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 the logistics of e-commerce and goods 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, despite the fact that it will not be an immediate change. The main European cities have put a thread on the needle in the framework of the 2030 Agenda to design a new urbanism. The United Nations itself proposes "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 inescapable transversal objective to achieve some of the SDGs. The data provided by the European Environment Agency show how transport is the one that contributes the most to the emission of greenhouse gases. Overall, greenhouse gas emissions from the EU transport sector are increasing steadily between 2013 and 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic marks a turning point with a significant drop in transport emissions in due to the decrease in activity, but despite preventive measures, transport emissions will not drop 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 achieve the objectives proposed to achieve good management of sustainable urban centers: urban planning, urban planning and design favorable to sustainable mobility, traffic management and pacification, shared use of the car, renewable energies in the 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, the 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 electronic commerce by 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 demander profile (individuals and their coexistence core). Traditional players have tended to transform their business model in order to adapt to new market trends.
Research applied to urban mobility
These challenges are a small example of everything that the industrial doctorate project, led by Barcelona City Council and the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, aims to address in order to find a solution. The team is made up of researcher Imma Ribas, the deputy manager of Infrastructure and Urban Coordination of Barcelona City Council Manuel Valdés López and PhD student Maria Savall. His 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 of his study, the old model based on indiscriminate use of the private vehicle has generated negative externalities with which the city cannot live: pollution, road insecurity and the 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 bring considerable value to the citizen, make the transformation of the mobility model a priority for the council current county Barcelona City Council's new Urban Mobility Plan (2019-2024) has as its main objectives to reduce accidents associated with mobility, and to increase safe, sustainable, healthy, equitable and intelligent mobility.
When we talk about mobility within the framework of this applied research in Barcelona, we must consider two large groups of mobility: the mobility of people and the mobility of goods. In order to achieve sustainable mobility of people, as the research team explains, the population must be made aware to use public transport and thus achieve a reduction in the use of private cars. On the other hand, with regard to the mobility of goods, the project considers it necessary to replace polluting vehicles with sustainable vehicles and to optimize their use. The Urban Distribution of Goods (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 their research, the team considers that the 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: mobility, infrastructures, town planning, economy, commerce, Urban Guard and environment.
Recognition at Smart City Expo 2021 in Bilbao
The industrial PhD project we are talking about is entitled "New integral model of urban distribution of goods in the city of Barcelona: living with public space", and it is a collaborative research project born from the work, the study and constant analysis by Imma Ribas and Manuel Valdés (the two tutors of the project) to improve the mobility of both people and goods in the city of Barcelona. In this case, the two tutors agree on the need to deepen 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 background work that allows the problem of urban mobility to be addressed from a comprehensive perspective: identifying the effect of its development in urban areas, both the classic model and the new trends, from the 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 the urban mobility of goods. Recently, the PhD student received the Citython award as part of the “ Solidary and sustainable Urban Logistic for Bilbao ” challenge at the Smart City Expo 2021 in the city of Bilbao. According to Maria Savall, who participated in this challenge, the challenge posed by the EIT-Urban Mobility was to propose a solution to the impact of electronic commerce in the city of Bilbao. As he told us during the interview, the prize has been an ideal opportunity to apply all the experience and knowledge acquired during the first year of the doctorate:
"Thus, in order to deal with this exponential increase in Internet shopping, we suggested a merchandise distribution model that aimed not only to reduce environmental impact but also to minimize congestion and noise. In addition, we recommended a campaign to make the population aware of the repercussions of this new habit."
The goods distribution model proposed for the city of Bilbao was integrated by three urban consolidation centers (CCU) and a network of convenience points. These urban consolidation centers, 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 in Bilbao, at the suggestion of the winning team of the challenge . His proposal also included a distribution with zero-emission vehicles from CCUs to convenience points. The convenience points would be all the local businesses that wanted to join this new network of collection points. Despite the fact that this model presented is theoretical and does not include the point of view of the distributors, the population, the public administration or the consumers, it has had a certain implication in the research they are now carrying out in Barcelona. The team recognizes that this award is an incentive to continue working with the aim of improving last-mile distribution in Barcelona, where they are already working to present a model in which the collaboration with the different actors is reflected, 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 improve and could be made available to citizens."
Collaborative research, why an Industrial Doctorate?
The researcher from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya 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 kind is very good and highly recommended. The possibility of combining the experience of Barcelona City Council with that of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya has been very enriching in the academic, professional and personal spheres.
The tutor of the project within the Barcelona City Council, Manuel Valdés, explains that the possibility of integrating an Industrial Doctorate at the City Council has allowed them to scientifically analyze the possible solutions and validate the practical knowledge they already had: "this allows us keep in mind the new trends, advances or innovations to then develop the application in our city". Also for PhD 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 topical issue that the different actors are working on in depth and that makes it much more interesting and captivating."
Today, technological contributions and the different solutions with an impact on society are carried out collaboratively and globally. Universities and research centers, as well as the different types of companies and innovative institutions, are part of this knowledge and technology generation system. In this system where synergies and interactions are generated, such as the fact that research centers can participate in a certain way in the companies' R+D+I. The possibility of combining training at the university and work at the City Hall has been a key element in this urban mobility project.
The results of collaborative research have the characteristic of having a direct impact on society. The potentially useful knowledge for society that is generated in universities and research centers finds a bridge with Industrial PhD students. Industrial doctors thus act as knowledge transfer bridges and contribute to closer relations between the industrial fabric of Catalonia and universities and research centres.
"The university has the tools to know the current trends, to make the state of the art of any of the measures mentioned, to know how research should be done, etc., while the fact of being part of the mobility department and infrastructures of Barcelona City Council provides us with a lot of data, analyses, studies or reflections that are decisive for this Industrial Doctorate.”
