ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors begin by postulating an overall goal, in a policy context, for urban freight planning and analysis. They then develop an analysis framework, which enable them to structure and categorize freight issues and policy responses to those issues. Using this framework, the authors discuss the role of government in urban freight. In developing urban freight policy and analysing the urban freight system, the public sector is therefore concerned with the full range of costs, the opportunities for and incidence of tradeoffs between the various cost elements, and the interaction between freight demand and freight supply. The movement of freight vehicles on the road network, or its equivalent for other networks, results from the interaction between vehicle movements and networks. The role of a public sector policy or planning agency in urban freight needs to be defined in the context of an urban freight sector which is essentially in the hands of private enterprise.
