City Logistics

PRODUCTS STILL NEED TO GET INTO CITIES IN BULK AS WELL AS IN SMALL PARCEL FORMAT

The challenges delivering goods in bulk in cities -such as traffic congestion, limited times when LGVs are allowed to enter some streets, difficulties loading and unloading curbside – all create operational difficulties, add to journey times and reduce delivery time reliability. This all adds to operational costs as well as create risk of products not being delivered when they are required. Consolidation centres are one way in which businesses, landlords and authorities are seeking to mitigate some of these challenges. A consolidation centre allows deliveries from all suppliers to a number of retailers and businesses within a designated area to be brought a single point outside of congested area. Deliveries to the different stores and businesses are then consolidated into one consignment and delivered to a schedule. In addition to reducing congestion – by replacing many goods vehicles delivering loads to the same area with a single vehicle with a larger load making multiple drops – using a consolidation centre also can reduce costs and environmental impact.

As well as small parcels, cities are the location for huge volumes of product moved in bulk. Store replenishment, business deliveries and other bulk product movements all need to be achieved within city bounds. The type of vehicles used to deliver these products are more likely to be larger goods vehicles – large trucks rather than light trucks, vans or bicycles – and the destinations they are likely to be delivering to are more likely to be single destinations for larger volumes – such as stores, including retail parks and shopping centres, other warehouses and office buildings. The volumes required to ensure stores and businesses are well supplied, especially in large cities, can be significant: for example, in London, there are over 91,000 retail premises, 45,000 of which are in Inner London, whilst in Paris, there are over 61,000 stores.

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CUSHMAN & WAKEFIELD

INDUSTRIAL EVOLUTION | CITY LOGISTICS