Integrated decision-making framework for urban freight logistics policy-making

Abstract

The urban freight logistics policy-making process takes place in a complex environment and presents numerous challenges, such as difficult trade-offs between the objectives of various stakeholders, unclear problem ownership, and a lack of data on and awareness of urban freight issues. Furthermore, the complex interactions and power dynamics between different stakeholders introduce additional difficulties when attempting to predict the effects of different policies. In this study, we extend the current perspective on urban logistics decision-making by adopting a Complex Adaptive System (CAS) perspective. This allows us to better interpret the behaviors of urban logistics stakeholders and elucidate some of the most pressing challenges encountered in urban logistics policy-making. Building on the extant urban logistics and CAS literature, we establish an integrative decision-making framework that aims at increasing the success of urban logistics policies. Finally, we apply our framework to a case study in order to illustrate the operationalization of the proposed CAS perspective in an empirical setting on urban logistics policy-making.