tailieunhanh - Freight transport, logistics and sustainable development

Road freighttransport provides transport and environmental policy with some of its most intractable problems. Lorries are visually very intrusive, noisy, polluting and responsible for much of the impetus behind road building strategies. | FREIGHT TRANSPORT LOGISTICS AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT A report for W W F by John Whitelegg Eco-Logica Ltd August 1994 John Whitelegg Eco-Logica Ltd White Cross Lancaster Introduction Road freight transport provides transport and environmental policy with some of its most intractable problems. Lorries are visually very intrusive noisy polluting and responsible for much of the impetus behind road building strategies. They are the most visible component of a relatively new and sophisticated production and distribution system that has evolved in a way that weakens local production and consumption links and encourages longer distance supply lines. Over time the distances over which freight moves have lengthened and the amount of dependence on distant sources and complex road freighting operations has increased. In order to understand the forces that currently mould road freight operations we have to be aware of the importance of the spatial distribution of manufacturing and the geographical location of raw material and intermediate product inputs into a final manufactured product. Such an awareness can reveal the beginnings of a new strategy that will move freight transport operations in the direction of sustainable development. The work of Boge 1994a has made these processes much more transparent and revealed the opportunities provided by substituting near for far in sourcing decisions. Substituting near for far has much more potential to reduce the demand for freight transport and reduce emissions from this sector especially CO2 than has modal transfer. Transferring freight from road to rail is important and will play a large part in environmental strategies designed to reduce the environmental degradation of hard pressed corridors. Rail has a much larger part to play for example in resolving freight capacity problems across the Pennines and in bringing urgent relief to the residents along the route of the A36 Southampton to Bristol . Freight transport strategies .