City logistics

City logistics and metropolitan area logistics are collective terms for a large number of concepts for bundling urban freight traffic .

With a constant quality of supply, these concepts should relieve the urban infrastructure and make urban freight transport more economical . City logistics starts at the destination of the flow of goods , the recipients. From there, the flow of goods is organized and summarized. While the motto used to be: the same goods - different receiving locations, in the future, with the help of city logistics, it will be: different goods - the same receiving locations.

The German Transport Forum eV and the Bundesvereinigung Logistik eV describe City-Logistik as an entrepreneurial organization of freight transport trips to optimize capacity utilization and minimize the number of trips in metropolitan areas .

Paul Wittenbrink (partner at hwh Gesellschaft für Transport- und Unternehmensberatung mbH ) understands this term to mean all operational and dispatching activities that are based on the needs-based, efficient provision (in terms of type, quantity, time, space and environmental factors). Disposal) of real goods in a city .

While the first definition primarily focuses on the economic aspect of city logistics, Wittenbrink's definition also addresses the ecological aspect. However, there is no clear delimitation of this term.

City logistics concepts

Freight center

Freight traffic centers (GVZ) are traffic trade areas with independent transport companies / branches and system change points of the modes of transport (if possible: road, rail, water, air). They enable all parties involved to cooperate in order to achieve synergy effects . GVZ are connecting points of local and long-distance traffic as well as interfaces between the modes of transport.

It should be noted that this is one of various definitions that express the same content in terms of content.

One goal of the development of the GVZ is to relieve the roads from freight traffic and to promote the use of the more environmentally friendly transport modes rail and waterway. In this context, a key component of a freight traffic station is a terminal for combined cargo traffic (CT terminal). This enables the efficient change of mode of transport of containers , swap bodies and semi-trailers .

The aim of the development of a nationwide GVZ network with regard to the establishment of intermodal terminals is to move between the individual locations in a "night jump" in order to be competitive with road freight traffic in terms of time.

With the establishment of freight traffic centers at the interface of local and long-distance traffic, both positive economic and ecological goals are achieved. Examples of this are the ecological concerns of avoiding urban sprawl in metropolitan areas and relieving inner cities from heavy traffic.

Economic effects are e.g. B. the savings in high pre- and post-carriage costs through the spatial proximity of the modes of transport to each other. This also enables the resident companies to optimize the transitions between the modes of transport as well as local and long-distance transport through cooperation under one organizational roof (location company) in an environmentally and cost-friendly manner (keyword: city logistics).

There are 33 recognized GVZ in Germany. At the German level, the DGG Deutsche GVZ-Gesellschaft is the umbrella organization, at the European level it is Europlatforms.

Transshipment terminals

Terminals for combined cargo traffic as an interface between at least two modes of transport (mostly rail / road) can be located both in the city center and on the outskirts of metropolitan areas. They represent the interface between local and long-distance transport. The most common variant is integration in freight traffic centers. The transshipment can take place both with mobile devices, the so-called reach stackers , and with gantry cranes with a capacity of approx. 50,000 loading units / year. A track length of approx. 700 meters is ideal for loading or unloading so-called block trains . Combined transport in Germany is currently showing growth rates. So-called seaport hinterland traffic is becoming increasingly important . The containers from overseas are transported directly to the domestic terminals by rail.

Cooperations between freight transport companies

Freight transport companies that have decided to work together can use subcontractors who collect the consignments for the individual recipients from the cooperation partners involved and then deliver them in bundles. It is not absolutely necessary for the subcontractors to unload, re-sort and reload the shipments in their own transhipment depots. It is sufficient if z. B. sufficient re-sorting areas are available at a freight transport company that was last used.

Disposal logistics (reverse logistics)

, Apart from the inclusion of the side of the supply returns a logistics for the collection of Ware, recyclables and waste necessary.

literature

L. Thoma: City - Logistics: Concept - Organization - Implementation , Wiesbaden 1995
M. Kaupp: City - Logistics as a cooperative freight traffic management , Wiesbaden 1998
T. Wagner: City logistics as part of the supply chain , Sternenfels 2002
P. Wittenbrink: Bundling strategies of freight forwarders in the field of city logistics , Göttingen 1995