50th Anniversary Invited Article—City Logistics: Challenges and Opportunities

TLDR

Urban populations are projected to rise sharply, making city logistics—transporting goods efficiently while mitigating congestion, safety, and environmental impacts—essential for maintaining urban quality of life. The article reviews current and future challenges and opportunities in city logistics. The authors conduct a comprehensive review and discussion of city logistics issues. The review aims to guide research agendas and encourage new researchers to enter the field.

Abstract

Today, around 54% of the world’s population lives in urban areas. By 2050, this share is expected to go up significantly. As a result, city logistics, which focuses on the efficient and effective transportation of goods in urban areas while taking into account the negative effects on congestion, safety, and environment, is critical to ensuring continued quality of life in cities. We review and discuss a variety of current and anticipated challenges and opportunities of city logistics. We hope this helps shaping an appropriate research agenda and stimulates more researchers to enter this exciting field.