Dr. Dablanc: French Institute of Sciences and Technology for Transport, Development and Networks (IFSTTAR), Universite de Paris-Est.

City logistics / Urban logistics. The means over which freight distribution can take place in urban areas as well as the strategies that can improve its overall efficiency while mitigating congestion and environmental externalities.

• Global supply chains. A salient issue relates to urban freight distribution in the context of global supply chains as global processes are imposing local forms of adaptation to insure that freight is delivered in a timely and reliable fashion. Offshoring has also contributed to the setting of supply chains where freight distribution activities taking place within an urban area cannot be effectively explained by the regional economic structure.
• Global freight distribution. Since the distances involved in supporting global supply chains have increased, the function of distribution has taken a new significance, particularly with the setting of large terminal facilities such as ports, airports, rail yards and distribution centers. They are handling movements originating from, bound to or simply passing through a metropolitan area. With containerization as a tool supporting the bulk of international trade, intermodal terminals have become a notable element of the urban landscape. With the growth of valuable cargo carried over long distances, airports are also active nodes interacting with urban freight distribution. Along with their attached freight distribution facilities (e.g. transloading facilities and warehouses) large terminals form a fundamental element of the interface between global distribution and city logistics.
• Urbanization. Global urbanization is compounding the challenges of city logistics since the share and the level of concentration of the global population living in cities is increasing. Historically, the production and consumption of freight has dominantly taken place in cities, but with the industrial revolution and subsequently with globalization this share has increased. Cities also present a variety of forms and levels of density, each associated with specific city logistics patterns. Socioeconomic factors, such as rising income and consumer preferences should also not be neglected.

• Private concerns. Actors directly involved in urban freight distribution are mainly concerned by its constraints such as congestion since it imposes additional costs and delays in their operations. Also, restrictions on street access by trucks as well as for pickups and deliveries, provide additional challenges. Urban logistics becomes a competitive factor that needs to be addressed since it impairs the cost and efficiency of the last mile (or first) of global supply chains.
• Public concerns. Actors involved in the oversight of urban freight distribution as well as urban residents in general are concerned by its externalities. Congestion and noise impacts residents, particularly their commuting and social interactions, as well as the general livability of a city. Passengers and freight flows are therefore subject to conflicts. Environmental concerns such as air pollution are recurrent in many cities. City logistics is becoming a salient urban sustainability issue.

• Paris aims to limit the environmental footprint of freight distribution so that the quality of life of its residents can be maintained and improved. The city's status as one of the world's leading cultural and touristic hub has a notable impact on the strategies and priorities accorded to urban freight distribution.
• Mexico tries to cope with the contradictory demands related to the dual presence of both modern (motorized) and traditional forms of urban distribution in terms of infrastructure provision and regulations. Modern logistics services are as vital to the urban economies of developing countries as are more basic freight activities serving street vendors or home based manufacturing workshops.
• Chicago aims at maintaining its role as a major rail hub and freight distribution platform for North America with concentration of distribution and manufacturing activities. The metropolitan area is the point of convergence of the rail lines of the Class I carriers, but the different terminal facilities are in separate parts of the city and not well connected. This involves truck congestion as containers need to be carried from one terminal to the other.
• Los Angeles is facing congestion and environmental issues such as noise and air pollution. The city is facing conflicts between its function as a major commercial gateway for the East Asian trade and other functions linked with touristic and cultural activities. Recent initiatives concerns trucking associated with the main port facilities as well as nearby major import-based distribution centers.
• Shanghai has become the largest cargo port in the world and acts as the major transport hub supporting China’s export-oriented strategies. A significant share of the freight circulating within the city is therefore linked with global distribution processes. Rising standards of living imply growing consumption levels.
• Istanbul is coping with rapid urbanization and economic growth, along with unique geographical constraints, namely a scarcity of flat land and the division of the city by the strait of Bosporus. The city is embarking in large infrastructure projects with a new mega airport and the relocation of manufacturing clusters.

• Independent retailing. Urban areas have a notable variety of retailing activities, many of which defining the commercial and social character of neighborhoods. More than often they are small single owner stores and in developing countries these retailing activities are often complemented by informal street markets and stalls.
• Chain retailing. In the contemporary commercial landscape large retail stores  (such as "Big box" stores) have become an important element. While they used to be located in central areas and being an defining element of urban centrality, they have also emerged in suburban and peri-urban areas. Shopping malls, many quite large, are set on the principle of economies of agglomeration and the provision of ample parking space. Chain retailing tends to rely on the expertise of third party logistics services providers to mitigate urban freight distribution challenges, but mostly to organize complex multinational sourcing strategies sourcing mass retailers. Large stores are commonly accessed through dedicated delivery bays where they are resupplied on a daily basis through their own regional warehousing facilities.
• Food deliveries. Since most food products are perishable, a specialized form of urban distribution has been set to supply outlets such as grocery stores and restaurants. The outdoor market (central markets offer enclosed facilities) also take an important role in supplying urban populations with perishables, particularly in developing countries. This may be linked with informal forms of distribution where food producers deliver their production to urban markets. Limited information is available about urban food consumption levels but high levels of spoilage are observed, in the range of 50% of all the food consumed.
• Parcel and home deliveries. Globalization and the setting of advanced services such as insurance, finance or corporate management (head or regional offices) are linked with a growth in the movement of parcels. While some are serviced by local companies, large parcel carriers have established services covering the majority of the world's main commercial cities. They maintain a network of strategically located distribution centers where shipments are consolidated or deconsolidated. International shipments are often taken care of by parent companies, namely air freight integrators. Online shopping (for retail goods but also for groceries) has grown significantly, a trend which is associated with the growth of home deliveries.

• Construction sites. Urban infrastructures, from roads, residences to office and retail spaces, are constantly been constructed, renovated and repaired. Such activities are intensive in material use and must be supplied on an irregular basis both in terms of the time and location of the deliveries.
• Waste collection and disposal. Urban activities generate large quantities of waste, namely paper, paperboard, food, plastics, metals and glass. These materials must be collected and carried to recycling or disposal sites. In particular, recycling has become an important activity taking place in urban areas and involve specialized vehicles and dedicated pick-up tours. As standards of living are increasing across the world, the amount of waste generated by cities has grown accordingly.
• Industrial and terminal haulage. Cities are zones of production as well as gateways for the circulation of goods. Large transportation terminals such as ports, airports and railyards are dominant elements of the urban landscape, including logistics zones where freight is distributed to extensive markets. Transport terminals and logistics zones are also generators of goods movements that may impact urban circulation (the last mile). Gate access at large intermodal terminals such as ports can lead to congestion (queuing) and local disruptions.

• Vehicle age. On average vehicles used for urban deliveries are older and it is a common practice to use trucks at the end of their service life for short distance drayage. This problem is compounded in developing countries where vehicles are even older and thus more prone to higher emissions and accidents.
• Vehicle size. The size of vehicles used for urban deliveries is on average smaller, particularly in areas that have high density and limited street parking. This implies that the advantages of economies of scale cannot be effectively applied for urban freight distribution. This has also additional drawbacks from an environmental perspective as smaller delivery vehicles must undertake more travel to deliver a similar volume of freight than a regular truck.
• Operating speeds and idling. The conditions pertaining to urban freight distribution are such that vehicles are forced to have lower driving speeds, regular stops and acceleration (e.g. traffic signals) as well as much more idling than a vehicle operating in an uncongested environment. Additionally, driving restrictions such as one ways or car-only streets often make the usage of the shortest path unfeasible. The result is more fuel consumption and pollutant emissions.

• Commuting and peak hours. Passengers and truck movements are not interacting efficiently as freight and passenger circulation are a zero-sum game; road capacity taken by freight transportation is at the expense of capacity available to passenger transportation. They share the same road infrastructure and peak hours due to commuting exacerbate the difficulties of freight distribution.
• Congestion. City logistics, like logistics in general, depend of consistent and reliable deliveries. The urban environment that tend to have high congestion levels is challenging. To avoid congestion, deliveries can take place during the night (or off peak hours) if possible.
• Parking. There is limited parking capacity to accommodate deliveries in high density areas. Delivery vehicles cope with this challenge by double parking, thus seriously impeding local circulation.
• Cargo load contradictions. Urban freight distribution is characterized by smaller volumes and high frequency deliveries. This is not prone to economies of scale and involves higher delivery costs.
• Land use. Land use patterns determine many features of the urban movement of goods, where the pattern of industrial, commercial and logistics facilities has a direct impact on the flow of commercial goods. Logistics sprawl has been a dominant land use change of the last decades with is the relocation of logistics facilities towards peripheral areas at faster rates and greater distances than any other economic activity. Suburban logistics has become as relevant as city logistics.
• Reverse (green) logistics. While cities are major consumers of final goods, there are also reverse logistics activities related to the collection of wastes and recycling.
• E-commerce. Related to new forms of demands and new forms of urban distribution with a growth in the home deliveries of parcels. While the concerned volumes were relatively small, the diffusion of information technologies has impacted the urban distribution structure of retail goods. This has been accompanied by a growth of parcel deliveries and new strategies to complement home deliveries with alternate solutions (pick-up-points, automated locker banks). For large apartment complexes, the lobby has essentially become a small freight distribution center.

• Rationalization of deliveries. Relates to adjustments about how freight is delivered (or picked up) in urban areas so that externalities, namely congestion, are minimized. Such a strategy tries to better use existing assets. One of the simplest strategies is to regulate access to specific parts of the city, such as forbidding daytime deliveries in central areas. Distributors can also opt for night deliveries or at least extended delivery windows to avoid peak hour traffic. There is an array of information technologies that are increasingly being used to manage urban freight distribution systems. The most used technologies relate to global positioning systems that improve vehicle tracking and urban navigation as well as load management applications that can assist in building routes and delivery schedules. Under such circumstances it becomes more effective to match trip sequences, such as deliveries and pickups to strive towards forms of collaborative distribution. Still, urban freight distribution remains highly imbalanced as deliveries are more numerous than pickups and the most significant relation concerns very different supply chains; retail deliveries / garbage disposal.
• Freight facilities. Relates to the development of freight distribution infrastructures that are better adapted to the urban context. This can involve the setting of designated parking areas for deliveries, as well as the usage of urban freight distribution centers and local freight stations. The later are small facilities trying to service a cluster of urban freight demand (e.g. a neighborhood) or a single large facility such as an office building. Since these facilities imply additional costs that can only be justified if there is a sufficient volume and concentration of deliveries within an area. Urban freight facilities can thus be a value proposition in large cities (or high density areas) while for smaller cities such initiatives would drive up costs and unreliability. If the opportunity arises, such as the availability of a brownfield site in proximity to the city center, urban logistics zones can be developed, which can provide a counterweight to logistics zones that have emerged in the periphery of most large urban agglomerations.  Urban consolidation centers (UCC) specifically provide a bundled and coordinated delivery service. A UCC is a logistics facility located close to the city center from which consolidated deliveries are carried out, and which provides a range of other value-added logistics services. Land prices however constitute an important obstacle to the urban siting of freight facilities. Up to 200 such terminals existed in European cities in the 1990s and early 2000s. Due to operating costs, most of them closed down when municipalities could no longer subsidize them. 
• Modal adaptation. Relates to the usage of adapted vehicles for urban freight distribution. Smaller vehicles tend to be better suited for urban deliveries because of their lesser footprint, their ability to maneuver and their higher than average load factor. Yet, a similar amount of freight would require move vehicles to be delivered. Regulations can therefore be enforced concerning the permitted size of delivery vehicles (with a chosen limit permitting medium size trucks to operate) and even their age if environmental concerns such as emissions and noise are salient. Innovative strategies such as CNG vehicles and even bicycles have been successfully implemented and underline a good potential for modes to adapt to the diversity of the urban landscape. The usage of the existing public transit system has also been considered for urban freight distribution. However, there are no cost and logistically effective strategy to date. Urban transit is not well adapted to freight distribution and often involves additional load break and costs. Attempts at developing "cargo-trams" have failed, such as the ambitious cargo-tram project in Amsterdam, which went bankrupt in 2009.