Review of underground logistic systems in the Netherlands: an ex-post evaluation of barriers, enablers and spin-offs

Bart W. Wiegmans, Johan Visser, Rob Konings and Ben-Jaap A. Pielage

European Transport \ Trasporti Europei, 2010, issue 45, 34-49

Abstract: Now, 10 years after the first plans, we analyse in this paper what has happened with Underground Logistic Systems (ULS). The major question in this paper is: Which barriers and enablers led to the failure of ULS and what ULS spin-offs can be found nowadays? Several factors can be classified as barriers or enablers. The main conclusions that can be drawn are that the opportunities for try-out were too limited; political support could have been gained on higher levels; the costs were too high, the catchment area was too limited; ULS in itself is a very promising system, but there was no one clear goal. In particular, the lack of a thorough and positive business model in combination with a lack of sufficient freight volumes almost immediately guaranteed the failure of the initiative. The spin-offs seem to have taken place in different directions: ranging from rather soft impacts (e.g. scientific knowledge) to more hard developments (adopting and developing transport and tunnelling technologies), and, although difficult to quantify, they are of great value.

Keywords: Innovation management; Underground freight transport (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sot:journl:y:2010:i:45:p:34-49

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