Decision-making tools and procedures for City Logistics: An introduction to the Special Issue on Decision Support for Urban Logistics

International audienceUrban logistics research set off in Europe some fifteen years ago, supported by the funding efforts of the European Commission. The special morphology of European cities, with narrow streets and historical centres which had to be preserved in many cases as world heritage sites, contributed to this interest. However, the problems of urban deliveries also had to be faced in other lively and congested cities around the globe, from Japan to America or Australia. Therefore, several researchers and practitioners have developed in the last years a wide variety of methods to support the different decisions of stakeholders involved in urban logistics. This paper motivates and introduces the Special Issue of European Transport/Trasporti Europei on decision support for urban logistics. The ten proposed papers are classified and presented