Consolidation of urban goods movement—some economic aspects

Abstract

The present system for pick-up and delivery of small shipments by trucks within an urban area is not very efficient. This is often due, in part, to poor vehicle utilization, competition between freight and passenger movements using available common right-of-way, highly congested and dense city centres, and current business practices. The lack of coordination between truck shipment activities often leads to route duplication, street congestion, long waits at loading/unloading facilities, and underutilization of available truck capacity.Because provision of consolidation terminals appears to be one of the promising alternatives for alleviating some of the problems of the current freight distribution structure, this study has been undertaken to gain better insight into the feasibility and desirability of this alternative. For this purpose, the City of Calgary, which had a population of 500 000 in 1977, was chosen for identifying the economic benefits of applying the concept of consolidation terminals operation to the movement of small shipments within the city. The results revealed that a system with a single consolidation terminal located at an appropriate site is economically feasible and would significantly reduce the number of trucks and truck trips needed for urban goods movement.