The Municipality of Kalamaria, partner of the SUITS Project, organized on 20th March 2019, a stakeholders’ workshop focusing on “Sustainable urban freight transport: addressing modern era challenges, with the involvement of stakeholders and the support of the SUITS project for Urban Sustainable Mobility”. The event was held in the Municipal Council Hall of the city of Kalamaria and was organized under the activities of the SUITS project.

During the workshop, a fruitful discussion concerning the future of the sustainable urban freight transport was held. Different views and experiences were shared among representatives from authorities, academia, companies and citizens. Presentations setting the frame of the workshop were delivered by SUITS partners; the Municipality of Kalamaria (Civil Engineer MSc Mr. Ioannis Krinos), the CEO of SBOING.net (Dr. Fotis Liotopoulos), Fleet Maintenance Manager of Makios Logistics (Mr. Nikos Sfitis), the Research Associate in Logistics and Supply Chain Management of the Hellenic Institute of Transportation (Ms. Elpida Xenou), and the Consultants of Lever Development (Ms. Olympia Papadopoulou and Ms. Kostantia Karagouni).

Click on the name of the participant to download the presentation (available only in Greek).

Important conclusions/take-home messages were drawn from the presentations and the subsequent discussion:

The platform MyPolisLive.net, presented by Dr. Fotis Liotopoulos, showed a great potential and a high level of detail in the visual representation of the route traffic information, compared to the alternatives (IMET, Google etc.). Furthermore, the platform can provide data with negligible costs, as opposed to the high prices of Google’s route traffic data. It can produce a very useful and cost-effective tool for the collection of real-time traffic data, provided always that the data is appropriately processed by the personnel.

During the presentation of the educational material prepared by Lever regarding the urban goods transport and a case study in Utrecht- Netherlands, it was highlighted that they cannot be rapidly implemented in all cities due to dissimilarities in cultural matters, the States’ motivation, cities’ traffic conditions and the geometric design of roads.

It was also emphasized that, without the political will (eg Mayor’s), the measures cannot be properly addressed.

Occasioned by the urban consolidation centers presented, it was concluded that they were successfully implemented (abroad) due to specific incentives (such as the mandatory use of bicycles for the transportation of goods and low speed zones in the circumference of the cities’ center). Additionally, due to the costly use of land inside the cities, each municipality must take initiatives to cede land for those centers. Hence, there is a need for a legal and regulatory framework.

Τhe presentation of ΗΙΤ emphasized that the SUMPs do not integrate the urban goods transport in their design, and therefore, the SULP (Sustainable Urban Logistics Plan) was developed. The importance of the determination of the main factors and the stakeholders in the supply chain was underlined, with the objective to create a Partnership Agreement (Memorandum) between the stakeholders’ groups and analyze the current condition of the urban goods transport. The effective measures for the urban goods transport will be developed after the determination of priorities and measurable goals (objectives).

The participants were highly interested in the participation in the webinars – e-learnings organised by Lever.

It was obvious that the externalization of freight transport’s social and environmental impacts was something unknown for the participants from trade transport sector (businesses, trade association). A lot in the field of citizens awareness is needed to be done for that issue.

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