ABSTRACT
This chapter presents summary statistics which would both underscore the importance of the subject, and highlight the significance of freight in the overall urban transport scene. One urban area only — Chicago, United States of America — has reasonably comprehensive information, based upon a commercial vehicle survey conducted in 1986. During the 1960s and 1970s, many other urban areas assembled partial data on truck and commodity flows, collected in the course of major metropolitan transport studies which were in vogue at the time. It is also of interest to consider urban freight costs as a component of the value of particular products. United States data suggested that for large urban areas, with populations in excess of 1 million, the truck ownership rate was fairly constant at about 25–30 trucks per thousand population. Urban truck trips are generated by a wide variety of land uses.
