Understanding Last Kilometre Freight Delivery in Melbourne's Central Business District

It is important to increase understanding of the nature of current last-kilometre freight practices so that City Logistics solutions can be developed for increasing transport efficiency, reducing road congestion and amenity impacts such as emissions and noise pollution as well as enhancing road safety. This paper describes a study undertaken for the City of Melbourne that identified current last kilometre freight delivery practices in Melbourne's Central Business District (CBD) and discusses how the challenges may be successfully addressed and managed. Based on traffic surveys, it was estimated that 13.4% of total vehicles entering the CBD were delivery/service vehicles and most of these were not involved in CBD last kilometre deliveries being either exclusively service vehicles or simply driving through the CBD. Vehicles involved in last kilometre freight activities were estimated to be only 4.4% of all vehicles entering the CBD. A small proportion of vehicles engaged in last kilometre freight deliveries were estimated to be low impact (around 8%)