On 27 and 28 June 2017 the third workshop of the SMART-MR project took place at the Akershus County Council in Oslo. The title of the workshop was “Low-Carbon Logistic Planning”, and it was organized by Akershus County Council and The City of Oslo, Agency for Urban Environment. Over 50 participants from 8 metropolitan regions – Ljubljana (Slovenia), Oslo and Akershus (Norway), Gothenburg (Sweden), Helsinki (Finland), Budapest (Hungary), Rome (Italy), Porto (Portugal) and Barcelona (Spain) took part in the workshop.

In optimizing traffic flows and minimizing pollution, city logistics must follow trends in modern transport development. This is characterized by e-mobility, restrictive traffic regimes in the city centers, and enhanced need for optimized tailor-made services. Supply chain design, planning, and coordination can help reduce carbon emissions and the supply costs. This is important for both higher competitiveness of the economy and improved environmental conditions. Some new forms of city logistics have already succeeded. Others are on the way whose efficiency will be tested. They all need adequate support from the public authorities where existing good practices can be studied and implemented.

The first day of the workshop started with presentations from Norwegian stakeholders, and presentations of good practices from all the metropolitan regions. After lunch a site visit/city walk was organized. The second day started with a presentation of the preliminary results of the NORSULP (Sustainable Urban Logistics Plans in Norway) project. This acted as a backdrop for the workshop sessions where various aspects of low-carbon logistic planning were discussed. 

The site visit included a walk in Oslo’s city center to give the participants an insight into some of the ongoing projects, the state of the art as regards low emission vehicles, car free city center, and low-carbon city distribution.

The results of the workshop are presented in the third SMART-MR Newsletter (available at “Library”).