Castillo C, Viu-Roig M, Alvarez-Palau E J
Faculty of Economics and Business, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona, Av. Del Tibidabo, 39, 08035 Barcelona, Spain.
Transp Res Interdiscip Perspect. 2022 Jun;14:100605. doi: 10.1016/j.trip.2022.100605. Epub 2022 Apr 27.
The COVID-19 health crisis has had a strong impact on societies around the world, affecting both the health of populations and countries' economies. While lockdowns imposed to stop the spread of infection reduced urban mobility and had a positive impact on air quality, lowering the emission of polluting particles and greenhouse gases, they had the opposite effect on urban freight distribution (UFD). With the population remaining at home, ecommerce-driven shipments surged, and total freight traffic increased. In order to have a better understanding of this phenomenon, the aim of this study was to identify the impact of COVID-19 lockdowns on the daily operation of the region's main logistics agents. Lessons learned from this cyclical scenario could be used to define more sustainable public policies regarding UFD in the post-COVID era. To meet the above objectives, semi-structured interviews were conducted with public administrations and private operators, before being transcribed and encoded for later analysis. The results of our study show that common problems in UFD, such as traffic congestion or problems finding parking in the loading and unloading (L/U) zones, temporarily disappeared during the lockdown phase. Delivery times were consequently reduced, despite an increase in operations due to ecommerce. In addition, the public administrations took advantage of this situation to adapt the urban space and force a transition towards new delivery systems, such as cargo-bikes, to guarantee sustainable last-mile operations in specific zones.
新冠疫情引发的健康危机对全球社会产生了重大影响，既影响了民众健康，也冲击了各国经济。为遏制疫情传播而实施的封锁措施虽降低了城市的人员流动，并对空气质量产生了积极影响，减少了污染颗粒和温室气体的排放，但却给城市货运配送（UFD）带来了相反的影响。由于民众居家，电子商务驱动的货物运输量激增，货运总量增加。为了更好地理解这一现象，本研究旨在确定新冠疫情封锁措施对该地区主要物流代理商日常运营的影响。从这一周期性情况中吸取的经验教训，可用于制定新冠疫情后时代关于城市货运配送的更具可持续性的公共政策。为实现上述目标，我们对公共管理部门和私营运营商进行了半结构化访谈，随后进行转录和编码以便后续分析。我们的研究结果表明，城市货运配送中的常见问题，如交通拥堵或在装卸区寻找停车位困难等，在封锁阶段暂时消失。尽管电子商务导致业务量增加，但配送时间因此缩短。此外，公共管理部门利用这一形势对城市空间进行调整，并推动向新的配送系统（如货运自行车）转型，以确保特定区域内最后一英里配送业务的可持续性。
