Success factors for sustainable urban logistics hubs : insights from best-practice cases

Introduction: White-label urban logistics hubs—such as consolidation centers, transshipment hubs, and parcel lockers—shared by competing transport companies, are promoted as sustainable urban logistics solutions. However, many fail to remain viable without subsidies, with few sustaining operations in competitive markets. Despite being cited as best practices, evaluations of their success factors, such as operational scale, business models, and organization, are scarce. This paper addresses this gap by identifying key factors behind successful, market-sustained hubs. Method: We reviewed the literature to develop a typology categorizing urban logistics hubs by logistics activities, spatial footprint, catchment area, organizational form, and business model. Using a multiple case study approach, we selected best-practice hubs in each category and conducted expert interviews with operators, researchers, and public authorities involved in their implementation or evaluation. Results: Our analysis found no evidence of successful horizontal collaborations where transport companies share a hub for white-label deliveries, despite their frequent promotion as best practices. White-label operations were identified only in real estate- or receiver-led initiatives, where the hub functions as a designated delivery address. These setups often impose additional costs on real estate firms or receivers, which are sometimes offset by integrating recycling flows into the model. By contrast, we found several cases of individual transport companies using transshipment hubs (shared or private) for their own intermodal operations, employing light (electric) freight vehicles for last-mile delivery. While some hubs are provided free or subsidized, funded either by real estate companies benefiting from added tenant amenities or by public authorities aiming to reduce traffic and improve accessibility, financial support is not universally required for competitiveness. Successful hubs enhance their economic sustainability by generating additional revenue through services beyond core transshipment and consolidation, such as localized storage and consolidated deliveries for receivers, parking and small storage for carriers, and recycling collection.