Data collection framework for understanding UFT within city logistics solutions

Urban Freight Transport (UFT) is a fundamental component of city life. It involves a vast range of activities resulting from relationships among different actors with conflicting needs and goals. Manufacturers are interested in fast and on-time deliveries, retailers require complete assortment and frequent deliveries, citizens wish to have easy access to goods while not losing their quality of life and City Authorities have to face negative externalities related to UFT (i.e. congestion, air and noise pollution, and safety). Concretely, few cities have a well-developed and comprehensive city logistics strategy because authorities generally focus their attention on passenger transport. When city logistics measures have been conceived and implemented, frequently private requirements have not been considered sufficiently. The European Commission includes the lack of data and understanding of freight flows among the main obstacles to the improvement of operational efficiency and planning process for a sustainable UFT in economic, social and environmental terms. Also, the research community raises the issue of the unavailability or the low quality of data on urban freight and the need to identify effective data collection methods in order to understand processes and actors' behavior and then define appropriate city logistics solutions. The NOVELOG EU project is providing city authorities and practitioners with a new framework aimed at systematizing all data to be collected, directly or indirectly, and to be elaborated in order to understand and represent the different aspects of the UFT sector. In order to achieve a complete knowledge, the framework approaches this sector according to four main thematic pillars: 1) profile of major supply chains served in the urban area under study; 2) mapping of urban freight and service trips activity; 3) organizational and legal framework; 4) procedural and technological methods and innovations. The present paper introduces the framework and the guidance it provides to its target audiences