Cities’ sustainability strategies seem to aim at the reduction of the negative impacts of urban freight transport.In the past decades, many public and private initiatives have struggled to gain broad stakeholder support and thus remain viable. Researchers and practitioners have only recently recognised stakeholder acceptance of urban freight solutions as a challenge. A first step in achieving convergence is to understand stakeholder needs, preferences and viewpoints. This paper proposes and applies an approach to identify the main stakeholder perspectives in the domain ofurban freight transport. We use Q-methodology, which originates from social sciences and psychology, to record subjective positions and identify the dominant ones. We explain the approach, operationalise the method for the domainof urban freight transport and apply it to stakeholder groups in the Netherlands. We find four dominant perspectives, reflecting how stakeholders normally take positions in the urban freight dialogue. Important findings concern disparities between industry associations and some of their membership, divergent views about the expected role of public administration, and the observation that the behaviour of shippers and Logistics Service Providers (LSP) appears to be inconsistent with their beliefs. All these factors together can act as a barrier to the implementation of urban freight consolidation concepts. The Q-methodology is valuable for eliciting perspectives in urban freight and is a promising tool to facilitate stakeholder dialogue and, eventually, convergence.

The paper discusses the growing importance of urban freight research given the increasing urban population trends. The complexity of urban freight systems means that it is essential for the public and private sectors to work together - one way to achieve this has been through freight partnerships. A short review of freight partnerships highlights the way in which they have fostered mutual understanding among urban freight stakeholders. The literature on shared situational awareness (SSA) and joint knowledge production (JKP) has been adapted to position freight partnerships and to further develop and link these partnerships to the concept of a living laboratory concerned with urban freight transport. This novel application of the living lab concept is introduced. Next, the first phases of a city logistics living lab brought in practice in Rotterdam are shortly mentioned. The living lab concept fits the complexities of the urban freight system well and has been a cornerstone of a recently started major freight project in the EU (CITYLAB).