O enfoque de "city logistics" na distribuição urbana de encomendas

Abstract

The conflict generated by cargo displacement in the urban space is not new. Many times, however, this subject has been put aside due to other priorities, mainly the ones associated with public transportation and with people movement in general. This can be confirmed when one compares the number of scientific publications dealing with such themes. But, due to the growing volumes of urban cargo, mainly in the CBDs, the subject “urban cargo” is receiving much more attention recently, particularly when proposing measures to improve environmental conditions in these centers. Thus, with the objective of keeping urban mobility within a sustainable transportation framework, new propositions are being developed concerning new forms of delivering merchandises in the city, as a way to mitigate the negative effects of such activities (which involve nuisance of different kinds: visual, sound, pollutant emissions etc). Five key areas can be identified as possible transportation strategies, from which it is possible to extract environmental gains and increasing competitiveness for the enterprises involved in the process of displacing cargo: 1) less polluting engines, 2) personal training (truck drivers), 3) choice of more favorable transportation modes, 4) reduction of the number of vehicles in the traffic network, and 5) the adoption of city logistics concepts. In this thesis we analyze the benefits generated by the use of city logistics concepts directed to the improvement of the urban environment with a national focus. The CBD of Florianópolis-SC, Brazil, was considered in the application. The corresponding costs were estimated (man power, operations, facilities) for the actual reality. Then, these elements were compared with another alternative formulation, hypothetical, where the concepts of city logistics were predominant. Good results, either under the environmental point of view (reduction of pollution levels and of moving vehicles), or under the competitive framework (cost reduction), were observed, which endorse and stimulate the adoption of this novel concept.