City logistics issues in small-medium cities: An overview of the Bergamo case from an industrial engineering perspective

Urban population is steadily growing, bringing along a manifold increase of demand for goods and services, mainly concentrated in relatively limited or overly constrained areas. This is inevitably leading cities around the world to face increasing challenges in terms of efficient transportation of persons and goods, while controlling and ideally reducing its negative impacts on the quality of life of their citizens. City logistics projects (CLP) try to address the issue, with the aim at optimizing the logistics and transport activities by public and private actors in urban areas while considering the traffic environment, the traffic congestion and energy consumption within the framework of a market economy. In Bergamo, as part of a larger project, called Bergamo 2.(035) A new Urban Concept in a changing World led by the University of Bergamo, the Bergamo Logistica project aims to identify and analyze the main issues, the ongoing projects and initiatives, and the ideal directions of development in a small-medium city. Therefore, in this paper, we discuss the main evidences and findings gathered so far through several investigation activities, including literature analysis, workshops and interviews with the main stakeholders. In doing this, we mainly assume an industrial engineering perspective, highlighting the main issues to address and the main barrier against the development of a city logistics project, as well as the possible contribution the engineering discipline can provide.