URBAN GOODS MOVEMENTS IN A SENSITIVE CONTEXT: THE CASE OF PARMA

This paper focuses on the efficiency of one-to-many distribution processes in urban environment. An in-depth 8-month survey of commercial vehicle tours leaving from an urban distribution centre (UDC), located in the outskirt of the city of Parma (Italy), has been performed, merging information between a GPS-based databank and a wider operations databank. Through continuous approximation models, the relative impact of time-dependent parameters of the delivery process, particularly delivery frequency and favourite time slots for deliveries, has been analysed along with the effects due to traffic congestion on commercial vehicle tours. Tours have been classified according to UDC-customer mutual distances to prove that the efficiency of the distribution process has a clear correlation with the size (and the network characteristics) of the area to serve. The resulting magnitude of the multiplicative impact of tour duration constraints and traffic congestion on the road network, dealing with increased travel times and uncertainty due to travel time variability, is analytically elaborated