Freight movement is intrinsically linked to East Asian cities’ economic development, but most East Asian cities do not proactively plan and integrate logistics and freight into sustainable mobility planning. Moreover, the rise of e-commerce economies and digitalization will exacerbate freight transport’s externalities, such as low air and noise quality in cities, traffic congestion and road accidents, and public space competition with other road users, which compromise the livability of a city
Through case studies from three East Asian cities, this paper explores how trends and innovations shape urban freight, how local governments plan for a sustainable urban logistics system, and what regulatory and institutional environment is required for cities to plan for sustainable logistics.
The three East Asian cities are Taoyuan City, Seoul Metropolitan and Suzhou City. The information in the case studies was collected through desktop research, interviews with city representatives, city policy documents and open-source data.