives of the project were fixed by Vert Chez Vous. They include reduction of

emissions and noise, limitation of congestion and limitation of climate change (BESTFACT,

n.d.b).

• Emissions and noise reduction: Vert Chez Vous is a logistics provider that is specialized

in green transport and that aims at offering zero emissions services. This objective is

thus aligned with the vision and mission of the company. The vehicles used are therefore

all electric. Besides, the barge and bicycles can replace trucks and consequently avoid

the emission and noise due to road transport. The idea here is to contribute to the

improvement of the quality of life in Paris.

• Congestion limitation: As the service offered by Vert Chez Vous does not rely on trucks,

it also aims at decreasing congestion in the city and at improving the use of the available

infrastructure. This furthermore helps guaranteeing more reliable deliveries.

• Climate change limitation: This goes with the first objective. Through reducing emis-

sions and pollution of transport activities, Vert Chez Vous participates in the wider

objective of limiting climate change.


The main impacts of the project is the reduction of the number of trucks needed in Paris to

perform all the deliveries required. It allows indeed replacing 15 trucks daily. This therefore

decrease the C02 emissions by a bit more than 200kg daily which means around 50,000kg on

a yearly basis. At the scale of Paris, this is not a lot but these impacts could be extended as

the system was not used to its full capacity (Voies navigables de France, 2013).

Furthermore, the projects had several impacts on the different stakeholders.

As for Vert Chez Vous, this project is a good way to extend its offer of green logistics ser-

vices. It helps thus implementing its vision and mission. However, it also had to bear the cost

of the system. That was apparently problematic as they stopped operating the barge in 2014

for economical reasons. The operating costs were indeed too high to be profitable. This once

again proves the challenge that being economically viable represents for city logistics projects.

As to the shippers and receivers, thanks to this project, they enjoyed more reliable and

flexible deliveries. Vert Chez Vous indeed ensures next-day delivery to its customers and

their service does not suffer from congestion problems. Taking part in the project was also

38

beneficial for their image and improved their environmental footprint.

The public authorities also profit from the project. It indeed helps them to reach their

objective of modal shift away from road haulage to fluvial transport that is part of their

mobility plan for 2020. It also contributes to the reduction of emissions and pollution that

is an objective of the city as well.

Finally, the citizens were impacted by the project as the number of trucks in the city

decreased. The C02 emissions and the atmospheric pollution were therefore reduced. The

level of noise and the congestion were also limited thanks to this system. All in all, the Vert

Chez Vous initiative thus contributed to an improvement of the quality of life in the city.


As stated above, the success was not sustainable in the long run and the project was there-

fore stopped after 2 years. The main reason for this failure is economical, the business case

was not strong enough. The barge used was not designed for urban distribution and its

operating costs were consequently very high. Another difficulty was to find new customers to

improve the capacity utilization of the system (Voies navigables de France, 2013). It seems

thus that the benefits the service brought were not valuable enough for the potential users or

not communicated sufficiently. They were thus not willing to pay extra for this service. Vert

Chez Vous thus decided to stop using it in 2014 but did not completely abandon the idea as

they have since then been investigating to design and invest in a new and more suitable ship

to resume their activities (La Tribune, 2014). Up to now, the service has however not been

relaunched yet.

An interesting point here is the role of the public authorities. As explained above, the

promotion of fluvial transportation is one of the objective of the city mobility plan. They

were and still are thus very interested in the project. But they nevertheless let the project

stop. The reasons why are not very clear. It may be because the project required too much

investments to keep it running and the city was not willing to invest heavily in it. The city

has however shown its interest in the developments regarding the possibility of using another

more suitable ship. The city authorities have indeed stated that they were hoping the system

could restart (La Tribune, 2014).

39

3.6 Lessons learned

Those five cases have highlighted different attention points in the feasibility and success of

city logistics projects. They have allowed identifying some important lessons to keep in mind

while assessing the opportunity of using the waterways to deliver goods in Ghent.

First, a key success factor for a city logistics project appears to be the involvement of

the different parties. It is important that all the people that will be affected by the project

are involved in one way or another in the development and/or the implementation of the

project. Depending on the importance of the stakeholder, its role must be adapted and can

be limited. The cases of Utrecht and Bristol show the important role played by the public

authority who is the initiator of the projects. However, the cases of Amsterdam and Paris

also demonstrate that projects where private players have the main role are also possible. In

both cases, a good cooperation between private and public stakeholders appears nevertheless

to be a requirement for success. It is of high importance that the public authority fully

supports the project and helps realizing it in collaboration with the private actors.

Besides, another important lesson learned from the cases presented in this chapter is the

need for a strong business case. It appears to be hard but essential for the long term survival

of the project that it is profitable and economically viable. The case of Vert Chez Vous

clearly shows that even with the best intentions and a strong motivation to succeed, without

satisfying financial results, it is hard for the project to sustain. This also appears in the

case of Bristol and Utrecht for which public subsidies are still necessary. The main trouble

in all these cases appears to be the attraction of numerous clients to the service in order to

make it more profitable. The public authority seems thus to often have to give a financial

support to the project in order for it to be viable. The case of Amsterdam however shows

that reverse logistics can also be a solution to improve the financial results and to rely less

on public subsidies.

Then, these cases also show that a project must be very well adapted to the local context

to succeed. It must take advantage of the city characteristics and opportunities. The cases

of Utrecht and Lille demonstrate the importance of the physical features of the city to en-

sure the success and the feasibility of the project. They also show the huge opportunity that

having a wide network of waterways in the city can represent in terms of urban transportation.

In addition, measurable and valuable benefits also seem to be key in achieving success

of a project. Being able to show them what benefits could be achieved thanks to the new

system is indeed important to convince the stakeholders of taking part in the project. A trial

40

project appears to be an important step of the project in this respect. It was used in almost

all cases and participates to the success of each of them. It was furthermore also identified as

a key success factor in the literature as seen in the previous chapter. It has the advantage of

testing the system in real conditions to get an idea of what would be the consequences, costs

and revenues of the full scale project. It is therefore a useful tool to acquire stakeholders

involvement and to make sure the system fits the local context.

Finally, a last important ingredient of success of a city logistics project involving water-

borne transport is the use of adequate equipments and the development of suitable infras-

tructure. The built-in crane on the Utrecht Beerboat and on the Mokum Mariteam vessel

both appear to be important facilitators of the operations and therefore contribute to the

success of the project. The case of Vert Chez Vous also shows that without a specialized

vessel it is hard to stay profitable and to sustain. The presence or development of quay walls

and loading and unloading areas also are requirements for success.

Table 3.1 summarizes the main lessons learned in this chapter. For each case, the main

success factors are marked with a +. The absence of a specific ingredient of success identified

in other cases is signaled with a -. In the case of Paris, as the project was a failure, a minus

sign shows that the absence of a factor probably lead to the failure. A question mark is used

when the information available does not allow to determine if the component is present or

not. When a factor does not have significant importance in a particular case, the cell is left

empty.

Table 3.1: Key Success Factors of the different cases

City name StakeholdersInvolvement

CityAuthoritySupport

TrialProject

Adaptationto LocalContext

Benefitsfor Users

ReverseLogistics

Need forSubsidies

Utrecht + + + + + ? +Bristol + + + + + - +Amsterdam + + + +Lille + + + + +Paris - - + - - -

Idealproject

++ +++ +++ ++ +++ + +++

This table allows visually identifying what are the most important success factors of a

city logistics project involving waterways. The last row of the table thus presents the im-

portance of each factor in what would be an ideal successful project. The cells with three

+ designate the most important factors of success. They were identified as key due to their

presence in almost all cases studied here. Support from the city authorities, a trial project,

41

valuable benefits for the users and subsidies appear thus to be of tremendous importance

for success. Factors with two + are also significant as they were existent in a majority of

the cases studied. Stakeholders involvement and adaptation to the local context are thus

important success factors. The ingredients with only one + are the ones that represent an

added value to the project but that do not appear to be essential to ensure its success. This

is the case of reverse logistics that helps several cases to be successful. However, a project

without it has also chances to be a success.

The case studies performed in this chapter bring thus valuable insights on what are the

attention points for a city logistics to be successful and viable. Their differences allow keep-

ing a broad perspective on the subject and identifying the common important aspects. The

analysis of a failure case confirms that the absence of certain factors pointed out as ingredi-

ents for success in the other cases did not allow the project to sustain.

The next step of this analysis is thus to explore the case of Ghent to see whether these

ingredients of success are present. The aim is therefore to assess the chance of a city logistics

project involving waterways to be successful in this particular city. This will be the topic of

the last chapter of this thesis.

43

Chapter 4

City Logistics through Waterways in

Ghent

This chapter focuses on the city of Ghent. The first part of it will present the city, its

physical characteristics and the current context of urban freight transport. In addition, the

existing measures and policies organizing freight distribution in Ghent will be developed.

The second part of this chapter will answer the research question and determine whether a

city logistics project would be likely to be successful in Ghent. In order to do so, the key

success factors pointed out above will be confronted to the context of this particular city.

Finally, several recommendations will be made on the most suitable project characteristics

and implementation process.

4.1 City Description

Ghent is the second largest city of Flanders with around 240,000 inhabitants. It is a medieval

Belgian city that developed at the confluence of two important rivers that are the Scheldt

and the Leie. Due to this advantageous location and its connexion to the sea, it used to play

a significant role in European trade. Today, the city still hosts an important port but it is

not located in its inner part anymore. In the harbour area, several industries are present

which generate a lot of activities and a noteworthy need for transport. Ghent also has one

of the main universities of the country and therefore a significant number of students reside

in the city. The city center is furthermore still characterized by its historical heritage: small

streets and old buildings (Nevens & Roorda, 2014).

What is mainly of interest for this thesis is the current situation in Ghent regarding

urban freight transport. The first question that needs to be answered is indeed whether a

city logistics initiative is required to improve the current urban distribution network. The

44

idea is thus to explore whether there are some problems in this field and whether there are

areas for improvement. It is also important to assess if there is a demand for such a project.

In order to do so, attention will be given in the next subsections to the physical aspects of

the city of Ghent and the current transport context.

4.1.1 Physical Aspects

Several waterways are located in the city of Ghent. This relatively wide network (972km2)

gives rise to opportunities to use waterborne transport in the region. The city is furthermore

densely populated, the demand for products around the waterways is thus high and concen-

trated (Maes et al., 2015). It would therefore be suitable to use them for consolidation of

urban freight distribution.

There are however some important constraints that reduce the range of possible uses.

First, the water level in Ghent is limited in some parts of the network, the draft allowed on

certain waterways is thus relatively low. Only boats of a limited size can consequently sail

safely in those areas. Another issue is the presence of several bridges that are often quite

low restricting the air draft of the ships that can sail underneath. Furthermore, even though

many of these bridges can be opened to provide safe passage for larger ships, they cannot

be moved too often. This would indeed create conflicts with other infrastructure users such

as public transportation, pedestrians and cars. In addition, the speed is limited to 5km/h

on the waterways in the city center. It can therefore be hard for a ship to compete with

other faster transport modes such as trucks. On the other hand, however, the network is

quite wide and does not suffer from congestion. It has to be shared only with leisure and

touristic traffic which does most of the time not extensively use it. It offers thus possibilities

for reliable transport. Finally, a last constraint for waterborne transport is the fact that two

locks give access to the city center (Stad Gent, 2015). Passing through them takes time and

requires a good time planning.

Ghent, as a medieval city, is moreover characterized by a number of small streets with

few loading and unloading areas. Trucks must therefore often stop on the sidewalk or on the

road itself causing congestion and conflicts with other users. The city is thus not favorable to

road transportation (Maes et al., 2015). That is even more true in the center were numerous

roads are pedestrian. Access to these parts of the city is thus restricted for trucks and it

makes deliveries to the many shops located there difficult.

The physical characteristics of Ghent raise thus interesting opportunities to (re)develop

waterborne transport in the city. As there are challenges and difficulties associated to this,

45

it is nevertheless important to assess whether there is a need to change the current transport

situation. Such reasons would arise if urban freight distribution caused problems in the

city and did not fully meet the quality expectations of the receivers, shippers and suppliers.

The next section of this thesis will thus analyze the current transport context and identify

potential reasons to change the way distribution is currently organized.

4.1.2 General Transport Context

In Ghent, the modal split is characterized by a huge part of road transportation (55%),

cycling accounts for 22%, walking for 14% and public transportation for the remaining 9%

(Stad Gent, 2015) as it can be seen on Figure 4.1. This means that the road network is

highly used by different users and risks to be often congested. Trucks involved in freight

distribution have thus to share the infrastructure with a high number of cars as well as with

pedestrians and cyclists. Road transport and more specifically freight haulage therefore are

responsible for several problems in the city. The main ones are congestion, air pollution as

well as noise nuisance.

Figure 4.1: Modal Split in Ghent

Regarding congestion, the road network in and around Ghent is often saturated. In 2014,

on average 52 hours were lost by a vehicle yearly in traffic jams in the city. It is therefore one

of the most congested cities in Europe (INRIX, 2016). Knowing that an hour wasted because

of congestion costs on average 45e to a freight transporter, one can imagine the global costs

of congestion (Valgaeren, n.d.). Traffic jams furthermore affect deliveries reliability and pre-

dictability which can be a problem for carriers and receivers. They also increase the average

delivery time which is disadvantageous for both suppliers and receivers. As it will be further

discussed below, congestion also causes high level of pollution and noise which are damaging

for all Ghent citizens and visitors. Freight transportation is not the only responsible for

congestion, people transportation also plays a role. Actions should therefore be taken on

46

both levels to efficiently decrease it and improve the city accessibility and livability.

As for air pollution, transport has been identified as the main source of emissions of air

pollutants such as CO2, particulate matters (PM) and SOx in Ghent. It generates more

pollution than industries and households in the city. These pollutants are damaging for

public health as well as contributing to climate change. Their discharge should therefore be

limited. These emissions are furthermore not foreseen to decline in the future even with the

forecasted technological improvements of vehicles and propulsion techniques. The reasons

for this are that the demand for transport (both of passengers and freight) is forecasted

to increase and that congestion causes important air pollution. The highly populated and

industrialized Flanders is moreover one of the most polluted areas of Europe characterized

by a dense road network. However it is noteworthy that the overall air quality has been

improving in the past years. In Ghent, the air quality was monitored in 2008. As shown on

Figure 4.2, it appeared that for 62% of the days it was good to excellent, for 27% middling

and for 8% it was bad (Stad Gent, 2010).

Figure 4.2: Air Quality in Ghent in 2008

With an unsatisfying air quality for around one third of the time, there are areas for

improvements in Ghent. Measures to limit emissions coming from transport while ensuring

demand satisfaction are thus required. Waterborne transport could be an interesting solution

as it is, as explained above, more environmentally friendly than road transportation. A barge

replacing several trucks emits less pollutant for the same number of goods transported.

Concerning noise pollution, it was identified as one of the main nuisance encountered

by Ghent citizens in 2013 when a survey on well-being in the city was conducted. Road

transportation plays an important role in this problem. It appeared indeed that 30% of the

respondents stated that they had experienced noise nuisance due to road traffic during the

previous 12 months. Based on this finding, the city conducted an analysis on noise and

concluded that around 15% of all Ghent inhabitants were subject to high noise level (more

than 70dB) caused by road transport. This is significantly higher than the recommendations

of the World Health Organization of a maximum of 30dB to ensure good sleep quality (Stad

47

Gent, n.d.). Trucks that are often noisier than personal cars are likely to be responsible for

part of the problem. Using waterborne transport that is almost silent to reduce the number

of trucks in the city seems thus an interesting solution for this problem as well.

Road transportation including trucks used for freight distribution is thus responsible for

congestion, noise and pollution nuisances. It contributes therefore to the reduction of the

quality of life in Ghent. It would consequently be useful to improve the way urban freight

transport is organized to limit its negative impacts on the city.

4.1.3 Freight Distribution Characteristics

In order to assess whether a city logistics project involving waterborne transport has chances

to be successful, it is important to analyze the freight flows in the city. This section aims

therefore at depicting what are the characteristics of the city distribution in Ghent. Atten-

tion will be given to the way goods are delivered and the volumes that are carried. Then, the

main practical problems regarding urban freight distribution encountered by the receivers

and carriers will be pointed out.

First, as for the organization of freight distribution in Ghent, an interesting aspect is the

type of vehicles used. From a survey conducted in 2010 (Vlaams Instituut Voor Mobiliteit,

2010), it appears that most (33%) of the deliveries are done by trucks of less than 18 tons.

Only 16% are performed by trailer trucks, 17% by personal cars or vans (below 3.5 tons) and

13% by small trucks of less than 7.5 tons. The remaining 37% are done by other types of

vehicles. The huge proportion of relatively small trucks helps ensuring their good filling rate.

The survey indeed shows that 80% of the trucks driving in Ghent are filled at 75% or more.

But it increases the total number of vehicles in the city which leads to higher congestion,

noise and pollution. Ghent seems furthermore to generate significant demand for deliveries

of goods. The capacity of trucks must be extensively used to serve different locations in the

city. On average a vehicle stops indeed 15 times in Ghent to deliver products to different

receivers around the city.

Besides, deliveries are spread more or less equally between the week days. Saturdays and

Sundays are less busy days with only few deliveries performed. However, the other days

each see similar amounts of deliveries. As to the time of the day, most of the goods (58%)

are delivered in the morning. A significant number of deliveries (21%) is also done in the

afternoon or has a highly varyiable schedule (17%). Only few parcels are delivered in the

evening (2%) or at night (2%) (Vlaams Instituut Voor Mobiliteit, 2010).

48

Furthermore, another important aspect of freight transport in Ghent is the reverse lo-

gistics activities that also generate an important traffic. From the same survey, it appears

indeed that only a minority (10%) of receivers do not engage in this type of activities. The

ones that have reverse flows of products and packaging either perform these operations them-

selves (14%) or send the goods back in the same truck that is used for deliveries (56%) or in

another vehicle of their supplier (14%) (Vlaams Instituut Voor Mobiliteit, 2010).

A last interesting aspect of the freight transport organization in Ghent is the availability

of storage space in shops in the city. Most of them (89%) are relatively small (less than

300m2) and therefore do not have much room for storage. They use thus warehouses outside

the city to store their goods and rely on frequent deliveries to adapt to the changing demand.

This is relevant because it means that they have to be delivered regularly and in small quan-

tities. Their demand for transport is thus high and variable, it must furthermore be met with

reliability and flexibility to avoid shortages and lost sales (Vlaams Instituut Voor Mobiliteit,

2010).

In addition, the study of the Vlaams Instituut Voor Mobiliteit (2010) also identified the

most active streets in Ghent in term of volume of goods delivered weekly. Around half of

the top 20 streets are located in the direct vicinity of a waterway and give thus rise for

opportunity of waterborne distribution. Most of these streets furthermore gather different

types of receivers: horeca sector and shops selling various range of products (clothes, jewelry,

sport equipment, housing equipment,...). The top 2 streets (Veldstraat and Woodrow Wilson

plein) together account for more than 2000m3 of goods delivered per week, that is around

one third of the total volume transported to the 20 main roads. They are both located at

least partially next to a waterway which would allow waterborne transportation.

As to the main problems linked to urban freight distribution faced by carriers and re-

ceivers in Ghent, the main issues mentioned by both groups of stakeholders are related to

loading and unloading zones. They are too scarce in the city center and often located too

far away from where the delivery is required. This problem is encountered by 11% of the

receivers and 28% of the carriers active in Ghent. Unloading or loading spots also are often

taken due to unauthorized parking of other vehicles. That is an issue faced by 12% of re-

ceivers and 22% of carriers. These are problems in themselves but they also lead to another

important issue. Trucks have indeed often to stop outside those spots and therefore block the

street or create conflicts with other users which add to congestion and safety issues (Vlaams

Instituut Voor Mobiliteit, 2010).

49

Another important problem for transport operations in Ghent are the nuisances due to

the numerous and significant road works. It concerns 26% of the receivers and 15% of the

transport operators. Time windows also appears to create problem for some of the receivers

(9%) and carriers (7%). Both groups often (17% of receivers and 15% of carriers) face issues

related to road equipment and infrastructure (Vlaams Instituut Voor Mobiliteit, 2010).

Most of these problems are specific to road haulage and would thus disappear if other

modes such as waterborne transport were used. It is however likely that another mode would

bring other issues. It is nevertheless very interesting to keep those problems in mind while

developing a project of modal shift to waterborne transport. It gives indeed ideas on what

type of characteristics such a project should have to convince players to take part in it. If

it solves several of those issues while still meeting the requirements of the stakeholders, it is

likely to be chosen.

Aside from those practical problems, there are also political bottlenecks that add to the

difficult road transportation context in Ghent. First, there are not enough measures and

policies aiming at reducing the number and frequency of unauthorized parking on the un-

loading and loading areas. Then, time windows restricting access to certain part of the city

create peaks of traffic. Those peaks often overlap with rush hour and thus further add to

the congestion problem. These time restrictions also differ from one area to another making

it difficult for trucks to serve different clients all over the city. Finally, the city authorities

and the shops and restaurants do not collaborate enough (Vlaams Instituut Voor Mobiliteit,

2010).

In light of this difficult context and those problems affecting the general quality of life

and the quality of delivery services, it seems obvious that there are reasons to improve urban

freight distribution in Ghent and to develop new city logistics initiatives. The city therefore

acknowledges the need for a mobility plan that includes urban freight transport.

4.1.4 Existing Actions Regarding City Logistics

Now that reasons to engage in city logistics projects in Ghent have been identified, let us

take a look at what is currently done to organize urban freight distribution.

First, the city of Ghent, as already mentioned above, has developed a mobility plan with a

time horizon to 2030 in order to improve the accessibility and attractiveness of the city. This

plan includes both passengers and freight transportation as well as the different transport

modes.

50

In this program, the city authorities define several objectives regarding urban transport

in heavy vehicles (trucks and busses) (Stad Gent, 2015):

• The improvement of the freight traffic quality and safety.

• The better organization of freight transport taking into account the port as well as the

current and future business zones in order to limit its burden on the city center and

the areas in between attraction poles.

• The organization and structure of the urban freight distribution (loading and unloading

activities).

• The development of a plan regarding touring busses.

Several measures are taken regarding urban freight distribution to achieve those objec-

tives.

First, truck access to the city center is restricted by time windows. In order to deliver or

load products between 11am and 6pm in the pedestrian areas, trucks need a special permit.

Furthermore, trucks of more than 10 tons cannot enter those areas at any time (Mobiliteits-

bedrijf Stad Gent, n.d.).

The city is also developing a routing system for trucks that will allow to better organize

freight transport in and around the city. The idea is to separate local transport and transit

traffic and therefore to designate suggested routes for trucks in the city. When selecting those

roads, attention was paid to reducing the number of trucks passing through the residential

neighborhoods and to the safety and the protection of other roads users (Stad Gent, 2015).

This will thus hopefully reduce the level of noise in housing areas and reduce the number of

accidents as well as limit congestion.

The city further acknowledges the opportunities that city logistics could represent for

Ghent due to the problems it is currently facing. In its plan for 2030, Ghent authorities

thus developed a global vision regarding urban freight distribution. The city wants to play

a stimulating, coordinating and facilitating role in city logistics initiatives. The authorities

reckon the importance of a good collaboration between public and private players whom

should be able to take initiatives. They should, in the opinion of the Ghent city authori-

ties, be accountable for the managerial and operational parts of the project (Stad Gent, 2015).

51

However, the city authorities are still lacking knowledge to implement a concrete action

plan. They therefore identified areas for future research as well as opportunities in this field.

This is the first step of the process that will normally be followed by the implementation of

several projects. One of the areas identified is the possible use of waterways for transporta-

tion both of passengers and freight. Another interesting idea identified is the development of

an urban freight consolidation scheme with an urban consolidation center. The city therefore

conducted two studies on this topic. The first one, in 2004, showed that globally the opinion

of receivers on consolidation scheme was negative. The main difficulties identified were the

high costs, the reluctance to collaborate with competitors, the fear to loose the valuable

direct contact between supplier and receiver and the fact that big retail chains already had

their own optimization scheme. It was thus decided not to start a consolidation project.

But in 2010, the topic was once again investigated. It still appeared that a huge majority of

receivers (75%) were not interested in taking part in such a project. The city nevertheless

chose to push a change and to open such a center as of June 2015 in collaboration with City

Depot that is operating it. The warehouse is located in the outer part of the city and is well

connected to the road network and thus easily accessible. It gathers products coming in big

trucks and then organize their efficient deliveries with greener and smaller vehicles to the city

center (Van Keymeulen, 2013; City Depot, 2015).

Aside from this plan, an interesting trial project was conducted in 2014 with the support

of the city authorities: Distribouw Langemunt. The idea was to deliver building materials on

a barge to a construction site located in the center of Ghent along the Leie. The chosen loca-

tion is in the pedestrian area and is difficult to access by road as the front side of the building

is in a shopping area. But the back side of the construction site was ideally located for access

by barge as it was on the river bank. This project took thus advantage of this interesting

location to deliver building materials and collect waste thanks to a barge equipped with a

built-in crane instead of trucks (Vlaams Instituut Voor Mobiliteit, n.d.). This pilot project

aimed at assessing whether waterborne transportation could be an interesting solution to

the accessibility problems of the inner part of Ghent. Cost and benefits for both private

and public stakeholders have therefore been monitored. Besides, the technical feasibility was

also analyzed and best practices concerning vessel type and size, bottleneck activities and

stakeholders involvement were derived (Vlaams Instituut Voor Mobiliteit, 2015).

In practice, the objectives of the project were to ensure good accessibility to the city

center and the numerous shops for the different users including customers, shop owners and

the construction industry. It also aimed at reducing the noise nuisance and the congestion

in this part of the city by decreasing the number of trucks driving to the construction site

52

(Vlaams Instituut Voor Mobiliteit, n.d.).

During this pilot project, 253 tons of material and waste were transported on the barge

accounting for a dozen of trips. The barge used did not have any propeller and had therefore

to be pushed by a pusher boat. Several problems concerning water level and locks were

encountered.

The project was financed by the waterways managers, the city authorities and the real

estate developer. The operational costs of this trial were moreover relatively high for several

reasons. First, the required vessel specifications made it hard to find a suitable boat. The

chosen one had therefore to be brought from another location to the city of Ghent especially

for this project and that was costly. Then, another reason why the running costs were quite

high is the current manning regulations. It is mandatory to always have two people on board

of a ship equipped with a crane which makes its operations costly. Finally, the barge had to

be adapted to the project and equipped with cranes. This also represents an important cost

(Vlaams Instituut Voor Mobiliteit, 2015).

The effects of the Distribouw Langemunt project on the city of Ghent were also measured

and analyzed. It allowed reducing the number of trucks entering the inner part of the city by

75. The project thus met its objective of contributing to reduction of noise and congestion

in the city. Furthermore, thanks to the use of the barge, no trucks or dumpsters were parked

on the public space. That is an important advantage considering the location of the con-

struction site in the pedestrian and shopping area. It makes walking around and shopping

in the street more pleasant for the visitors and citizens. Then, the barge also served as a

buffer location to store materials. This was useful for the different players involved in the

construction activities who could use it in case the operations did not go exactly as planned.

(Vlaams Instituut Voor Mobiliteit, 2015).

The project enabled the city authorities to identify some attention points. The first les-

son learned thanks to Distribouw Langemunt is that the handling costs are high. However,

they can be limited through horizontal cooperation between the different actors involved in

the construction. It is important for the financial results to carry significant volumes. That

sometimes require transporting materials from several suppliers on the same trip. Costs could

also be reduced if several construction sites could be served by the same barge and cranes. It

would indeed also ensure high volume of materials on every trip and a higher utilization rate

of the barge. This is important for the economical viability of the project that was identified

as a key attention point for success of city logistics projects in the previous chapter. Then,

53

another lesson is the necessity of an hourly planning of the transport activities especially for

the locks operations. An important attention point here is the need for a good collaboration

and communication between the different players that are the city, the waterways managers,

the project leaders and the construction companies. Again this was identified as a success

factor of city logistics projects in the previous chapter. Finally, this project has highlighted

the importance of the support of the city and the waterways managers to facilitate and en-

courage this type of initiatives. Their role includes permitting, developing mobility policy,

managing quays, ensuring navigability and dredging (Valgaeren, n.d.). It is thus key to en-

sure the technical feasibility of the project. Policies can also be a useful tool to push players

to become users of the system.

The project was considered as a success by the city. As from 2016, most of the building

materials will therefore be transported by barge to construction sites located on the river

banks (Vlaamse Overheid Department Mobiliteit en Openbare Werken, 2015).

This project thus shows the interest of the city for waterborne urban transport. It also

confirms the opportunities waterways represents for city logistics while highlighting several

difficulties.

To sum up, there are, in Ghent, already several actions taken to better organize urban

freight distribution and to reduce its impacts on the city. The city of Ghent seems to devote

noteworthy attention to this problem and to be investigating new ideas and projects to further

improve its accessibility and livability. There is however still some areas for improvements

and interesting opportunities. Based on this diagnosis, it is now interesting to assess whether

the city of Ghent has the required characteristics for a city logistics project involving water

to be feasible and viable. This will be the topic of the next section.

4.2 Discussion: Assessment of Key Success Factors in

the Case of Ghent

In the previous chapter, several key success factors for city logistics projects using waterways

were identified. Based on the Ghent context developed above, those attention points will

be evaluated to see whether the required conditions are present in this city and therefore

whether there is an opportunity for a city logistics initiative to be feasible and viable.

First, achieving good involvement of the different stakeholders is important to ensure

success of a city logistics project. What was identified as especially essential is a good public

54

private partnership. Both private and public stakeholders should be willing to collaborate

with each other and city authorities must be willing to support the project. The Ghent city

authorities through their mobility plan clearly draw importance to the transport situation

and its improvement. In addition, the city states that it wants to play a facilitator role

in city logistics projects and that it is ready to support initiatives coming from the private

sector. The two projects described above (the urban consolidation center of City Depot and

the Distribouw Langemunt) also prove that this statement is applied in practice. The city

authorities of Ghent are thus ready to collaborate with the private sector on city logistics

matters. They seem also to be keen to support projects that could help improving the current

problems linked to urban freight distribution. As for private stakeholders, the question is

whether there are some organizations that would be willing to collaborate, operate and/or

take part in such a project. They should moreover have sufficient knowledge, expertise and

equipment to do so. Again the two projects presented above show that such players exist

and can be convinced to participate or even launch the project themselves. All in all, there

seems to be opportunities for successful public private partnership in Ghent to develop a city

logistics project.

Aside from this, involvement from other stakeholders is also required in the project imple-

mentation and can be challenging to achieve. In the case of Ghent, the waterways manager

would probably need to be involved as canals and rivers need to be adapted for freight trans-

port. It was anyway the case for the Distribouw Langemunt project. They seem thus to be

ready to take part in city logistics initiatives.

Then, another important group of players are the receivers. They are key for the financial

success of the project. In order to convince them to take part in the initiative, it should

have positive effects for them. As for Ghent, with the current restrictions on truck access

to the city center and the problems linked to congestion, there are areas for improvement

regarding urban freight distribution. It seems thus likely that a city logistics project that

partly solve these problems without significantly increasing the costs would be welcomed by

the receivers. However, as it was explained above, most of the receivers in Ghent were not

willing to participate in a consolidation scheme in 2010. Obviously, a project of waterborne

urban freight transport requires at least some consolidation. It may thus be challenging to

convince them to take part in the project. Analyzing the results of the City Depot project

could be useful in order to understand how they succeed in attracting clients. The fact that

the project is environmentally friendly is also a valuable argument. It also increases the

importance of the good performance and service quality of the delivery scheme developed.

Receivers will indeed only participate if the project meets their needs in terms of service

attributes and quality. Involving them in the early stage of the process seems thus important

55

to adapt the service characteristics to their requirements.

Finally, the citizens of Ghent also need to be involved. They must be convinced that the

public subsidies that would probably be needed to support to project are good investments.

As a significant part of them suffers from noise nuisance, air pollution and congestion, it

seems likely that they would be satisfied if the project allows reducing those problems.

To sum up, Ghent seems to have all the necessary characteristics to achieve sufficient

involvement of the different stakeholders for a city logistics project to be successful. Con-

vincing receivers to take part in it may however be challenging. Special attention should

therefore be given to the early involvement of this key group.

Then, another key success factor of city logistics projects especially in the long run is its

financial viability. Most of the cases studied above rely on public subsidies to sustain. This

is however not favorable to the long term sustainability of the project. When the priorities

of the city authorities will change, the project may not keep its financial support and risks

disappearing. An ideal city logistics scheme should therefore attain good financial results

without public intervention. In order to do so, it is very important to build a strong business

case from the start of the process. Costs must be limited and balanced with revenues.

As for costs, from the different cases studied in this thesis, it appears that vessel oper-

ations and transshipment are the main drivers of it. In the case of Ghent, the Distribouw

Langemunt trial project brings the same conclusions especially with the current legislation on

manning requirements. A challenge in this city is the current state of the waterways. They

indeed only allow navigation of small ships with limited draft and height. The locks also add

to the sailing time and therefore to the costs. The vessel should therefore be well chosen tak-

ing these constraints into account. The operation costs are furthermore mostly independent

from the quantities of goods carried. It is thus important to consolidate significant quantities

of products and therefore to have a significant number of users. As for transshipment costs, a

city logistics projects using waterways is most of the time a multimodal transport solution, it

therefore generates costs to go from one mode to the other. In order to limit these expenses,

locations are important as well as equipments. On the one hand, locations indeed determine

the accessibility and therefore the time and equipment needed to perform transshipment.

Both the location of the consolidation point where goods are loaded and the ones of the re-

ceivers influence the costs of the service. In Ghent, there are numerous shops and restaurants

in the direct vicinity of the waterways. Several receivers are thus easily accessible by barge

which limits thus the transshipment costs. There are also some interesting locations where

to locate the loading point that are on the waterways, in the outer part of the cit and easily

reachable by truck. On the other hand, equipments are key to ensure efficient operations.

56

The built-in crane on board of the ship appears, in several of the cases studied, to be an

interesting solution to facilitate transshipment activities and limit their costs.

As to revenues, the main driver is the number of customers that the service attracts. The

more clients there are, the more advantageous it is to consolidate cargo and the bigger are

the revenues. The operations costs of the vessel being high, it is furthermore important to

spread them on a significant volume of goods carried. It is therefore key to transport at

least a critical mass of products that makes the service profitable. An important challenge is

thus to attract enough users. In Ghent, as stated above, it may be challenging to convince

numerous clients to take part in the project. However, the city center is densely populated

and contains a significant concentration of shops and restaurants. There is thus high chance

that a significant number of goods could be transported via the waterways and consolidated

to improve the efficiency of Ghent urban distribution. Besides, reverse logistics can also help

attaining a sufficient volume as it was seen in the cases of Amsterdam and Lille. It indeed

allows to get revenues for the return trip and increase the utilization of the ship. It would

therefore be interesting to collect waste and packaging from the receivers. In addition, a city

logistics project also brings social benefits that should be taken into account even though

they are often not directly monetized.

Making a city logistics project involving water profitable would probably be challenging

in Ghent due to the high operating costs and the difficulty to find users. The Distribouw

Langemunt project still shows that it is not impossible to achieve. Reverse logistics and

cargo bundling are key. The vessel choice also plays a role. A built-in crane seems to be

a good way to decrease loading and unloading costs but at the same time increase the op-

erating costs. It means indeed that two operators must be on board at all times. Public

subsidies will still probably be needed especially in the beginning when the number of users

will, in all likelihood, be limited. The challenge will then be to make it viable without public

intervention in the long term by convincing enough users to take part in it. The interven-

tion of public authorities can nevertheless be justified by the non-monetized benefits the

project would bring to the city. It would allow reducing the number of trucks in Ghent.

That would decrease the congestion level and therefore improve the accessibility of the city

and especially its center. It would also make the quality of air better by reducing the emis-

sions of the transport operations. Then, it would reduce the noise nuisance coming from

freight distribution activities. All these benefits do not directly bring monetary revenues

and are therefore not taken into account in the financial results of a city logistics project.

They are however highly valuable benefits and can consequently justify a public intervention.

57

In addition, a good adaptation to the local context has been identified as another key

success factor of a city logistics project. The city of Ghent has advantageous characteristics

for the development of this kind of initiatives. The fact that many people live and many

shops and restaurants are located close to a relatively wide waterways network is one of

these advantages. The restrictions on truck haulage also are an opportunity to develop other

transport modes such as inland navigation. There are however several challenges in Ghent

that constrain the development of such a project. The low water level, the small size of the

waterways in the inner-city and the presence of two locks make freight waterborne transport

more difficult. As stated above, the vessel should therefore be wisely chosen not to be too

affected by theses constraints while still being able to carry enough volume. It seems inter-

esting to analyze the choice that was made in Utrecht and to use a similar vessel in Ghent

as both cities share similar constraints on navigability.

Besides, another key success factor is the measurable and valuable benefits that the project

should bring to its users. In order to attract clients to the service, it is key to be able to de-

scribe them the benefits and consequences the service will have on their activities. The cases

studied in the previous chapter show that a trial project can be very useful in this respect. In

Ghent, the Distribouw Langemunt pilot project was conducted in this perspective, to assess

what would be the consequences of using waterways for urban transport. The impacts on the

environment were however, to my knowledge, not evaluated but can be important arguments

in our more and more environmentally conscious world and should be included in the impact

assessment. Moreover, it is important that the benefits measured are well communicated

to the clients and that they are valuable for them. To achieve this goal and make sure the

project answers the needs of the future users, performing studies and surveys on the current

situation and the problems encountered by the receivers appears to be an efficient tool as it

was seen in the case of Bristol. The city authorities of Ghent have already conducted several

studies on noise level, pollution and transport flow that bring valuable information on what

the main issues are and where they are located. An interesting survey collecting and analyz-

ing the opinions and problems of the receivers concerning urban freight distribution was also

conducted. It seems however important to communicate to shops, restaurants and potential

receivers in the city center to understand what are their views on the specific subject of using

waterways in city logistics. To sum up, the current transport context is well documented in

Ghent and could therefore be used as a basis to measure impacts of a city logistics project

especially if it is complemented by a survey on receivers opinion on waterborne transport.

Finally, a last success factor identified thanks to the cases studies of the previous chapter

is the use and presence of suitable equipment and infrastructure.

58

On the one hand, as for the equipments, the vessel choice, as already mentioned above,

appears to be very important for the success of the project. The Distribouw Langemunt

project also shows that it is not easy to find a suitable vessel. There are several questions to

be answered: should it be electric or diesel? What is the adequate size that can safely sail

on the waterways while being able to carry sufficient volume? Should it be equipped with

a crane? In the case of Ghent, the size is limited by the size of the waterways, the water

level and the low bridges. The vessel must therefore be rather small. However, as seen in the

case of Utrecht, this does not mean that it cannot be successful. The question of the built-in

crane is also sensitive. It increases indeed the price of the vessel and the operation costs

because of the stringent manning regulations but makes loading and unloading operations

more efficient. As to the choice between a diesel or an electric boat, to maximize the positive

environmental impact, it seems more interesting to go for an electric propulsion system that

was also chosen in several of the cases studied.

On the other hand, regarding the infrastructure, using waterborne transport in urban

distribution requires that quays and (un)loading areas are available in the city center close

to the final destination of the goods. In Ghent, some investments would probably be needed

to maximize the sailing reach of the vessel. It is thus very important, as already mentioned

above, to acquire support of the public authorities and involvement of the waterways manager.

To sum up, most of the key success factors for city logistics project are present in Ghent.

There is thus chances that such an initiative would be successful. There are however some

challenges to be expected regarding the financial results of the solution. Due to the physical

characteristics of the waterways in Ghent, operating a vessel on them will probably be very

costly. It is therefore of high importance to ensure high revenues of the service through a

good adaptation to the customers needs that helps achieving a high number of users.

4.3 Recommendations: Elements for a Succesful Project

in Ghent

It has been established in the previous section that Ghent has most of the important factors

leading to successful city logistics projects. Based on these findings, this section aims at

giving recommendations on the characteristics that such a project should have to maximize

its chances to be adopted and viable. First, attention will be drew to the kind of service

that should be chosen and the geographical areas that should be targeted. Then, the focus

will be on the type of products that seems the most suitable for waterborne transport in

Ghent. The vessel type that suits the Ghent context the most will also be identified. Finally,

recommendations will be given on the implementation process and its different phases.

59

First, different types of distribution systems involving waterborne transport could be de-

veloped. In all cases, goods are consolidated in a location a bit outside of the city center

where they can be loaded on the barge. The difference between the systems then lays in

the last steps of the process. On the one hand, a first option is to bring the goods by ship

directly to their final destination as in the cases of Utrecht and Amsterdam. The barge stops,

in this case, in the immediate vicinity of the receiver and products are unloaded there. Only

a few meters have therefore to be covered once the goods have been brought to the ground.

On the other hand, as it was the case in Paris, another possibility is that the barge stops

at specific locations where bicycles are unloaded. The latter then bring the goods to their

final destination that can be a few kilometers away from the quay. The case of Lille shows

another possibility that is to use waterborne transport to deliver products to the consolida-

tion center and then to deliver them with small and green vehicles to their destination in the

city. In Ghent, there are a significant number of shops, restaurants, houses and buildings in

the close vicinity of the waterways. It seems thus a good idea to start with the first option

that requires less equipments and workers and that has proved itself to be successful both

in Amsterdam and Utrecht as well as in the Distribouw Langemunt project. The area of

actions should then be carefully chosen to maximize the chance of success of the project.

In addition, a wide range of products are distributed to the city and could therefore be

part of the project. Shops needs to receive the various goods they sell, restaurants and bars

must be delivered with the drinks and foods they serve, construction sites require building

materials and offices and citizens often demands for parcels to be deliver to them for example.

There are thus several possibilities of product groups to include in a city logistics project.

A first option is to choose to transport building materials through the water to the city

center. This was the focus of the Distribouw Langemunt project. The advantage of this

solution is that building materials are heavy products and are often needed in huge quantity

at once making road transportation difficult but suiting waterborne transport better. A

challenge here is the fact that demand for such products is not constant neither in terms of

volume nor in terms of location.

Another possibility is to distribute drinks to bars and restaurants as it is the case in

Utrecht. Again those products are quite heavy and fit thus well waterborne transport. The

difficulty is however to bring those goods inside the shops. A short distance often need indeed

to be covered and trolleys may thus be required.

Besides, waste transportation could also be done through waterways. Collecting the

different types of waste from the shops, restaurants and even private buildings and bringing

them to the treatment plant could help reducing the number of trucks in the city. The positive

60

side of this option is that high volumes could probably be easily achieved. Furthermore,

it gives opportunities for combining it with regular deliveries so that the ship utilization

is increased. It would however require the collaboration of many different players. The

vessel would also have to make very regular stops that reduce its speed and require suitable

infrastructure and equipments at each location.

Finally, a last option is to transport parcels and packages to shops or even final customers

as it was done in Paris. The advantage is then the numerous customers that can be served

and the big volumes that could therefore be carried. It is however also a challenge to convince

many small players to take part in the project in order to acquire a satisfying client basis.

It can also be difficult to deal with many different customers and to meet their various

requirements.

Those four options have thus their positive and negative aspects. In the case of Ghent,

I think the ones that make more sense and that have the most chance to succeed are the

two first ones in combination with waste transportation. With the Distribouw Langemunt

project, it was already shown that transporting building materials on barges has positive

impacts on the city and that making it profitable is challenging but possible. Then, the

many restaurants and bars in the close vicinity of the waterways make the second option

also possible. Furthermore, drinks are often transported in a specific packaging that has to

be returned to the supplier what opens the opportunity for reverse logistics. It would thus

help making this option profitable. It seems thus worth it to further investigate both these

options to see whether they could be made profitable and whether potential users can be

found for each of them.

As to the areas that should be targeted in the project, the study (Vlaams Instituut Voor

Mobiliteit, 2010) on volumes distributed to each street in the inner part of Ghent is a valuable

asset to identify them. The project should include the streets where high volumes of goods

are required and that are in the immediate vicinity of a waterway. Such streets include

the Veldstraat (number 1 on Figure 4.3), Woodrow Wilsonplein (number 2), Brabantdam

(number 3), Langemunt (number 4) and Oudburg (number 5). The ships itinerary should

thus be based on those destinations but could include other locations that would be in

between the main streets. That is true if the project focusses on the delivery of drinks to

bars and restaurants.

However if the aim is to distribute building materials to construction sites, the areas to

include in the scope should be all the river banks. Construction sites can indeed be located

everywhere on all types of buildings. A specific itinerary will then have to be developed when

the destinations are known.

While designing the geographical coverage, it is also important to take into consideration

61

Figure 4.3: Map of the center of Ghent (source: Google Maps)

the traffic of touristic boats sailing in certain areas of the city. In summer, this flow can be

quite busy and conflicts could therefore arise. It seems thus of great importance to involve the

operators of those ships in the project so a solution that suits their needs can be found. They

could furthermore be valuable allies in order to convince the waterway manager to improve

the navigability of the rivers and canals. They would indeed also benefit from improvements

that would ease their navigation and that may reduce their operating costs. Tourist boats

operators should thus also be involved in the development and implementation process of the

project.

Moreover, the vessel should be wisely chosen to facilitate profit. The type of boat selected

will obviously depends on the type of service offered and the type of goods carried. In the

case of direct deliveries to the clients suggested above, the ship should be equipped with

a crane and trolleys to be able to efficiently and independently deliver the goods to their

final destination. As for the type of products chosen, if building materials are transported

the boat should probably be relatively big to be able to carry enough material at once. It

should also be stable as the goods carried would be quite heavy. If, on the other hand, drinks

for restaurants and bars are transported, the boat could be smaller and should be able to

transport the different sizes and shapes of packagings. In any case, attention should be given

to the constraints imposed by the waterways characteristics. The ship should be able to sail

62

safely and to maneuver efficiently on them. This limits thus the draft, the height and the

length of the boat to be selected.

In addition, as developed in the literature review, it is important that a city logistics

project includes technological, political and logistical aspects. Aside from the ship sailing on

the waterways and delivering goods to receiver, the project should therefore include an IT

system that enhances information sharing between the different stakeholders. It should also

be easily usable and compatible with existing systems. This is important for the planning

of the activities and the optimization of the cargo bundling operations. Then, political mea-

sures should also be taken to give incentives to use this particular scheme. This is already

the case in Ghent with policies restricting truck use. It could however go a step further.

Last but not least, the project should fit the requirements of the logistics providers and

be adapted to the local logistical context. It is thus once again important to involve those

players in the development of the project and to take their needs and constraints into account.

Finally, the implementation process is also an important feature to ensure success of a city

logistics project. It is valuable to start by conducting surveys and studies on the transport

context of the city. The different stakeholders should be involved at this stage so that a global

picture of the situation and the needs can be sketched. In Ghent, it would be interesting

to interview the potential users of the service and the potential operators in order to ensure

that the project is feasible and would bring valuable benefits.

Then, as already mentioned above, starting with a pilot project is another important step

of the process to ensure success. As in the Distribouw Langemunt project, the aim of the

trial period should be to identify and quantify the effects of the service and to practically

ensure that it is feasible. Then, if the trial project shows positive effects and technical

feasibility, the real project can start. What is then really important is to continue involving

all the stakeholders and to put in place effective and reliable measurements of the impacts

of the project. They should be regularly monitored and communicated to the stakeholders,

especially the users and prospective ones to keep them motivated to participate in the project.

Finally, another important part of the implementation process is securing enough finan-

cial investments. Achieving a good public private partnership is key in this respect. In the

short term, it is indeed likely that subsidies from the public authorities would be needed. In

the long run, the number of users of the system is the main driver of the financial results

that could become profitable without public financial support. In Ghent, public intervention

will be necessary especially to adapt the infrastructure and waterways. However, the private

players running the project could also partially fund it as it was the case in the Distribouw

Langemunt initiative.

63

To sum up, there are some important decisions to be made regarding the project attributes

and its implementation process. Different options are available. This section has given some

advice on which directions to take based on the lessons from both the literature review and

the case studies and in adaptation with the local context of the city of Ghent. Direct delivery

through waterways of beverages or building materials appears to be the best option for Ghent,

especially if it is combined with reverse logistics. Areas to be included in the project as well

as the vessel type to be used have also been suggested depending on the type of goods carried.

The project should furthermore include a technological, a logistical and a political part to

maximize its chances of being adopted by the market and of meeting its objectives. Lastly,

several recommendations as to the implementation process have been presented.

65

Chapter 5

Conclusion

This thesis has analyzed the opportunity of using waterways for city logistics in Ghent in

a broad perspective. The theoretical analysis presents important concepts and findings on

which to build the analysis. Three success factors of city logistics projects were already iden-

tified: a public private partnership, a trial project and including political, technological and

logistical aspects in the project. Then, the case studies complement this basis with practical

inputs and lessons learned from the experiences of several projects implemented in different

European cities. Complementary success factors were derived from them: involvement of

the different stakeholders, a strong business case, adaptation to local context, measurable

and valuable benefits and suitable equipments and infrastructure. All together the two parts

allow identifying what are the main ingredients of success for city logistics projects. This

combination of theory and practice is thus valuable to keep a wide approach on the problem.

The context of Ghent was then developed so that these success factors could be confronted

to this particular city.

In the end, the result of the analysis shows that there are opportunities for waterborne

freight transport in Ghent and chances that such a project would be successful, that it would

be adopted by the market and would help improve the current urban freight distribution

scheme. The physical characteristics are favorable with a wide waterway network in a highly

dense area with a congested road network with restricted access. Urban freight distribution

also currently has negative impacts on the accessibility and livability of the city, there is thus

need for improvements. There are however also some threats that could make it hard for a

city logistics project to sustain on the long run. The main one is the financial result of the

project. It is likely that such a project would be expensive due to the high operating costs. In

order to make it profitable, many users need to be involved in it so that the costs are spread

on high volume and more revenues are generated. This is nevertheless a difficult thing to

achieve. It appears to be a challenge for many city logistics projects as it was shown in the

66

case studies. However, with the intervention of the public authorities and a good adaptation

to the need of the potential users, the project would probably have good chances of success.

The potential benefits of a city logistics project involving waterways in Ghent are fur-

thermore significant. It could help reducing the problem of noise nuisance from which suffers

an important part of the citizens. It could also reduce congestion on the road network and

therefore improve the accessibility of the city. It could furthermore help improving the air

quality as a ship pollutes less than trucks. All in all, it would thus help enhancing the quality

of life in Ghent while still meeting the transport needs of the numerous economical activities.

For all these reasons, it seems valuable to implement such a project even if it requires public

subsidies. The financial results are not the only thing to take into account as several of the

benefits are not monetized.

Several recommendations on the type of project to develop, its scope and its implementa-

tion scheme were also presented. Given the context of Ghent, it seems that direct deliveries

to the receivers via waterborne transport is the best solution. It could focus on the transport

either of building materials to construction site or of beverages for the horeca sector. Includ-

ing reverse logistics activities could furthermore help making the project financially viable.

Several areas with a high concentration of buildings and commercial activities along the wa-

terways were also identified. The selection of the suitable ship is also important. Depending

on the type of goods to be transported, recommendations were made on the characteristics

it should have. Finally, it is recommended to start the implementation process with surveys

and a trial project. It is also important to involve the stakeholders at each step of the process

so that their commitment to take part in the project is guaranteed.

It would be very interesting for future research to explore the reasons why it is so hard

to convince users to take part in a city logistics project. It appears, as a matter of fact, to

be the main difficulty encountered in making a project financially viable. It would be very

useful to identify solutions to make receivers and suppliers more willing to take part in those

projects. In the case of Ghent, it seems important, as stated above, to survey the potential

users and to adapt the service to their needs. The focus should not only be on receivers who

are the primary clients of the system but also on carriers and suppliers. Those two groups

indeed also have their role in the choice of the transport organization.

In conclusion, this thesis has shown the opportunity that waterways can represent in city

logistics. These often neglected resources can help reducing the burden urban freight distri-

bution frequently imposes on a city and its inhabitants. It has also highlighted the challenges

67

associated with it and key success factors that help overcoming them. These are of interest

for the case of Ghent but could also be used for other cities.

69

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