| Abstract |
The global COVID-19 pandemic has led to the implementation of
health measures of varying degrees and scales. The lockdowns that took
place in 2020, especially, have had a major impact on cities,
transforming urban lifestyles, economic activities and mobility.
Logistics became a priority activity. Faced with changed levels and
types of consumption, freight and logistics operators in cities had to
adapt, while logistics real estate developers had to face challenges
related to building sites closed and regulatory and licensing processes
delayed. Our main research in this paper is to characterize the way the
urban freight and logistics system coped with the new situation. We
focused on French cities, with Paris and the Paris metropolitan area as
the main case. We implemented three surveys during and after the first
lockdown in France (March–May 2020), with the views of identifying
challenges while characterizing stakeholders’ response to the
challenges. The three surveys took different and complementary forms,
covering various categories of stakeholders: freight carriers (from
small to large); third party logistics providers; on-demand delivery
platforms; policy-makers; and logistics real-estate developers. We found
out that operators adapted quickly and overall successfully, one major
difference being between delivery operators and property developers. The
first group experienced higher levels of financial and economic
challenges; the second group experienced difficult relationships with
administrations and regulations, while enjoying a rather high level of
activity. The ability of local governments to deal with urban logistics
challenges during the lockdowns was diverse and took several unexpected
forms. |