Urban logistics: A systematic literature review

Abstract

City Logistics aims to reduce the nuisances associated to freight transportation in urban areas while supporting the economic and social development of the cities. Sustainable freight transport today are on the political, social and technological agenda of many actors operating in urban contexts. The purpose of this paper is to present a systematic literature review (SLR) that aims to consolidate the knowledge on urban logistics by reviewing the developments of the last 17 years in the field of Freight Transport research and innovation. The majority of articles focused on issues like commodity flows and economic modelling aspects, but there has been relatively little research reported on issues like collaboration among stakeholders, usage of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) and E-commerce. Finally, based on the findings from the literature review, future research directions are proposed in an attempt to stimulate further studies on emerging trends and innovative strategies in the broad area of urban logistics.