The Role of Inland Waterway Transport in City Logistics

Abstract

The urbanization process indicates that today’s cities are the main centres where transport demands accumulate. This causes, in effect, an increase in freight and passenger traffic, which in turn contributes to a rise in environmental and noise pollution, accidents, and thus a deterioration of the quality of life in cities. Bearing in mind the numerous advantages of inland waterway transport, it can be assumed that in cities located near inland waterways, this branch can be seen as an important link in the urban logistics chain. Therefore, the aim of this article is to indicate the possibility of using this mode of transport to handle transport needs in cities. Thearticle uses the method of desk research, based on analysing andverifying facts and merging existing statistical data on the urbanization process and experiences related to the use of inland waterway transport to handle various transport needs in selected European cities. The article shows that in cargo transit, the use of inland waters in urban logistics is an attractive branch of transport, not only in such areas as transportation of construction materials or waste collection but also in transport related to the supply of stores. Positive experiences of Western European cities should inspire action to increase the use of this branch in urban logistics in Poland, e.g., in the city of Gdańsk, located above the Motława waterway.

Possibilities of Using Inland Navigation to Improve Efficiency of Urban and Interurban Freight Transport with the Use of the River Information Services (RIS) System—Case Study

“…However, most research works concentrate on ways of improving and optimizing road freight transport instead of considering alternative solutions [7][8][9][10]. Therefore, some studies are conducted for the methodology for measuring and evaluating the environmental performance of logistics systems [4] and other focus on process modelling [11,12], for example proposing a new concept of the use of interim container terminals, arranged in a number of key points in the city with an adequate structure of the quays [13].…”

“…The use of inland transport makes it possible to shorten the transport time, improve the delivery reliability and shorten the distances covered by cargo. Some authors point out that the advantages of inland navigation make it an alternative for the creation of urban supply chains [13]. Waterways are the only infrastructure with free capacity and no issues of congestion or traffic jams.…”

Qualitative–Quantitative Warning Modeling of Energy Consumption Processes in Inland Waterway Freight Transport on River Sections for Environmental Management

“…Text mining was carried out on the basis of the selected literature due to its connection with the discussed topic. Originally, 73 publications (mainly from the Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar databases) were identified; after removing duplicates, a complete literature review classified 41 publications for further examination, including [1,3,4,11,13,18,[20][21][22][23][24][25][27][28][29][30][31][32][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41]43,44,[46][47][48][49][50][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60]. The structure of the studied publications includes 33 journal articles (80%) and 8 conference materials (20%).…”

“…Topic 8 focused on linear programming (optimization methods), while Groups 1 and 4 concerned problematics broadly understood in transport policy. Source: own elaboration based on 41 references [1,3,4,11,13,18,[20][21][22][23][24][25][27][28][29][30][31][32][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41]43,44,[46][47][48][49][50][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60].…”

“…The waterway is one of the elements of inland waterway transport [40,41], but due to its functions, it is essential for the development of inland navigation [36] and also influences economic development [24], especially in regions connected to the river [42]. It is emphasized that this type of transport is specific to market processes and sustainable development policy [34,[43][44][45]. The efficiency of inland waterway transport is closely related to improving the infrastructure of waterways, the structure of energy consumption, and the permissible carrying capacity of vessels [46,47].…”