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TRANSPORT-Transport 2025

Sustainable Urban Logistics Plans in Norway

Alternative title: Bærekraftige bylogistikkplaner i Norge

Awarded: NOK 8.8 mill.

Urban areas represent particular challenges for national and international freight transport, both in terms of logistical performance and environmental impacts. A more systematic approach is needed at city level to improve the situation. Several European cities are working on Sustainable Urban Logistics Plans (SULPs), bringing together local actors, improving planning, and initiating actions needed to improve performance and sustainability of urban logistics. NORSULP (Sustainable Urban Logistics Plans in Norway) developed guidance for urban logistics planning in a Norwegian context, thus facilitating SULP development in Norwegian cities and regions. The project contributed to a more sustainable and efficient transport system where city logistics is viewed in conjunction with public and private transport plans. Enhanced efforts to improve efficiency through better planning and management is important to both transport companies and their clients in the value chain. Urban logistics plans will promote change towards sustainable urban logistics and significantly increase the likelihood of achieving ambitious emission cut targets in Norwegian cities. Nine Norwegian municipalities/cities were actively involved in the project, including Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim, Stavanger, Kristiansand, Tromsø, Fredrikstad, Drammen and Bodø. In these cities, the project supported initiation of SULP processes. The project was financed by the Norwegian Research Council's Transport 2025 Program and the Norwegian Public Roads Administration. NORSULP was led by Institute of Transport Economics (TØI), who collaborated with SINTEF in the research activities. The project has generated interest from municipalities and other stakeholders with an interest in urban logistics. NORSULP was responsible for a breakout-session at the Volvo Research and Educational Foundations (VREF) conference on urban freight transport in Gothenburg October 2016. In this session, NORSULP was presented, together with introductions from Stockholm and Copenhagen and the Norwegian Public Roads Administration. The presentations and discussions gave inputs to the work in NORSULP. In June 2017, NORSULP contributed to a workshop in Oslo on Low-Carbon Logistics Planning, organised by the INTERREG project Smart-MR. In the first part of the project we reviewed experiences with SULPs and urban freight planning in the United Kingdom and the Scandinavian countries. The review was performed as a systematic review with the keywords mobility, freight, urban and plan (or words that are synonyms). We identified that key aspects to consider in urban freight planning are standardising the freight plan content, and for the planning structure, combining a freight strategy with an action plan. Additionally, including freight in an overall mobility strategy together with local, regional or national guidelines and/or requirements can facilitate urban freight planning. We have also mapped the needs and preferences for sustainable urban logistics planning among private and public stakeholders through interviews and surveys. The mapping showed that the stakeholders are confident that a process of developing SULPs will increase coordination and collaboration between stakeholders, which again will facilitate increased support for measures and policies being implemented. Based on these developments, a report has been developed with the purpose of acting as knowledge guidance on urban freight, establishing a certain level of urban freight awareness among various stakeholder groups. This guidance provides, for public sector stakeholders, a basis for planning within urban freight, while for private sector it is a way to get insights to the public planning processes and specific measures which can improve their every-day situation. The project has organised local workshops in the cities involved. In these workshops, local stakeholders have been invited to discuss local city logistics issues as well as urban logistics planning in general. Experiences from these were in 2019 summarised in the report What do Norwegian cities need to plan for urban logistics, which is available from www.norsulp.no (in Norwegian only). Throughout the project we have experienced that there is an increasing interest in urban logistics planning within Norwegian municipalities. In the final phase there was a more significant interest in the project among the cities involved. Still, a challenge that remains is a lack of political anchoring of the theme, and further work is needed on how to increase the engagement among local politicians. In the final phase the project, guidelines for future urban logistics planning have been developed, which capture lessons from the project including feedback from the private and public stakeholders that have been involved and affected by the work.

Fra prosjektet startet til det sluttet har vi opplevd en endring i interesse fra kommunene. Dette skyldes ikke NORSULP alene, men prosjektet har vært én av flere bidragsytere til å øke oppmerksomheten om bylogistikk og forståelsen av at norske bykommuner er tjent med å ha klarere planer og strategier for hvordan de skal forholde seg til bylogistikk. Prosjektet har også bidratt til økt medvirkning og samhandling mellom offentlige og private aktører. Prosjektet har videre bygget opp under et kompetanseløft på bylogistikkfeltet, som det for noen få år siden var liten interesse for i Norge. Med to PhD-stipendiater finansiert av prosjektet bidrar NORSULP også til å høyne det vitenskapelige nivået i forskningen på feltet. Prosjektet har bidratt til det internasjonale forskningsmiljøet med vitenskapelige publikasjoner, blant annet har prosjektet finansiert en artikkel som av flere brukes som referanse for definisjonen av bærekraftig bylogistikkplanlegging.

Urban areas represent particular challenges for national and international freight transport, both in terms of logistical performance and environmental impacts. A more systematic and holistic approach is needed at city level in order to improve the situation. Several European cities are now working on Sustainable Urban Logistics Plans (SULPs), bringing together local actors, improving planning, and initiating actions needed to improve performance and sustainability of urban logistics. The primary objective of NORSULP is to develop user-validated guidelines serving as baseline for sustainable urban logistics plans in Norwegian cities and urban areas. Secondary objectives are to: S1) Review European state-of-practice of SULPs and its relevance for capacity building in Norwegian cities; S2) Identify key needs of various actors in SULP planning; S3) Develop a harmonised approach for SULP development in Norwegian cities; S4) Validate the SULP approach in eight Norwegian cities; and S5) Establish generic guidelines as baseline for development and implementation of SULPs to improve logistics performance and sustainability in Norwegian cities. NORSULP will develop the SULP methodology in a Norwegian context and thus lay the ground for developing SULPs in interested Norwegian cities and regions. This will give a more holistic, sustainable and efficient transport system where city logistics measures are viewed in conjunction with public and private transport solutions and plans. The project brings together a set of motivated Norwegian cities that seek support in planning and initiating SULPs. Enhanced efforts to optimise efficiency through better planning and management will be of significant value to both transport companies and their clients in both ends of the value chain. SULPs will promote change towards sustainable urban logistics and significantly increase the likelihood of achieving ambitious emission cut targets in Norwegian cities.

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Funding scheme:

TRANSPORT-Transport 2025