A Methodology for Evaluating and Implementing Location Selection Approaches: A Case of City Freight Hub

Abstract

Currently, more than half of the world's population lives in cities, whose population has doubled in the last five decades. What has long been a problem is that the mobility of the majority of the urban population and the logistics flows in the city depend on cars and other motorized vehicles. Traffic congestion, insufficient number of parking places, increasing energy consumption, and air pollution are just some of the problems people face. City hubs are one way to partially solve these problems by consolidating goods from different suppliers in a hub and cooperating in last mile delivery. The idea of integrating micromobility initiatives as innovative urban transport solutions can enhance the effectiveness of city hubs even further. However, due to the limited urban space available, finding a suitable location for such a hub is a major challenge. Numerous location selection models can be found in literature, reflecting the ongoing relevance of this logistics challenge. Continuously, new models emerge, often as variations of existing ones. Hence, the primary objective of this research is to present a pragmatic approach for assessing existing models regarding their applicability to a specific location selection case. The potential practicability of the developed methodology was demonstrated through its application in the case of identification of the city freight hub’s location in Novi Sad.