Urban consolidation centres (UCCs) have been discussed over many years in the city logistics literature. The amount of successful UCCs in the long run were, and are, very scarce, though. Little is published on the practical issues and experiences of running a UCC and offering UCC-services. In the Netherlands, Binnenstadservice (BSS) has run UCCs and UCC services for over a decade now. This contribution discusses development and the experiences of running a UCC in practice in the form of seven lessons, including the evolvement of the business model and organisation model, as well as the development from offering ‘only’ the cross-dock of physical flows, to that of the full triple cross-dock, including financial and information flows. Next, UCCs can be the answer to future challenges, such as zero emission city logistics and fit perfectly into the Physical Internet vision.

Five years ago the project Cargo Hitching started with the goal to use the unused capacity of public transport passenger vehicles for freight and parcel transport. Like many new city logistics initiatives it is a difficult challenge to setup a profitable private business model. A rural pilot project was developed in the East of the Netherlands, building on Dutch government funding (Dinalog), with several Dutch universities, the province of Gelderland, public transport service provider Connexxion and city logistics service provider Binnenstadservice. The paper describes how viability for the cargo hitching project was organized, providing important social and environmental benefits as well as a sustainable business model for the system.