لجستیک شهری در اسپانیا : چرا این ممکن است هرگز کار نکند؟

Urban freight deliveries depend strongly on local regulations and policies to guarantee a tidy and efficient flow of goods towards commercial premises. However, the urban freight delivery system in Spain, which is even more complicated due to the urban morphology and driving behavior, also suffers from a combination of negative factors, including uneven regulations, lack of enforcement and obsolete policies. We present the picture of the current scenario and the typical regulation schemes, analyzing the reasons for failure of the system and the possible efforts, relatively cheap and easy to implement, that could be undertaken towards improvement.

European cities present a series of common characteristics that influence their mobility and commercial activities and impose a series of restrictions in the associated flow of freight deliveries. First, most of these cities have a radial structure, with a very high concentration of shopping areas, restaurants and other social attraction poles in the city center. This generates asymmetric flows of people going to work, shop, eat or visit tourist attractions, with similar flows of associated goods. However, the morphology of these city centers, inherited from the Middle Ages and, thus, containing narrow streets with no parking lots or back alleys, was not designed for these types of land uses, a situation that further increases the downtown parking problems found in virtually every urban center (Ligocki & Zonn, 1984). In addition, infrastructure investments in these cities over the last three or four decades have often been implemented with a general idea of sustainability in mind (Topp & Pharoah, 1994), including bike lanes, underground and tram systems, more efficient bus systems (Daganzo, 2010) and the enlargement of pedestrian areas, which has generally led to larger and stricter restrictions regarding freight deliveries. As a matter of fact, freight deliveries are normally perceived as a nuisance, to which city governments react with ignorance (Zunder & Ibáñez, 2004). The common stereotype is that of large, slow and polluting vehicles contributing significantly to already high congestion levels because they are forced to stop in dense city center areas to make deliveries, which often requires double parking or the use of sidewalks due to the lack of space devoted to logistic activities (Dablanc, 2007). Nonetheless, these goods need to be delivered. Therefore, along with their general mobility policies geared towards sustainability, many European cities have tested or implemented city logistics measures (Russo & Comi, 2004). In the case of Spain, however, with the partial exception of Barcelona, while public and private passenger transport in Spanish cities continue to benefit from improvements in infrastructure and/or technology (e.g., traffic simulators, traffic counts, and real-time information), urban freight distribution continues to be hamstrung by procedures and regulations introduced half a century ago. We describe here the specific characteristics of the current urban freight scenario in Spain, from the perspectives of all the involved stakeholders. We focus particularly on the role played by the local authorities that are responsible for managing the system and establishing regulations and policies. We present the typical regulatory framework for Spanish cities as well as the mild attempts to introduce city logistics concepts, suggesting some action lines that might help to improve the situation. Nevertheless, there may be no hope for the future of city logistics in Spain. Plans, initiatives and regulations will never work unless they are consistently respected and enforced, and the Spanish cultural environment, together with the local authorities’ lack of initiative and willingness to truly face the problem head-on, often results in their ineffectiveness. In conclusion, we summarize the main characteristics of this enforcement issue, which may be decelerating or even paralyzing the development of city logistics in Spain.

Urban freight policies in Spain are not often the result of detailed analyses and evaluations. This is reflected in the fact that similar types of regulations are common throughout different cities regardless of their particular characteristics as well as the existence of different schedules for time windows and load zones and failures in recognizing that different types of urban distribution require different types of regulations. Despite their common regulation frameworks, however, cities do not share information, knowledge or cooperation, and there is a significant lack of national or regional bodies dealing with city logistics. Nevertheless, there is but one aspect where city center residents and workers, local authorities, freight carriers and receivers agree: the need to improve the efficiency of the freight delivery system in Spanish cities, especially in those areas with narrow streets, high commercial density and tourist attractiveness. This is because frictions involved in changing urban transport policies have caused the paralysis of these regulatory frameworks, while the desire for strengthened restrictions, increases in pedestrian areas, and improved sustainability has increased. We have proposed a series of measures that could help Spanish cities to better understand, manage and regulate freight transport in their historical centers. But these measures should not be considered as stand-alone recommendations. They should be embedded in a more profound traffic plan, where the issue of inapplicable regulations, which are all too often softened by the lack of enforcement, is eliminated for freight carriers as well as passenger cars, and where local administrations are provided with tools, guidelines and clear objectives to help them in their decision making. The definition of city logistics (meaning that, when delivering freight to city centers, sustainability must not run against efficiency and economic development) should be the cornerstone of this process. Most of the initiatives we have proposed in the “What could be done?” section are also applicable to other European countries, where there is more awareness of the urban freight issue but where the lack of data, of harmonized regulations and of innovative measures also limits the development of city logistics. However, the situation in Spain, unlike in Northern Europe or other countries, relies strongly on the issue of enforcement. Clearly, none of the proposed measures is likely to work unless the issue of enforcement is solved, both for passenger mobility and freight delivery regulations. Investment and implementation do not make any sense when local administrations try to keep everyone quiet by doing nothing while simultaneously promoting politically popular sustainability and congestion policies in the media. The strong political costs and negative reactions inherent in Spanish culture put strong pressure on local authorities when it comes to enforcing certain policies, and the situation remains unchanged. Some of the measures described here are oriented towards relieving some of this pressure by enabling local authorities to count on reliable data in their decision-making processes. Nonetheless, the first step must always be the decision to take the risk to try and change the embedded behavior patterns of car and truck drivers in dense, booming, almost chaotic Spanish urban areas.