Successes and Failings of an Urban Freight Quality Partnership – The Story of the Gothenburg Local Freight Network

Abstract

Freight Quality Partnerships (FQPs) for urban areas have gained interest during the last decade, as a way of including stakeholders in the discussions of freight problems and possible solutions. However, there is little knowledge of how those FQPs succeed. The purpose of this paper is to discuss how the partnerships can be developed over time, identifying problems and how they have been handled in order to be overcome as well as what experiences that could be transferred to other cities. This paper is presented as a narrative of a specific urban freight quality partnership, namely the one in Gothenburg, Sweden. The research is based on document analysis, interviews, a survey and a workshop amongst participants of the partnership as well as on participation at regular partnership meetings. Results suggest that the partnership approach is valuable in creating a good urban freight environment as well as for discussing potential solutions to specific problems. However, to gain good results from the partnership and the necessary long-term perspective, the partnership demands time and careful effort by the management in order to develop the partnership as well as to maintain interest amongst its stakeholders. Other cities are recommended to use a partnership approach in order to create good cooperation between freight stakeholders on a long-term basis, and in order to find possible solutions to urban freight problems that avoid sub-optimisation.