Innovative solutions to improve the logistics management of urban construction sites

On 26 and 27 May, the kick-off meeting of the European research project SUCCESS was held in Luxembourg, with the

Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST) as project coordinator. Backed by 3.24 million Euros, SUCCESS is one of the flagship projects of the "Smart, Green and Integrated Transport" challenge within the European funding

programme Horizon 2020. The project unites institutions and businesses around a shared challenge, that of reducing

the transport of building materials and its impact on cities.

Several pilot sites will be launched, including one in Luxembourg City, at a construction site in the Neudorf quarter. 

Construction, at the core of urban logistics

The populations of cities are constantly increasing. By 2050, 82% of the European population will be living in urban areas. This givesrise to significant needs, not only in terms of infrastructure, but also in terms of new construction work and the renovation of

existing buildings, which, in turn, entails an increase in the influx of building materials to these cities. In addition, the construction

industry also generates a significant amount of waste, which needs to be removed from the cities ("reverse logistics").

For city-dwellers, all these activities go hand in hand with pollution, traffic congestion, noise, damaged infrastructure and,

ultimately, a compromised quality of life. Today, the construction industry already represents 50% of overall freight transport withincities. (Source: the National Union of Aggregate Producers, 2012).

Solutions with a long-term effect

This is the context of the SUCCESS project which has just been launched within the "Smart, Green and Integrated Transport"

challenge of the European funding programme Horizon2020. Its aim is to reduce the harmful effects of urban freight distribution,as well as its cost, by proposing innovative solutions applicable throughout Europe. To this end, the project team will examine

the extent to which the concepts of "Supply Chain Management" and in particular a "Construction Consolidation Centre" - CCC)

can contribute towards reducing the harmful effect of the influx of building materials to cities. Four construction sites located in Paris, Valencia, Verona and Luxembourg will provide case studies. Located in high-density urban areas with significant traffic

congestion issues and certain environmental constraints, these pilot sites will allow for collection of the data required to devise

suitable solutions, and put forward concrete demonstrators.

Finally, gains in terms of the number of trips, vehicles travelling at full-load capacity, kilometres travelled, CO2 emissions in thecities, as well as delivery turnaround times and productivity at the construction site will be analysed amongst other factors, to

allow for a viable business model for a consolidation centre to be put forward to each construction-site stakeholder.

A strong partnership 

The project is coordinated by the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST), which will have the expertise it has

acquired over the past few years through numerous projects led in this field recognised at European level. Amongst these

projects, "Last Mile Logistics" (LaMiLo) is a flagship project. Co-funded by the ERDF Interreg IV NWE programme, it unites 15

European partners whose objective is to make urban delivery more environmentally-friendly and efficient by drawing on new

logistics practices..In particular, the project has developed a geographical information system (GIS) to optimise urban logistics.

Other partners in the SUCCESS project are the Association pour la Formation professionnelle dans les Transports (AFT, France),

the Istituto sui Trasporti e la Logistica Fondazione (ITL, Italy), the Fundación de la Comunidad Valenciana para la Investición,

Promoción y Estudiós Comerciales de Valenciaport (VPF, Spain), TRALUX Construction (TRA, Luxembourg), VINCI Construction

France (VINCI, France), the Cooperativa Muratori e Braccianti di Carpi (CMB, Italy), the Federación Valenciana de Empresarios

de la Construcción (FEVEC, Spain), the Emilia-Romagna region (RER, Italy), the Fundación para la Comunitat Valenciana para laPromoción Estratégica, el Desarollo y la Innovación Urbana (InnDEA, Spain), and UNIMORE (Italy).

This partnership is the strong point of SUCCESS, which unites research institutes and businesses in the construction domain

around a shared challenge. In fact, each country is represented in the project by an institutional partner and a leading company

in both the country concerned, and in Europe. This is undoubtedly one of the arguments brought to light in the selection of the

SUCCESS project from amongst 767 project proposals submitted in response to the call for proposals, a highly competitive

tender process in which only 8% of the proposals were shortlisted.

This strong partnership forecasts positive results with a long-term impact, and which will be ready to be used across all Europeancountries.

For more information about the project, please contact: David Evaristo,

[email protected]

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020

research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 633338.