L’interrelazione tra economia, territorio e ambiente nella mobilità urbana delle merci

Freight transportation maintains a set of core relations with urban areas since a city is an entity where production, distribution and consumption activities are and use limited land. Urban economies are evolving rapidly towards a higher of material intensiveness. In fact, cities represent multiple dimensions of human activity from economic, social, political and cultural standpoints. In these years, the store inventory levels have shrunk and businesses are increasing their restocking activities based on the just-in-time concept. Following these changes, the demand of express transport and courier is also soring. All these factors have made a strictly relation between urban economies and transportation systems, characterized by more frequent and customized deliveries. Furthermore, the urban freight transport is performed by road that is the most polluting per unit of distance travelled. In this context, city logistics, as the process for totally optimizing the logistics and transport activities by private companies in urban areas while considering the traffic environment, the traffic congestion and energy consumption, is an emerging field of investigation that was brought by the new urban challenges. The paper analyses the existing relationships within the urban contexts, and describes a general methodology that should be used for analyzing such a system.