Efficiency in goods distribution collaboration in cities – SAMLIC

background, aim, method, result) max 200 words: The number of zones for unloading goods in the city centre is often small compared to the number of delivery addresses and carriers. The attendant phenomenon is congestion and its subsequent costs. One way to reduce these effects is to implement retail consolidation centres. Some trials have been carried out on urban distribution centres and a few implementations have been made. More research and knowledge is still needed. The Samlic project is one contribution to increase the knowledge in this field about urban distribution. A local network for Linköping freight forwarders took the initiative to create an economically and logistically efficient system. During a nine-week trial period in the spring of 2004, coordinated distribution to the centre of Linköping was carried out. Three freight forwarders took part in this project. The trial shows that the number of lorries needed decreased by a third, the total time for the distribution by a fifth and the total driving distance in the centre by about fifty per cent. The following paper describes this trail and an implementation proposal as well as the process of trying to implement it.