Summary of Roger Peters’ master thesis:
Impacts of municipal decisions on the city distribution system of Breda
Congestions, pollution, safety issues, damage to infrastructure, waste of time, waste of money,
waste of energy, waste of fossil fuels and nuisance for inhabitants, visitors and traffic are all negative
effects which are related to city logistics. Inhabitants, shop owners, transporters, municipalities and
visitors of a city experience these negative effects directly or indirectly. All of these negative effects
together is the problem which lead to the incentive for this report. Currently some cities have
implemented different measures to reduce these negative effects, including Breda. Breda is the focus
of this report and currently the municipality implemented an environmental zone and time windows.
These measures appear to have an effect on the behavior of the transporters but it does not reduce
the negative effects significantly. Some other ideas are discussed for the last couple of years, but no
action has been taken yet. The solution presented and discussed often as a feasible solution is the
concept of a CDC (city distribution center) where different trucks entering the city center are bundled
to increase the efficiency and reduce the negative effects.
The reason for why no action has been taken yet is that the municipality is waiting for the business
stakeholders to act and the business stakeholders are pointing the municipality for not acting. On the
other hand many CDC concepts have failed, because when they were deployed the transporters were
reluctant to cooperate because there was no incentive. Many CDC concepts also failed because they
were dependent on structural subsidies. This is where the opportunity for the municipality arises,
because if they implement a policy which creates incentives for business stakeholders to use the CDC
concept a possible solution to the current negative effects can be found. The possibilities for these
policies and the impacts it will have on a social, environmental, but also important for the long term
success of the concept, a financial feasibility are presented in this report. This is based on the
research objective, which is:
To find ways to make it attractive for the business stakeholders in the city of Breda to
use a CDC concept and to describe the role of the municipality to facilitate this,
including the measures it can take and the impact it will have.
Based on interviews with the most important stakeholders in Breda, which are EVO & TLN
(transporters and suppliers), the municipality itself, the retail platform Breda and the inhabitants,
different possibilities for policies have been defined. The decision for the resulting policies is
supported by the supervisors for this research. A total of 5 policies have been defined for further
research of their impacts, which are defined as:
1. Paying toll based on type of vehicle. (road pricing)
2. Obligatory use of CDC, operated based on contracting. (licensing & regulation)
3. Shorten time windows for every vehicle, or paying a fee for supplying outside these time
windows. (licensing & regulation)
4. Stretching time windows for specialists. (licensing & regulation)
5. A combination of rewarding for using a CDC and fining when not (transporters & retailers)
The idea behind policy 1 is that when toll is asked for non-electric vehicles, transporters will purchase
an eco-friendly vehicle which reduces the negative effects in the city center. For the occasional
transporters the financial impact of this measure might be a reason to make use of the CDC.
For policy 2 the idea is that all the inconveniences of the city logistics in the inner city due to the
transport vehicles are reduced. This policy will reduce the number of vehicles entering the city to 0,
except for the vehicles coming from the CDC. The third policy states that when time windows are
shortened, this will lead to less operational time of vehicles in the city center. For a certain amount of
transporters this reduction of available time for supplying might become a problem, causing them to
use a CDC. The idea behind policy 4 is that specialists need less vehicles to supply shops, because
they now have enough time to supply them with only 1 vehicle instead of for example 2. The idea
behind the last policy, policy 5, is to create a monetary incentive for transporters to use a CDC. A
great advantage of this measure will be that money gained from fining can be used for rewarding
transporters who use the CDC. Because of the fine, transport costs will go up and occasional
transporters might shift to using a CDC
To find the impacts of these policies a list of criteria had to be defined, which was done based on a
literature study. The most important report used for the criteria is the report by (Vleugel, 2003).
From this report a set of quantifiable and non-quantifiable aspects were found which can be used for
identifying the impacts. Both sets of criteria are as followed (the bold ones are quantifiable):
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Visitors amount
Experience of safety
Sound level
Air quality & Climate
Infrastructure damage
Amount of complaints
Shop climate
Trajectory velocity
Intensity
Residence time
Total trip length
Based on different existing models and data sets a calculation model has been made to define the
values for the current situation in Breda related to these criteria. After this, based on expectations of
the affected transporters, different impacts for the 5 presented policies were defined. It turned out
that occasional transporters are very inefficient, because they drive with large vehicles into the city
center with only small amounts of freight. The impacts are defined for all policies, with the following
assumptions:
1. In the new situation zero emissions light vehicles are assumed to be used.
2. In the new situation a load factor of 100% is assumed, since this could be managed perfectly
in the CDC
3. The defined load factors for the different vehicles are all based on the freight with Breda as
final destination.
4. All policy have as an alternative solution for the transporters the CDC.
5. A linear relation between reduction in vehicles and its impact is assumed. Economy of scale
and external effects on load factors are not taken into account.
All policies except for policy 4 affect the mentioned occasional transporters and have therefore a
large impact on the city center. Policy 4 turned out to have only a slight reduction in negative effects
because of this. Policy 1 and 2 turned out, even though they had a large positive impact on the
reduction in negative effects, likely to fail due to a low political feasibility. This left 2 feasible policies
for implementation, which are policies 3 and 5. The results for policy 3 turned out to be a reduction
of maximum 60%-70% for most of the criteria, where policy 5 lead to a maximum reduction of 70%80% for most of the criteria. Based on these results policy 5 is advised for implementation and in this
report the financial feasibility of this policy, together with the financial feasibility of the CDC concept
in general, has been presented in a business case.
The business case eventually lead to the result that on a short term period an investment is needed,
but that besides this one time investment a financial feasible situation can be created dependent on
the amount of toll charged for entering the city and dependent on the participation level of the CDC
(which can be controlled by the reward of the retailers). If the choice of the toll and the reward will
be made properly by the municipality, on the short term even a profit can be made which can
contribute to paying back the initial investment. This initial investment can be relatively high for a
newly developed CDC, but can be lower when existing infrastructure is used. The actual values are
presented in this report. On the long term the CDC concept in combination with the advised policy
can be financial feasible without any subsidy. To even improve this feasibility and to keep the
retailers using the CDC after the reward is reduced, extra services should be provided at the CDC for
the retailers. These services can be added value logistics, storage service and bundled delivery.
The final conclusion of the report is that it is possible to reduce the negative effects caused by city
logistics in Breda can be reduced significantly if policy 5 is implemented to create incentives for using
the CDC concept. The actual amount depends on the toll charged and the reward given to the
retailers. To make it work however, 2 indirect aspects should be covered which are the enforcement
of the policy (a camera recognition system which causes no delay) and the responsibility of the
transport. This report has given a good indication and made a good basis for improving the city
logistics system, but for further research the following recommendations are given as a final remark:
Further research can or should be done on:
1.
2.
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5.
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9.
Internalization of external non-quantifiable criteria
The optimal location for a CDC
Gathering more data for Breda itself for a more reliable result
Ways of collecting additional income for the investment/operational costs
The participation behavior for the rewarding concept
Harmonization in the Netherlands in general
The load characteristics of vehicles in Breda
Extra services available for the CDC
The division of responsibility and confidentiality