United States - European Commission Urban Freight Twinning Initiative: Compendium of Project Summaries, Volume II
Overview of 2018-2019 International Urban Freight Roundtables

Research

European Union

Public Procurement's Impact on Trip Generation

Public procurement's impact on urban transportation patterns is far reaching. Almost every product or service we buy leads to vehicle trips within cities, such as waste collection routes, office supply deliveries, bus services, and road maintenance staff traveling to work sites. BuyZET aims to understand and optimize the impact of public procurement activities on transport patterns in cities and to find innovative and sustainable delivery solutions for goods and services to address these challenges. The BuyZET project is a partnership of cities aiming to achieve zero emission urban delivery of goods and services. To do this, BuyZET partners work to understand the transportation footprint of their different procurement activities and, in response, develop innovative procurement plans to minimize the number, distance, and disruptiveness of motorized vehicle trips within the city. A second but equally important goal is to maximize the proportion of these trips made by zero emission vehicles.

The three core project cities are Rotterdam, Oslo, and Copenhagen. Southampton, Brussels, Bologna, Jerusalem, Bielefeld, Manchester, and Munich are also participating as observer cities, eventually aiming to implement the project activities as well. The project is coordinated by ICLEI—Local Governments for Sustainability—with the support of Polis and the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research.

Project Type

Research.

Period of Performance

November 2016 - April 2019.

Project Sites

Rotterdam, The Netherlands; Oslo, Norway; and Copenhagen, Denmark.

Contact

Simon Clement
Coordinator, Sustainable Economy and Procurement
ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability
Simon.Clement@iclei.org
+49 761 / 3 68 92-0
+65 6499-4740

Topics Addressed

• Air quality/environment.
• Last mile delivery.
• Livability/quality of life.
• Logistics/distribution.
• Other: public procurement.

Expected Outcomes

The expected results and impacts, including:

• Creation of a long-lasting European dialogue with cities' suppliers, transport, and service providers.
• Communication of the benefits of identified solutions to a wider audience.
• Development of “buyers groups” to boost the demand for zero emission urban delivery of goods and services.
• Development of new procurement strategies to support the outreach and continuity of the project results.

Key Products:

• New procurement plans for each priority area in each city.
• Methodology for mapping transportation footprint.
• BuyZET Implementation Handbook.
• Input into European Union policy-making and relevant working groups.

Stakeholder Involvement

Key stakeholders are public local authorities. For the selected procurement priority areas, the cities will explore potential innovative procurement solutions. At the end of this process innovative procurement plans will be developed for each procurement area to be implemented by the cities in the coming years.