Title: Multi-actor multi-criteria analysis for sustainable city distribution: a new assessment framework

Authors: Lauriane Milan; Bram Kin; Sara Verlinde; Cathy Macharis

Addresses: Department of BUTO, MOBI Research Group, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels, Belgium ' Department of BUTO, MOBI Research Group, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels, Belgium ' Department of BUTO, MOBI Research Group, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels, Belgium ' Department of BUTO, MOBI Research Group, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels, Belgium

Abstract: Urban areas are facing several challenges, especially to organise freight transport in a sustainable way. Many innovative city distribution concepts have failed because not all stakeholders were taken into account in the decision-making process. Evaluating urban freight solutions summons the need for a new approach, taking into consideration different conflicting objectives from different stakeholders. Within STRAIGHTSOL (strategies and measures for smarter urban freight solutions, EC FP7), a systematic impact assessment framework dedicated to freight transportation has been developed. The so-called city distribution - multi-actor multi-criteria analysis (CD-MAMCA) incorporates the city distribution actors and their objectives as the primary focus complemented with a MCDA performed with the PROMETHEE-GDSS method. In this paper, the specific framework dedicated to city distribution is fully explained through a case study in the UK charity sector with Oxfam which tested remote monitoring of the banks leading to dynamic collection scheduling.

Keywords: PROMETHEE-GDSS; multi-actor MCDA; multicriteria decision analysis; sustainable city distribution; multicriteria decision making; MCDM; sustainability; impact assessment; freight transport; urban freight; cities; case study; United Kingdom; UK charity sector; Oxfam; remote monitoring; banks; collection scheduling; PROMETHEE.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMCDM.2015.074088

International Journal of Multicriteria Decision Making, 2015 Vol.5 No.4, pp.334 - 354

Received: 19 May 2014
Accepted: 10 Feb 2015
Published online: 08 Jan 2016 *

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