Small and medium sized enterprises’ construction logistics in urban areas

Abstract

The world is facing climate change which has sever impacts on extreme weather events, biodiversity and rising seas. Greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced to counteract climate change. One specific way to contribute to that reduction is setting Zero-Emission (ZE) zones to ban fossil fuel vehicles in urban areas which will presumably lead to a reduction of 1.0 Mton CO2. The ZE zones will be initiated from 2025 in the 30-40 largest municipalities in the Netherlands for passenger cars and delivery vans. Prior research has been applied to large construction projects and not on small-scale construction projects. A literature review resulted in how to classify small-scale construction projects into groups. The difference of these groups is necessary to structure the small-scale construction projects on logistics characteristics and finally on feasible logistics solutions. The three groups are micro (<150 m2; <€0.3 mln), small (150 – 1,000 m2; €0.3 mln – €3 mln) and medium (1,000 – 10,000 m2; €3 mln - €20 mln). The vehicles used for small-scale renovation projects are mostly delivery vans, box trucks and loader crane trucks. Occasionally, tractors and heavy trucks are used. There are three kinds of transport movements: material transport, personnel transport and equipment transport. A list of feasible logistics solutions has been determined grouped on micro, small and medium construction projects and on the type of transport movements. A stakeholder analysis has been conducted to understand the different roles and perspectives of the stakeholder. The basic design cycle has been used to design the feasible logistics solutions and to summarize the findings in a booklet that can be used by the key stakeholders (contractors, wholesalers, transporters, municipalities) to know which logistics solutions are possible for them.