By Florence TOILIER, Alain BONNAFOUS and Jean-Louis ROUTHIER

Laboratory of the Economics of Transportation

Abstract

Compared with what we know about passenger services in cities, including simulations of ridership as a function of hypotheses related to transportation policies, little is known about shipping freight in urban areas. We have long assumed that these “utilitarian” forms of transportation have an effect on traffic congestion of about the same magnitude as private vehicles. Twenty years ago, the French Ministry of Equipment launched a national research program for improving statistics and our understanding of urban logistics. Advances in knowledge about urban freight and shipping are presented herein, in particular the implementation of novel statistical surveys in this field.