Emerging Sustainable Urban Logistics Concepts: A Case Study in France

Abstract The scarcity and price of land in the city had led to the remoteness of logistics activities, with low added value, to the large outskirts of the cities. Recently, the Covid crisis, the alarming geopolitical context, ecological disasters have led to a change in purchasing behavior, the explosion of e-commerce. The fragility of our production and supply systems has led to the paralysis of a large part of our economic activities. Today, despite the scarcity of space and the cost of land, new innovative logistics spaces are making a comeback in city centres. The aim of this article is to analyze: • The relevance of new logistics space concepts to meet new expectations; • How their integration into the categories of identified logistics spaces completes the network of the territory and participates in better performance of urban distribution and in reducing the carbon impact; • The conditions of their return to the heart of the city despite the urban, economic and ecological constraints imposed by the European Climate Plan; • The limits and opportunities of new concepts; • To enrich the nomenclature of Urban Logistics Spaces by considering their radius of action, their functionality and the mode of management. This paper is based on a qualitative research method and the collection of data which was done through several tools: face-to-face interviews, field visits, participation in different urban logistics bodies dealing with the subject, etc. …