MetroFreight Director Genevieve Giuliano presented her research on freight landscape as a transportation and land use topic of interest at the 9th International Association for China Planning (IACP) Conference at Chongqing University in Chongqing, China from June 19-21, 2015. The theme for the event was “New Urbanization:  Smart Growth and Sustainable Development.” “Cities are growing exponentially in China and this presents a wide range of transportation planning challenges,” Giuliano said, explaining that she used her freight landscape research to emphasize the importance of building freight into China’s massive urban master planning efforts. To make her case for freight planning, Giuliano introduced the conceptual framework for her freight landscape research and reviewed two case studies, the Los Angeles region and the San Francisco Bay Area. Although these metropolitan regions have very different geographies and population density patterns, they both revealed that severe conflicts between freight and passenger traffic occur in city cores. “The results are remarkably similar across model forms and metro areas,” Giuliano noted. “In urban cores, truck access is most difficult, parking and loading are more limited, and external costs are higher because more people are affected,” she said. “All of these findings suggest a general relationship between development density and urban freight problems,” she added. Giuliano concluded her presentation with a progression of logical conclusions. “Density is a proxy for land values,” she said. “Therefore we should be able to use density to proxy these effects on freight flows.” Given the enormous challenges China faces in planning and building a transportation infrastructure to address its boom in urban growth, Giuliano’s freight landscape research provided a practical first step for planners to think more systematically and logically about urban freight. Planners, designers, scholars, scientists, and government officials from both China and elsewhere attended the conference.

IFSTTAR, City of Paris Collaborate in CITYLAB Project Kickoff

MetroFreight partner IFSTTAR (French Institute of Science and Technology for Transport, Development and Networks University Paris-East) and the City of Paris are participating in the CITYLAB European project consortium addressing the challenge of the Horizon 2020 program on “Smart, green and integrated transport.” The consortium seeks to reduce impacts and costs of freight and service trips in urban areas. The project is coordinated by the Institute of Transport Economics (TOI), Norway over a three-year period, from May 2015 until April 2018.

The general objective of CITYLAB is to develop knowledge and solutions that result in roll-out, up-scaling, and further implementation of cost-effective strategies. CITYLAB will also develop measures and tools for emission-free city logistics in urban centers by 2030. To reach that objective, CITYLAB will deploy a set of living laboratories (“living labs”) that will engage cities and regions as dynamic and real-life contexts for research, innovation, and implementation processes. Those CITYLAB efforts will promote public and private measures that contribute to more efficient and sustainable urban logistics.  There are seven CITYLAB living labs, which are located in Brussels, London, Oslo, Paris, Rome, Rotterdam, and Southampton.

The CITYLAB consortium has strong links to the two VREF (Volvo Research and Educational Foundations) Centers of Excellence (CoE) on Urban Freight, and will use these networks (MetroFreight and CoE-SUFS) to spread the living lab idea to other parts of the world. MetroFreight Paris Team Leader Laetitia Dablanc is in charge of developing the links between CITYLAB and U.S. partners, including from MetroFreight and CoE-SUFS.

Rodrigue Teaches “Hinterland Transport and Logistics” Graduate Course in China

MetroFreight New York Team Leader Jean-Paul Rodrigue taught a 35-hour graduate course titled “Hinterland Transport and Logistics” at Chongqing University in Chongqing, China, in June.

Rodrigue’s course focused on the inland dimension of port and maritime activities. The growth of maritime shipping is placing pressures on ports to improve the capacity and reliability of hinterland services. Infrastructure investments such as the development of road and rail corridors and a closer integration between the port and its customers are among the main strategies that have been pursued to improve hinterland logistics. The course focused on:

• The technical and commercial changes that have impacted the port hinterland, namely global supply chains and intermodal transportation;
• The concept of port regionalization and the emergence of large gateways and transport corridors servicing extensive regional markets;
• The strategies and policies that have been implemented to improve the logistics performance of hinterlands, including port centric logistics, inland ports and logistics zones; and
• The challenges of port and city integration, and issues pertaining to urban freight distribution, often labeled as the “last mile.”

Sakai Awarded VREF Study Visit Grant

Doctoral student Takanori Sakai was recently awarded a Volvo VREF Study Visit Grant on behalf of the MetroFreight Center of Excellence (CoE).  Sakai is a PhD student in Urban Planning and Policy at the University of Illinois, Chicago, where he works with Dr. Kazuya Kawamura, an expert in freight transportation planning and the economic impacts evaluation of transportation projects.

Sakai requested the grant to work with Paris MetroFreight Team Leader Laetitia Dablanc who is researching logistics sprawl at IFSTTAR. “We are pleased to see more international collaboration on this important topic,” said MetroFreight Director Genevieve Giuliano.

Sakai has three stated goals for his Paris visit:

• Share the findings obtained from the past and on-going work on logistics sprawl in Tokyo, Japan (Sakai and Kawamura) and Paris, France (IFSTTAR) and exchange ideas on policies related to urban freight transportation with a particular focus on different models of land-use planning and control for metropolitan areas;
• Study the policy framework related to logistics land-use in Paris for the future comparative study of logistics policy and facility distribution among metropolitan regions.  Interview key stakeholders in Paris to gather information on land-use planning and regulations; and
• Establish a collaborative relationship with researchers at IFSTTAR for future research projects.

After his visit, Sakai will develop a research proposal paper summarizing the findings on logistics land-use and facility distribution issues in Paris (and Tokyo and Chicago), specifying available data for analysis and identifying research goals. The research is expected to be published and/or presented at various international conferences.

Korea Logistics Society Holds 2015 Spring Conference: Logistics Innovation Strategy for New Commerce Era

The Korea Logistics Society held its 2015 Spring Conference on May 29. The conference addressed logistics policy and strategies to deal with challenges in the 21^st century era global digital commerce. Various research papers, business case studies, technical solutions and tutorials were presented and exhibited.

MetroFreight Seoul Team Leader Sangbeom Seo and Jee-Sun Lee, Associate Research Fellow from the Department of Logistics Research at the Korea Transport Institute (KOTI) presented outputs from MetroFreight research.

Workshop on Development of Vision, Objectives and Policy Directions for National Logistics Innovation in Korea

The Korea Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) and the Korea Transport Institute (KOTI) co-hosted a workshop on March 18 to discuss the development of a comprehensive plan to promote national logistics innovation in South Korea. The workshop explored policy directions to promote logistics innovations in South Korea. Twenty four logistics professionals including government officials, research fellows, professors, company executive directors, and staff members participated in the workshop to discuss and share ideas in three main sessions: logistics services and welfare, logistic regulation and market, and vision and challenges of logistics innovation. Through this workshop, five major strategies were discussed so as to develop and draw more than twenty agenda and tasks for the logistics innovation at national and local levels. 

Sangbeom Seo, Research Fellow, Department of Logistics Research, the KOTI MetroFreight team leader, presented the overview of national logistics innovation master plan.  Seung Ju Jeong, Senior Research Fellow, Director of Department of Logistics Research, and Hong Seung Roh and Taihyeong Lee, Research Fellows, Department of Logistics Research, (KOTI researchers) led each session’s discussion.