Challenges of urban transport problems and city logistics: Sao Paulo city center case

Abstract

This paper on urban transport problems and city logistics is from the proceedings of 14th International Conference on Urban Transport and the Environment in the 21st Century, which was held in Malta in 2008. The authors use Sao Paulo, Brazil, as a case example to illustrate the concepts under discussion. They focus on the emerging concept of city logistics to improve the mobility of cities. At a simple level, global and continental scale logistics systems are organized around airports, seaports, road and rail systems and storage facilities, which all tend to be space extensive. Challenges include the need for growth in logistics systems to support the globalization of production and consumption, and the related spatial and functional restructuring of large scale urban regions. Topics include strategies to limit automobile circulation, prohibition of automobile travel in downtown areas during certain hours, traffic congestion, private automobile ownership, freight needs, infrastructure, decentralization, the benefits of city logistics, and new forms of goods organization.