POLIS and ALICE continue their collaboration for sustainable urban freight

POLIS and ALICE, The European Technology Platform convened to continue their collaboration on sustainable logistics.

Urban freight is changing, fast. The speed, scale and intensity of delivery, from groceries to parcels are increasing at an exponential rate, propelled by new technologies and processes. At the same time, our cities are under growing pressure to meet climate targets and rising consumer demands.

These new ways of working require fresh governance models, which respond to the new- and complex- environmental, political and economic challenges.

This cannot be achieved without durable partnerships between industry and policymakers. From decarbonisation to micro-hubs, lockers and flexible delivery times, companies and cities must collaborate to ensure sufficient infrastructure and resources are in place.

This is why POLIS has established an alliance with ALICE, bringing voices from local authorities and industry stakeholders to the table for a rigorous and open dialogue. This partnership has been a unique opportunity for collaboration between POLIS and ALICE members, who bring practices and expertise from both sides of the table, while linking local contexts with national and EU level planning processes.

Part of this partnership has been the joint document; “Cities and Industries working together to accelerate transition towards efficient and emissions free city logistics by 2030”, which has been drafted through a series of workshops, which identified specific areas for intervention.

The document examines the challenges at stake, provides an overview of existing roadmaps, defines areas of Intervention and identifies possible solutions, before providing recommendations and guiding principles to key stakeholders.

POLIS members deliver solutions

POLIS members have been playing an active role in this partnership. Cities and regions including Madrid, Barcelona, Stuttgart, Rotterdam, Groningen, Dublin, Ile De France and others have fed back experiences and use cases on data, regulations and technologies, which have provided insight for models, interventions and processes.

Their practices have provided interesting governance models for designing replicable and scalable approaches to urban freight, feeding a working document.

These were integrated with insights from the industry such as smart loading zones, electrification, operational models, data acquisition and more.

This has yielded critical insights for all involved. For example, the industry’s insight into consumer behaviours and access to data on delivery patterns is essential for designing effective ‘eco-delivery’ and pick-up points.

Creating open and honest dialogue

At the heart of this partnership has been the open discussion hosted in these workshops. Actions and terminologies around fleets, flows and operations have been debated- helping to define targets and principles, as well as identify practical opportunities for innovation.

This document represents a synthesis of the perspectives of the local authorities and companies, both POLIS and ALICE members, that have been involved in the POLIS-ALICE strategic dialogue over the past 3 years, and have directly participated in the conception and drafting of the document.

The document will be unveiled at the POLIS 2021 conference in Gothenburg at the beginning of December.

For further information on the POLIS Urban Freight working group see HERE.