Urban consolidation centers: Impact analysis by stakeholder

Abstract

An Urban Consolidation Center is a city logistics solution that contributes to reducing the negative effects of transportation activities in urban areas, but few projects have been implemented fully and financial sustainability is commonly mentioned as a constraint to their implementation. The objective of this research is two-fold: to present a methodology to include socio-environmental impact monetization in the economic evaluation of urban consolidation center projects and to discuss the result of UCC project economic evaluations considering foundations of Welfare Economics. For this purpose, the impacts for each stakeholder were identified, their monetization was incorporated in the analysis and the results were discussed in light of the Kaldor-Hicks criterion. Two Brazilian cases are used to apply the proposed methodology. The results show that when socio-environmental impacts, such as a reduction in traffic congestion and pollution emissions, are incorporated into the economic evaluation, implementation is justified for cities with high levels of traffic congestion. This study might improve the future analysis of urban consolidation center projects by performing a more comprehensive economic evaluation. Notably, it includes social, environmental and monetary benefits for different stakeholders, and is relevant for practitioners and public administrators.