Abstract
As part of a broader vision for emission-free city logistics, the city of Rotterdam plans to introduce a zero-emission zone in combination with urban consolidation centers (UCCs) on the outskirts of the city to generate a shift to zero-emission vehicles. For the design of this zero-emission zone, several research questions arise that require a systematic analysis of the impacts of the transition scenarios on freight demand patterns, the use and market shares of new (zero-emission) vehicles, and the impacts of truck flow and emissions. As a case study, we implemented heterogenous transition scenarios for each logistic segment into the Tactical Freight Simulator from the HARMONY project and analyzed the systemwide impacts. This model is multiagent, empirical, and shipment based and simulates long-term tactical choices (distribution channel choice, shipment size and vehicle type choice, sourcing) and short-term tactical choices (tour formation, delivery times). Results showed that the impact of UCCs is not trivial: we observed a small increase in vehicle kilometers traveled overall of +0.25%, which can be attributed to the rerouting of shipments through the UCCs. Calculations confirmed that emissions reduced dramatically, by 90%, inside the zero-emission zone. At the city scale this corresponds to a reduction of almost 10%, as most freight-related traffic is generated by the port and involves long-haul heavy goods vehicle transport that does not enter the city center. At a regional level, impact reduction was very small. More measures are needed if more ambitious reductions in emissions are to be achieved.
Highlights
Zero-Emission Zones in City LogisticsThe last decade has seen the emergence of measures to reduce emissions in city logistics
It is not possible to attribute this to the introduction of low emission zones (LEZs) or the autonomous trend of heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) moving toward cleaner Euro standards
Part of the shipments from the external area (EXT) to the zero-emission zone (ZEZ) was rerouted through the seven urban consolidation centers (UCCs) and distributed/collected inside the ZEZ
Summary
Zero-Emission Zones in City LogisticsThe last decade has seen the emergence of measures to reduce emissions in city logistics. This approach was developed using scarce available data and was still very aggregate in zoning and representation of the freight transportation system (vehicle types, shipments, and agents). Since fully restricted ZEZs have not been implemented yet, and modeling studies are scarce, there are several research questions that need to be answered to predict and better understand the impacts of the introduction of ZEZs. Here, we studied the impact of transition scenarios on freight demand patterns, the use and market share of de Bok et al new (ZE) vehicles, and their impacts on truck flow and emissions.
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