A comparative study of urban freight transport planning: addressing stakeholder needs

Over the last decade, research in the area of urban freight transport has increased and local authorities are slowly beginning to acknowledge the need to consider freight in their overall transport planning. Most urban freight studies to date consider specific solutions and measures, as opposed to ways in which the local authorities could and should consider this issue in the wider transport planning and decision making process. The aim of this paper is to examine cities that differ in context in order to demonstrate that urban freight transport planning can be improved by involving a wider range of stakeholders. Interview data from Sweden, the UK and the Baltic Sea Region has been analyzed to draw out the factors that influence the perceptions of local authorities and freight operators of freight transport issues in urban areas. The findings show that the issues faced by the freight industry are still not fully understood. The paper contradicts earlier research results that suggest differences in the ways that local authorities consider freight transport, and goes some way towards demonstrating that the problems faced by local authorities are not unique to one country or any specific category of urban area, and hence a generic decision-making framework would be of value. A framework is developed to facilitate meaningful interaction between the various urban freight actors and stakeholders.