Logistics in transport considers the physical structure of a city as given and tries to optimize the performance of companies or the transportation system within the given conditions. On the other side, companies choose their location under the given conditions and the expected changes and influence the structure of the city and its economy in a continuous way. City and transport planning methods have not considered these effects in their work so far and are therefore influenced by the driving forces of the economy of scale and demand oriented traffic growth. The introduction of principles of logistics into the early stages of land use and city planning would change the “given conditions” and open the path for a more sustainable development, with more pressure for innovation and fairness in the market.
TopLand use planning, city planning and transport planning are branches of applied logistics if we use the traditional definition for logistics as “the process of planning, implementing, and controlling the efficient, effective flow and storage of goods, services, and related information from point of origin to point of consumption for the purpose of conforming to customer requirements.” Land use, urban and transport planners are doing exactly the same – at least in their mental or computer models. But finally they build rigid structures, which seem to be rather stabile – at least for some time.
Traditionally transport logistics does not take into account its interrelationship with these disciplines and vice versa. Within given patterns of activities in a static spatial distribution, transport logistics tries to optimise transport activities.
The basic assumption is: settlement structures are stable and static. Under short time system-view logistics has to:
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Optimize either the transport structure or
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Optimize locations for distribution, trade or production activities under given conditions of transport infrastructure.
Conditions of the transport system are dependent on settlement and urban structures.
In general transport logistics is seen as “software” in a “hardware” environment.
The effect of logistics is expressed with indicators like:
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Saving of travel time,
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Saving of distances,
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Saving of costs,
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Saving of resources,
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Efficiency, and
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Competitive advantage.