POLIS and ALICE launch their joint guide for advancing together towards zero-emission urban logistics by 2030

Thursday, April 7th, 2022

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ALICE and POLIS launch their joint guide for advancing together towards zero-emission urban logistics by 2030 – a milestone of the consolidated POLIS-ALICE Urban Logistics Strategic dialogue

On 1 December 2021, at the POLIS Conference 2021, members from both POLIS and ALICE presented the main highlights of the joint guide: advancing together towards zero emissions urban logistics by 2030.

The common vision of the POLIS-ALICE Urban Logistics Strategic dialogue is to lead transformation in cities so that urban logistics proactively responds to the pollution, congestion, safety, and environmental challenges for liveable, prosperous, resilient and safer cities.

Since the dialogue has started, consensus has been reached on the vision towards zero-emission urban logistics by 2030. Public authorities and private companies have defined together overarching principles, key factors of success and areas of intervention in which both play an active role. Additionally, productive collaborations have already emerged between companies and cities walking the talk.

Urban freight and logistics are gaining importance for every city to ensure growth, quality of life while protecting environment, climate and liveability. Cities need to work seamlessly with companies to address common challenges.

said Lola Ortiz Sanchez, Director General for Mobility Infrastructure and Planning, Madrid City Council and POLIS Urban Freight chair

The document address five key areas of intervention:

Smart governance and regulations. Clear targets and plans focussed on logistics need to be worked out with stakeholders. Knowledge and alignment across cities and countries facilitate companies to adopt economies of scale and lowering costs.
Clean & alternative fleet. Vans and trucks will continue to play a central role, while the use of small electric vehicles and cargo-bikes will increase considerably. New business and operational models are needed for their upscale integrating energy infrastructure and logistics operations.
Logistics operations. Consolidation of flows, enabled by new models of collaboration, sharing of vehicles and infrastructure (e.g., Physical Internet principles) should become the norm as well as decouple transport and delivery solutions (e.g. pick up points, lockers, etc.).
Purpose-oriented data acquisition and sharing. Interaction between companies and local authorities increases and will be facilitated by digitalization and pan-European open standards and protocols enabling seamless collaboration and information -based policies and measures.
Consumer engagement. More transparency on implications of delivery choices will empower consumers to influence the market

Reaching zero emissions for urban logistics is now mainly a question of mindset and collaboration as technical solutions exist. Cities and companies have a unique opportunity to set the decarbonization trend and inspire other sectors.

said Charlotte Migne, Group Sustainable Development director FM Logistic and ALICE Urban Logistics Chair

POLIS & ALICE strategic dialogue has become a strong alliance over the years. They supported the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport (DG MOVE) in the organisation of the consultation workshop on the new EU Urban Mobility Initiative: Urban freight transport and logistics[1]. Both networks have a central role to define the needs of local authorities and companies to be addressed in R&I programmes such as Horizon Europe.

We foresee the following next steps:

Encourage cities-regions and companies to use the joint guide and join the collaboration framework enabled by Polis and ALICE.
Continue our dialogue and exchanges with the European Commission and other EU institutions.
Enable connections between projects, initiatives, cities-regions and companies to accelerate innovation.
Engage with external stakeholders through POLIS conference, the International Physical Internet Conference, the Transport Research Arena, CIVITAS Forum and other key events at EU level.

Download the press release:

POLIS and ALICE launch their joint guide for advancing together towards zero- emission urban logistics by 2030

[1] consultation workshop on the new EU Urban Mobility Initiative: Urban freight transport and logistics https://www.eltis.org/participate/events/consultation-workshop-new-eu-urban-mobility-initiative-urban-freight-transport

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