Logistics for City and Regional Planning: Urban and Regional Planning Without Taking into Account the Effects of Transport Logistics

Logistics As A Tool And Its Effect On Structures

Land 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.