Defining Urban Freight Microhubs: A Case Study Analysis

Konstantina Katsela, Şeyma Güneş, Travis Fried, Anne Goodchild and Michael Browne
Additional contact information
Konstantina Katsela: Division of Industrial and Financial Management of Logistics, Department of Business Administration, School of Business, Economics and Law, University of Gothenburg, P.O. Box 610, SE-40539 Gothenburg, Sweden
Şeyma Güneş: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Washington, 3760 E. Stevens Way NE, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
Travis Fried: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Washington, 3760 E. Stevens Way NE, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
Anne Goodchild: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Washington, 3760 E. Stevens Way NE, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
Michael Browne: Division of Industrial and Financial Management of Logistics, Department of Business Administration, School of Business, Economics and Law, University of Gothenburg, P.O. Box 610, SE-40539 Gothenburg, Sweden

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 1, 1-27

Abstract: Urban freight distribution has confronted several challenges, including negative environmental, social, and economic impacts. Many city logistics initiatives that use the concept of Urban Consolidation Centers (UCCs) have failed. The failure of many UCCs does not mean that the idea of additional terminals or microhubs should be rejected. There is limited knowledge about the advantages and disadvantages of using microhubs, requiring further exploration of this concept. To expand this knowledge, this research combines 17 empirical cases from Europe and North America to develop a framework for classifying different microhubs typologies. This research presents an integrated view of the cases and develops a common language for understanding microhub typologies and definitions. The research proposes microhubs as an important opportunity to improve urban freight sustainability and efficiency and one possible step to manage the challenge of multi-sector collaboration.

Keywords: microhubs; urban freight; city logistics; freight consolidation; last-mile logistics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/1/532/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/1/532/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:1:p:532-:d:717520

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().