A new survey from Geotab has found that London ranks sixth out of seven European capital cities for freight efficiency.
The telematics company said London was not only heavily congested, but a city where this congestion was difficult to plan around, with a delivery that takes 20 minutes one day potentially taking 50 minutes the next, disrupting fleet schedules.
In Geotab’s newly-published European Freight Efficiency index, titled ‘The Cost of Standing Still’, London receives a score of 29 out of 100, well behind first-placed Berlin on 61 and beating only Madrid on 25.
Edward Kulperger, senior vice-president, EMEA at Geotab, said: “Urban freight has always been seen through the lens of congestion – how busy a city is and how slow traffic becomes at peak times.
“What this Index shows is that the real issue runs deeper. It’s not just how much traffic there is, but how that traffic behaves. In the most efficient cities, movement is consistent and predictable. In the least efficient, it becomes fragmented – and that destruction has a direct impact on cost, emissions and the ability of fleets to operate effectively.
“For fleet operators, unpredictability is one of the most challenging factors to manage. You can plan for congestion, you can route around known delays, but when journey times vary significantly from one day to the next, it creates a compounding effect across the entire operation.”
