Sustainability Evaluation of Green Urban Logistics Systems

Abstract

This paper aims to propose a systemic vision of literature on sustainable urban logistics assessment and evaluation. Although non-extensive, this overview pretends lack of unification in the subject of assessing and evaluating the impacts of green urban logistics systems, and, through the proposal of a general assessment and evaluation framework, the steps done and being in course towards standards on this field. First, an overview of the research in urban logistics is provided, after what the main visions of sustainable development and their derived issues for urban logistics assessment and evaluation are presented. Then, a framework to assess and evaluate green urban logistics systems via scenario comparison is proposed. This framework aims to propose a methodological framework to use and combine existing methods to assess scenarios, and not a “black-box” model of software ready to use. This is done to make synergies between existing methods, and to show that, although they remain at an initial stage, steps on the way of defining standards are made. After that, the main applicability and application issues of the proposed methodological framework are addressed, showing those principles of standard from the literature. Finally, and to conclude, future developments on urban logistics research are proposed.