Evaluation of the use of public space in cities: A Pilot study of competing uses including urban logistics

Paper in proceeding, 2018

Purpose: During the last decade, the establishment of distribution systems in cities has attracted an increased interest in the society as well as in academia. City-logistic implies distribution of goods critical to the everyday life in a flexible urban environment with regard to public- and industrial stakeholder interests. Based on different stakeholder interests, there is a standing need to evaluate the use of public space (PS) an urban environment.  Yet, there is still an uncertainty about stakeholder interests as well as stakeholders rights to influence the use of PS in the urban environment. The purpose of this paper is to present a conceptual framework to evaluate the use of PS with regard to stakeholder interests.
 
Research Approach: A literature review of published research on city-logistics was conducted to create a framework for evaluation interests in PS. The conceptual framework includes the use of PS in urban environment. Based on the presented conceptual framework, stakeholder interests and rights to influence the usage of PS in an urban environment have been evaluated based on empirical data from a single in-depth case study of a Swedish city. Empirical data from participant observations and a survey questionnaire were used as empirical evidence in the evaluation.
Findings and Originality: The findings illustrate evaluation of stakeholder interests and rights to influence the use of PS in an urban environment. Main findings include enhanced understanding of different stakeholder interests. The paper contributes to the understanding of an issue is been important in implementing city-logistics, but still not much addressed in published logistics literature: the use of PS.  The combination of published research on city-logistics, and analysis of different stakeholder's interests and rights to influence the use of PS provides interesting insight from which further research can be developed to enrich theory and management of city-logistics.
 
Research Impact: The paper contributes to existing research on city-logistics. In particular, it presents a conceptual framework to evaluate stakeholder interests’ and rights to influence the use of PS for implementation of city-logistics.  
 
Practical Impact: Managers are recommended to sue the framework to evaluate stakeholder rights to influence to use of use of PS for city-logistic purposes.