Agent-based simulation (ABS) appears to be a suitable tool for research and application in the field of city logistics. In this paper, an attempt was made to classify the current literature on ABS in urban freight distribution following some homogeneity criteria. A set of six criteria was adopted and relevant papers were classified accordingly.
The paper compares the characteristics of urban freight transport in some European cities, implementing a methodology which uses similar interviews with retailers and transport operators. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the similarities and differences in terms of socio-economic characteristics and commercial structures, and current distribution patterns followed by different transport and logistics operators.
A current key challenge in the field of urban freight transport is creating value and business opportunities through city logistics. This requires an extensive knowledge of the composition of urban economic structure, organization and management of supply chains, and actors’ sensitivity to market signals. Within this context, the paper reports the findings of the LOGeco – LOGistica ecologica project.
The paper, focusing on the importance to develop sustainable urban logistics plan (SULP) and to implement a demand model system for the assessment of future scenarios, presents a methodology for setting up a SULP modelling, using different sources of data (i.e. automatic traffic counts, floating car data, surveys with retailers and transport operators). The methodology is applied to the functional urban area (FUA) of Bologna (Italy).
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