The team made up of members of Barcelona City Council and the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya comprehensively addresses the sustainability of Barcelona's current urban logistics with an Industrial Doctorate project .
It proposes harmonization measures between e- commerce and merchandise logistics with the use of public space for other citizen activities.
The challenges of sustainable mobility
The paradigm of urban mobility is in the process of transformation, although it will not be an immediate change. The main European cities have put their efforts into designing a new urbanism within the framework of the 2030 Agenda . The United Nations itself states that “all people must have access to safe, affordable, accessible and sustainable transport systems. And this includes road safety, mainly through the expansion of public transport”. While it is true that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) do not explicitly speak of sustainable mobility, it is a fact that this is an unavoidable cross-cutting objective to achieve some of the SDGs. The data provided by the European Environment Agency highlights how transport is the one that contributes most to greenhouse gas emissions. Overall, greenhouse gas emissions from the EU transport sector increased progressively between 2013 and 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic marks a turning point with a significant drop in transport emissions due to the decrease in activity, but despite preventive measures, transport emissions will not fall to 1990 levels until 2029. For this reason, the European Commission has adopted different measures in transport, among other matters, to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030.
There are many challenges to achieving the objectives proposed to achieve good management of sustainable urban centers: urban planning, planning and urban design favorable to sustainable mobility, traffic management and pacification, car sharing, renewable energies in public transport, mobility between the metropolitan region and the municipality of Barcelona, etc. It is a very positive fact for the city of Barcelona to be one of the most powerful logistics hubs in the Mediterranean, and the management of the port, airport and the different logistics areas of the city are a management challenge in the field of mobility. The emergence of e -commerce or electronic commerce is one of the factors causing the strong increase in the flow of goods in cities. According to Nasdaq , 95% of all purchases will be made through e-commerce by the year 2040, a fact that is definitely already transforming the logistics structure of cities. These new online shopping habits not only generate an increase in demand, but also incorporate new actors in the distribution chain and a new profile of demander (individuals and their core community). Traditional actors have tended to transform their business model in order to adapt to new market trends.
Applied research in urban mobility
These challenges are a small example of everything that the industrial doctoral project, led by the Barcelona City Council and the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, aims to address to find a solution. The team is made up of researcher Imma Ribas, the deputy manager of Infrastructure and Urban Coordination of the Barcelona City Council Manuel Valdés López and doctoral student Maria Savall. Their collaborative research work focuses on the city of Barcelona, with a mobility model in the midst of a radical transformation process. According to the data from their study, the old model based on indiscriminate use of private vehicles has generated negative externalities that the city cannot live with: pollution, road safety and excessive occupation of public space. Other factors such as the climate emergency situation, the annual number of traffic accidents, or the need for public space for activities that provide considerable value to citizens, make the transformation of the mobility model a priority for the current county council. The new Urban Mobility Plan of the Barcelona City Council (2019-2024) has as its main objectives to reduce accidents associated with mobility, and increase safe, sustainable, healthy, equitable and intelligent mobility.
When we talk about mobility in the framework of this applied research in Barcelona, we must consider two large groups of mobility: people's mobility and goods' mobility. To achieve sustainable people's mobility, as the research team explains, the population must be made aware of using public transport and thus achieve a reduction in the use of private cars. On the other hand, with regard to goods mobility, the project believes it is necessary to replace polluting vehicles with sustainable vehicles and optimize their use. Urban Goods Distribution (DUM) supports the distribution of basic services for the urban population, the development of urban metabolism and the city's economy. According to the conclusions of its research, the team considers that DUM activity tends to be approached in a fragmented and reactive way, the fact is that to define a DUM policy, the involvement of different areas of the City Council and the city is necessary: mobility, infrastructure, urban planning, economy, commerce, Guàrdia Urbana and the environment.
Recognition at Smart City Expo 2021 in Bilbao
The industrial doctoral project we are talking about is entitled “New comprehensive model of urban goods distribution in the city of Barcelona: living together with public space”, and is a collaborative research project born from the work, study and constant analysis of Imma Ribas and Manuel Valdés (the two tutors of the project) to improve mobility, both of people and goods, in the city of Barcelona. In this case, the two tutors agree on the need to delve deeper into the distribution of urban goods in Barcelona, and considered the advantages of being able to do an Industrial Doctorate in this subject. Its objective is to carry out in-depth work that allows us to address the problem of urban mobility from a comprehensive perspective: identifying the effect of its development in urban areas, both of the classic model and of new trends, from accesses to the last mile and proposing comprehensive measures to harmonize it with the use of public space for other citizen activities.
The team formed by Imma Ribas, Manuel Valdés and Maria Savall already has recognized experience in the field of solutions for urban freight mobility. Recently, the doctoral student received the Citython award within the framework of the “ Solidarity and sustainable Urban Logistic for Bilbao ” challenge within the Smart City Expo 2021 of the city of Bilbao. According to Maria Savall, who participated in this challenge, the challenge posed by EIT-Urban Mobility consisted of proposing a solution to the impact that e-commerce has on the city of Bilbao. As she told us during the interview, the award has been an ideal opportunity to apply all the experience and knowledge acquired during the first year of her doctoral degree:
“Thus, in order to deal with this exponential increase in online shopping, we suggested a model for distributing goods that aimed not only to reduce the environmental impact but also to minimize congestion and noise. In addition, we recommended a campaign to raise awareness among the population of the repercussions of this new habit.”
The goods distribution model proposed for the city of Bilbao was made up of three urban consolidation centres (CCU) and a network of convenience points. These urban consolidation centres, understood as logistics spaces located near the area where they provide service and from where deliveries are made, should be located at the entrance to the city to prevent distribution vehicles from entering Bilbao, as proposed by the winning team of the challenge . Their proposal also included distribution with zero-emission vehicles from the CCUs to the convenience points. The convenience points would be all the local businesses that wanted to join this new network of collection points. Although this model presented is theoretical and does not include the point of view of distributors, the population, the public administration or consumers, it has had a certain implication in the research that is now being carried out in Barcelona. The team recognizes that this award is an incentive to continue working towards the goal of improving last-mile distribution in Barcelona, where they are already working to present a model that reflects collaboration with the different actors, with which the improvement achieved can be quantified, and achieve a direct impact on the city of Barcelona:
“With the implementation of a model of this style, a reduction in congestion, noise and environmental pollution could be obtained. In addition, it would also serve to achieve a reduction in the use of public space and, therefore, this space could be improved and made available to citizens.”
Collaborative research, why an Industrial Doctorate?
The researcher from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia Imma Ribas has repeated the experience for the second time with an Industrial Doctorate, the first was related to the mobility of people and the second to the mobility of goods. According to the entire team involved, the experience of a project of this type is very good and highly recommended. The possibility of combining the experience of the Barcelona City Council with that of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia has been very enriching in the academic, professional and personal spheres.
The project tutor within the Barcelona City Council, Manuel Valdés, details that the possibility of integrating an Industrial Doctorate at the City Council has allowed them to scientifically analyze possible solutions and validate the practical knowledge they already had: “this allows us to keep in mind new trends, advances or innovations and then develop the application in our city”. Also for the doctoral student Maria Savall, being able to dedicate herself full time to the analysis, study and development of a new model for distributing goods in Barcelona is a unique opportunity:
“The topic we are dealing with is a current issue that the different actors are working on in depth and which makes it much more interesting and captivating.”
Nowadays, technological contributions and different solutions that have an impact on society are carried out in a collaborative and global way. Universities and research centers, as well as different types of innovative companies and institutions, are part of this system of knowledge and technology generation. In this system, synergies and interactions are generated, such as the fact that research centers can participate in a certain way in the R&D&I of companies. The possibility of combining training at the university and work at the City Council has been a key element in this urban mobility project.
The results of collaborative research have the characteristic of directly impacting society. The knowledge that is potentially useful for society that is generated in universities and research centers, finds a bridge with Industrial Doctoral Students. Industrial doctors thus act as knowledge transfer bridges and contribute to strengthening the relationships between the industrial fabric of Catalonia and universities and research centers.
“The university has the tools to know current trends, to know the state of the art of any of the aforementioned measures, to know how research should be done, etc., while being part of the mobility and infrastructure department of the Barcelona City Council provides us with a lot of data, analysis, studies or decisive reflections for this Industrial Doctorate.”
