Night-time delivery as a potential option in Belgian urban distribution: a stakeholder approach

This paper investigates the public support for night-time delivery in Belgian cities. Encouraging, or even imposing night-time deliveries are possible measures for governments in order that urban traffic does not get jammed completely and that goods still can be delivered efficiently. But there are also some downsides to delivering at night such as noise nuisance caused by loading and unloading trucks, the need for an increased availability of the receiver and some liability issues. Therefore assessing the attitude of all stakeholders involved towards shifting urban deliveries to the off-peak hours is useful in order for the policy-makers to decide what position to take in respect to night deliveries.

This paper presents the multi-actor multi-criteria analysis (MAMCA) (Macharis, 2004) as the appropriate tool for measuring public support for night-time delivery in urban surroundings as it enables to incorporate the views of different stakeholders, in this case the receiver, the transport sector, society as a whole and the employee, and their criteria. These stakeholders were interviewed on their attitude towards five different scenarios in which the time periods for deliveries and/or the accompanying measures differ. The findings suggest that the public support for an overall implementation of night-time deliveries is rather low. But at the same time, the research shows there is some room for implementation in Belgian cities, but only if the time period, the type of business and the accompanying measures are carefully selected.