Sustainable city logistics — Making cargo cycles viable for urban freight transport

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Urban freight and city logistics are central to the UK economy, but face a number of economic and environmental challenges. This paper contributes to a new body of research that investigates the potential of cargo cycles to make city logistics more sustainable and explores ways to encourage their diffusion. The paper makes three key contributions. First, it develops a typology of cycle logistics based on a literature review and expert interviews in order to clarify definitions and terminology. Second, it identifies perception issues, lack of awareness and regulations as major barriers to wider implementation at city level based on snap-shot case studies. Third, it suggests a sustainable city logistics framework for urban governance, logistic operations and future research, to harness the potential of using cargo cycles for sustainable urban freight transport. The paper argues that local authorities have a key role to play in creating conditions that incentivise large logistic companies such as DHL, Hermes and TNT to integrate cargo cycles into their supply chain and hence drive a long-term modal shift. The findings of the paper are of interest to policy makers, urban logistic operators, research institutions and citizens as potential customers.