Mobility (or, more and more often, immobility) is a daily problem for the inhabitants of Brussels, as well as for the hundreds of thousands of people who go there every day. The complexity and cost of the solutions proposed in order to deal with the challenges related to travel and the quality of life in the city justify the increase in the amount of research in this field. The Observatoire régional de la mobilité as well as the many articles and synopses published in Brussels Studies are examples of this.

However, most of the focus until now has been on the mobility of people. But some recent proposals such as the pedestrianisation of central boulevards and the creation of a tram route on line 71 in Ixelles, have highlighted the problem of deliveries in shopping areas, adding to the debates on how public space should be shared among the different users. Generally speaking, there should be more focus on freight transport in the city, as it also contributes to traffic and air quality problems in the capital. And in the near future, it appears that its impact on these problems will be greater than that of the mobility of people.

Issue number 80 of Brussels Studies therefore comes at an opportune time. Philippe Lebeau and Cathy Macharis from the MOBI laboratory at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) have made use of a large amount of statistical data to provide an overview of goods transported by road in Brussels. Bearing in mind that the information is incomplete, they provide an initial summary of this subject while referring to some regional policies which have already been implemented in this area.

The authors underline in particular the fact that today, freight vehicles represent 14% of the traffic entering and exiting the Region; the majority of these vehicles are vans and their numbers are on the rise, thus reducing the number of lorries. Although lorries can create more problems in traffic, the growing preference for vans results in an increase in the number of freight vehicles on the roads. Combined with an increasing demand for goods (with the rise in the population of Brussels) and an increase in the distances travelled, this evolution in the freight vehicles used thus has a growing impact on the road network.

To the extent that an increase in the infrastructure is not a solution in Brussels as public space must also serve purposes other than traffic, the solutions implemented for the moment are only aimed at decreasing the amount of traffic through a logic of optimisation.

Thus, a first solution which has been implemented consists in sending a portion of goods to the Brussels-Capital Region via waterway or train. Brussels has the advantage of benefiting from highly developed multimodal accessibility. But this potential has been harnessed only partially via the Port of Brussels. Although projects do exist, the railway is not at all a part of urban logistics in Brussels.

Other solutions such as the development of deliveries with staggered hours, grouped deliveries and the increased use of electric vehicles are still being tested. A more proactive management of delivery areas has also been implemented in certain municipalities and is being integrated into the regional parking policy implemented by the newly created agency.

As we see, the optimisation of the flow of goods in Brussels is only in its beginning phases, especially as none of the observations discussed in the article are concerned with the demand strictly speaking, which is dependent on our behaviour as consumers, as well as on the evolution of economic activity and the international distribution of production.

References
Lebeau, Philippe and Macharis, Cathy, “Freight transport in Brussels and its impact on road traffic”, Brussels Studies [Online], General collection, No 80, 16 October 2014. URL: https://journals.openedition.org/brussels/1239
Contact
Benjamin Wayens, Senior Editor: bwayens[at]brusselsstudies.be