15: The Environmental Assessment of Urban Goods Movement

This paper presents the implementation of a thorough physical environmental assessment of urban goods movement (UGM). It is aimed at local decision makers concerned with sustainable development issues in urban planning. After a description of the new stakes for urban planners, we specify the data processing method and the sequence of the models used as well as the main results in three French cities: Bordeaux (750,000 inhabitants), Dijon (240,000 inhabitants) and Marseilles (1,050,000 inhabitants).

In France, the development of urban environmental assessment is recent. Most of the research studies about it are concerned with either the whole transport sector on a national scale, with no distinct spatial levels, or consider only the impacts of private cars traffic (Gallez and Hivert, 1998). The necessary data bases and models able to describe the urban goods vehicles traffic in order to carry out a complete assessment were almost non existent in many countries (Ambrosini and Routhier, 2003). In many cases only heavy goods vehicle (HGV) flows are identified. However, HGV flows represent only one part of urban goods movement (UGM). In France, apart from shopping trips, HGV (> 3.5 t) account for about 50% of the UGM vehicle-kilometres (Routhier et al, 1996–99), whereas a third of light goods vehicles (LGVs) that weight below 3.5 tonnes also carry goods on a regular basis (SES, 1999). It is thus essential to accurately identify the contribution of UGM in traffic generation, with the help of a relevant knowledge database. The method presented in this paper in an extension of the data acquisition process carried out in France for several years towards a complete environmental assessment of UGM. It is a policy oriented model which aims at helping local decision making to assess the contribution of the various actors within city logistics in relation to energy consumption, congestion and environmental concerns (pollution, greenhouse gas and noise).