Abstract
Cities’ sustainability strategies seem to aim at the reduction of the negative impacts of urban freight transport. In the past decades, many public and private initiatives have struggled to gain broad stakeholder support and thus remain viable. Researchers and practitioners have only recently recognised stakeholder acceptance of urban freight solutions as a challenge. A first step in achieving convergence is to understand stakeholder needs, preferences and viewpoints. This paper proposes and applies an approach to identify the main stakeholder perspectives in the domain of urban freight transport. We use Q-methodology, which originates from social sciences and psychology, to record subjective positions and identify the dominant ones. We explain the approach, operationalise the method for the domain of urban freight transport and apply it to stakeholder groups in the Netherlands. We find four dominant perspectives, reflecting how stakeholders normally take positions in the urban freight dialogue. Important findings concern disparities between industry associations and some of their membership, divergent views about the expected role of public administration, and the observation that the behaviour of shippers and Logistics Service Providers (LSP) appears to be inconsistent with their beliefs. All these factors together can act as a barrier to the implementation of urban freight consolidation concepts. The Q-methodology is valuable for eliciting perspectives in urban freight and is a promising tool to facilitate stakeholder dialogue and, eventually, convergence.
Highlights
Because of trends such as urbanisation and individualisation, transport in most cities is expected to increase greatly
A similar approach can be found in Van Duin (2012), who developed a framework for the methodological integration of stakeholder perceptions and attitudes in logistics concept design
Allowing many local carries to gain access to the inner city is better than one monopolist carrier, because keeping up competition will keep price levels low Outsourcing unprofitable city logistics services to companies that have already been operating in a region is a good alternative solution
Summary
Because of trends such as urbanisation and individualisation, transport in most cities is expected to increase greatly. Researchers and practitioners in the urban freight domain have been experimenting with various initiatives that aim to reduce costs and environmental pressure, for example with Urban Consolidation Centres (UCCs) These initiatives have difficulties in becoming financially viable, and stakeholders are hesitant to participate (Allen et al 2007). Stakeholders’ different perspectives on how to deal with more sustainable urban freight activities are a barrier to generating serious stakeholder participation (Van Duin 2012). Questions concerning these perspectives include the following: Who are the main stakeholders in the urban freight system? Last section draws conclusions and provides recommendations for further research
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