3PL Services in City Logistics: A User's Perspective

The purpose of this paper is 1) to develop an overview of activities and services that can add value for users and consignees in city logistics schemes based on Urban Consolidation Centre, and 2) to understand and analyze the perceived value for users and consignees from using such services.

The paper will be based on studies of the city logistics literature and existing city logistics schemes, as well as survey and interview findings from studies of potential users (retailers) in Copenhagen inner city and interviews with existing users (retailers) of existing city logistics services in the cities of Maastricht, Netherlands, and Hasselt, Belgium.

The paper provides an overview and classification of possible third party logistics services in city logistics schemes. Also, findings about value perceived by current users as well as potential users are presented.

Literature on city logistics has implicitly relied mostly on given distribution patterns and has only rarely touched upon services beyond the distribution activities, nor has existing literature dealt systematically with the users´ perspective. This paper addresses these issues and argues for further work following this research path.

The overview and first results presented in this paper will provide input and direction for launching a city logistics project in Copenhagen inner city. Users of city logistics are important problem owners and therefore important drivers for the success of such projects (van Rooijen and Quak, 2008).

The paper provides an argument and analysis of value for users only sparsely dealt with in previous literature, and an overview from which practical launch of 3PL services in city logistics can take place.