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European Journal of Applied Sciences – Vol. 9, No. 6

Publication Date: December 25, 2021

DOI:10.14738/aivp.96.11151. Leite, C. E. (2021). Choosing the Urban Cargo Vehicle. European Journal of Applied Sciences, 9(6). 122-133.

Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom

Choosing the Urban Cargo Vehicle

Cesar Eduardo Leite

ABSTRACT

The concentration of the population in urban areas and its consequences on the lack

of social well-being generate pollution and several inconveniences for this

population. The Urban Cargo Transport service - UCT, which has one of its

bottlenecks in the Urban Cargo Vehicle – UCV, is seen as one of the main generators

of these inconveniences. This work seeks to identify gaps in the research carried

out on the UCT, aimed at choosing the UCV that offers less impact on inconveniences.

With the Systematic Literature Review – SLR, articles are selected, which are

studied in-depth and demonstrate the trends presented here.

Keywords: City logistics, Urban Cargo Transport, Urban Cargo Vehicle.

INTRODUCTION

The densification of metropolitan areas around the world and the intensification of city logistics

make vehicle traffic and the environmental impact of urban freight movements a significant

concern for city inhabitants. This is because a small portion of the movements performed by

goods transporting vehicles is responsible for a disproportionate portion of environmental

impacts (SAKAI et al., 2020).

It is projected that 70% of the world's population will live in cities by 2050, which triggers the

need for a solution to the environmental effects of urbanization, the search for job offers in

urban areas, the quality of freight transport, and the regional development of the economy, all

factors that are influenced by urban logistics, studied by Taniguchi et al. (2001) as city logistics.

City logistics comprises the activities of logistics and transport of goods in urban areas and is

identified as the last step in the management of the supply chain. Thus, city logistics is a

multidisciplinary problem that includes managerial, social, and engineering aspects, with

particular objectives and requirements of the different stakeholders involved, such as

suppliers, retailers, consumers, and local authorities. Therefore, proper planning of city

logistics must have a great impact on social well-being (DOLATI NEGHABADI et al., 2019).

In the United States, transportation accounts for about a third of total energy use and about a

quarter of total greenhouse gas emissions. This situation motivates the use of the services of

companies that organize the delivery of goods or plan shared services, with the advantage of

using alternative modes of mobility, such as bicycles. All this movement has rapidly changed

the scenario in which consumers make their travel decisions, providing opportunities for e- commerce, telecommuting, occupation of buildings, and delivery of goods (MURATORI et al.,

2020). This set of factors has motivated the proposal of public policies that help decarbonize

the cargo transport sector, stimulating the use of less polluting modes (TAPIA et al., 2020).

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Leite, C. E. (2021). Choosing the Urban Cargo Vehicle. European Journal of Applied Sciences, 9(6). 122-133.

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/aivp.96.11151

The largest cities in Brazil are going through a crisis in their urban mobility model, with a great

contribution from the goods distribution process, of which the proper choice of vehicle for

urban cargo transport requires considerable effort in decisions. This choice is based on

attributes that influence decision-makers in choosing the best commercial vehicle option,

attributes related to aspects of the vehicle, cargo, delivery area, cargo vehicle restrictions, and

operation requirements (BATISTA et al., 2020).

Many studies arise in the search for solutions to city logistics issues, such as the creation of

collection/delivery points in drugstores, gas stations, post offices, supermarkets, and shopping

malls, all as a way to replace home deliveries and reduce travel. deliveries in urban areas

(OLIVEIRA et al., 2019b). In addition, it is necessary to assess the relationship between the

population along the routes and the transport service itself, as there are socio-spatial

implications of the urban infrastructure dedicated to this transport (LEE et al., 2020).

This research work seeks to contribute to the solution of the problem of urban distribution of

goods, to elucidate potential gaps in current studies on the subject, here treated as Urban Cargo

Transport - UCT, focusing on the issue of choosing the Urban Cargo Vehicle. Cargo - UCV

according to the population's view along the routes, which is of great interest to public policy

advisors.

CHOOSING THE PROPER UCV

The research consists of a review of the literature and concepts, seeking to elucidate the state

of the art on the choice of UCV and identify research gaps that deal with this subject. Systematic

searches are carried out on the internet to find current research, solid bases, and replicable

methods, to complement the thesis on the choice of UCV.

As used in Meza-Peralta et al. (2020), Zunder, T. H. (2021), He (2020) e Elbert & Rentschler

(2021), between others, the Systematic Literature Review - SLR has been widely applied in

research on the UCT and its impact on the sustainability of cities. The SLR consists of a

replicable research protocol, detailed in three steps that allow a thorough and automatic study

of the topic (LAGORIO et al., 2016).

Step 1 - inclusion and exclusion criteria

It consists of identifying terms, or keywords, which locate the research available on the internet

and indicate their inclusion or exclusion from the list of works to be evaluated. To universalize

the results, the terms are submitted in English with the parity of options for terms that

represent the same idea.

First, a search was carried out with the term "freight vehicle choice", which presented results

in the Google Scholar, Science Direct, Scopus, and Taylor&Francis databases. Only results

referring to articles were considered, with the term located in the title, abstract, or keyword.

From this first search, 8 articles were selected which, after superficial reading, indicated the

use of the expression "commercial vehicle choice", whose result of the new search surpassed

hundreds of works. Thus, it was decided to include the expression "urban freight" as a

compliment, and the bases Google Scholar, Portal de Periódicos Capes, Emerald, Science Direct,

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European Journal of Applied Sciences (EJAS) Vol. 9, Issue 6, December-2021

Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom

Scopus, and Springer, with restriction of results referring to articles, resulted in 35 selected

papers.

Step 2 – reading the abstracts

At this stage, the abstracts of the 35 selected articles were read and, after their study, 8 articles

that did not specifically address the choice of cargo vehicle for the urban environment (UCV)

were excluded. There remained articles with literature reviews, mathematical models, and

specific case studies, which began to be read in their entirety.

Step 3 – reading the full texts

At this stage, the 35 articles were read in detail, which showed that 5 articles were excluded

based on SLR and the rest delve into specific issues on the topic.

Articles describing an slr

Five articles that describe an SLR and have their direction aimed at discussing this method and

its applicability were selected for presenting the researched terms as one of the options.

However, these articles also work with other search terms and their objectives differ from this

research. Its results are the number of selected works, the set of theoretical contents, and the

evaluated attributes, without discussing their implications in real events. Its theoretical

contents are the attributes that this research wants to evaluate to identify the lack of some

complement.

Thus, the referred surveys based on SLR are presented below:

Lagorio et al.(2016) – With the analysis of 104 articles, the authors identify the most important

contributions to urban logistics, which can guide the development of new research. Among the

topics covered in the articles, the 3 most frequent were: routing issues, stakeholder

involvement, and indicators to measure impact or compare city logistics projects. The SLR

already presents results involving the use of alternative vehicles for the UCT, such as electric

vehicles, bicycles, and even drones, however, it limits itself to indicating the works without

deepening the contents.

Bask & Rajahonka (2017) – The authors make an SLR focusing on the European Union - EU and

the role of environmental sustainability in decisions about the mode of transport. After

determining the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 40 articles were selected, 33 of which

addressed the choice of mode of transport. According to the authors' study, the surveys show

the assessment according to the view of logistics companies, and the criteria most present in

surveys of the choice of transport mode in the EU, in order from most cited to least cited, are:

1. Price / Cost

2. Reliability

3. Time / Speed

4. Flexibility

5. Frequency

6. Damage rate / quality

7. Environmental sustainability/carbon emissions

As seen, financial values are evaluated first and sustainability last.