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The future of freight transport


The challenges for the freight transport sector are enormous. Demand is extremely increasing and challenges caused by e-commerce and city distribution will have to be tackled. On the other hand, new technologies can bring disruptive business models and cause different social impacts.

How will the future of freight transport look like? Is it possible to estimate when? By 2030? By 2050? Will they be local, worldwide or reproducible system?

Guest editors 
Silvio Nocera, Università IUAV di Venezia, Italy
Cathy Macharis, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium


  1. Synchromodality, also referred to as “synchronized intermodality”, employs multiple transport modes in a flexible, dynamic way in order to induce a modal shift towards more environmentally friendly transport m...

    Authors: Nina Lemmens, Joren Gijsbrechts and Robert Boute
    Citation: European Transport Research Review 2019 11:19
  2. Cities crave innovative logistics solutions dealing with the requirements of the ‘on demand economy’. The paper estimates the willingness to act as a crowdshipper (supply) and to buy a crowdshipping service (d...

    Authors: Valerio Gatta, Edoardo Marcucci, Marialisa Nigro and Simone Serafini
    Citation: European Transport Research Review 2019 11:13
  3. Completing urban freight deliveries is increasingly a challenge in congested urban areas, particularly when delivery trucks are required to meet time windows. Depending on the route characteristics, Electric A...

    Authors: Manali Sheth, Polina Butrina, Anne Goodchild and Edward McCormack
    Citation: European Transport Research Review 2019 11:11
  4. Resulting from the 21st UN Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris in 2015, the European Union’s (EU) current climate and energy objective is to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 40% below 1990 level...

    Authors: Olaf Jonkeren, Jan Francke and Johan Visser
    Citation: European Transport Research Review 2019 11:8
  5. European e-commerce sales are increasing every year. Nowadays, customers buy more frequently online in smaller quantities. Handling this large amount of customer orders puts the logistic activities of the supp...

    Authors: Katrien Ramaekers, An Caris, Stef Moons and Teun van Gils
    Citation: European Transport Research Review 2018 10:56
  6. The Brenner is the most heavily travelled transalpine corridor in terms of freight transport. The current modal split tends heavily towards road (71% road – 29% rail), with significant repercussions in terms o...

    Authors: Silvio Nocera, Federico Cavallaro and Olga Irranca Galati
    Citation: European Transport Research Review 2018 10:53