Paris, Lyon, Lille and Strasbourg all have river ports located within their urban area. What role can these river ports play in the implementation of a sustainable transport corridor integration from international trade to the urban distribution’ Acknowledging that road transport is the dominant mode in France and Europe for either long or short distance and urban distribution, this raises the concern regarding of the potential of river transport and how it can be inserted locally. These cities depend on national and international trades, the latter coming primarly through seaports. Their river ports are well connected with major european maritime gatweays (Le Havre, Marseille, Dunkerque, Antwerp and Rotterdam), while being at the same time, inserted into vast urban areas. This raises the questions of logistic distribution within the city and the role of river ports in the organisation of this particular urban logistic distribution. Road transport and land value are the main factors for the urban and logistic sprawl phenonemon. These facts raise the question on how these cities can concentrate, organize and articulate international, national and local trades within their urban area. We make a clear distinction between international and national trade and how can cities manage both within an efficient platform infrastructure. The main problematic is to conceive if river ports can be efficient tools in the development of sustainable transport in regard to the modal shift from road to sea, while being integrated without conflict into large urban areas. We are conducting our researches on the development of river ports located in cities, while understanding the interaction of logistic activites within the urban areas, at different scales. Our research is both systemic and multiscalar. Studies on this particular topic should bring insights regarding sustainable cities development. Scientifics objectives are as follow : - showing the potentiel of trafic at different scales (international, national and urban); - analysing combined transport chains, with an emphasis on road transport. This requires the identification of actors and their organisation, to propose multiscalar logistic schemes, in particular with the urban distribution pattern and to evaluate their environement and economical potential; - studying urban insertion of river ports, understanding the relationships between urban sprawling, road transport and land value, while defining an adapted logistic urbanism pattern that take advantage of river ports into public urban planning policies. Contributions of this project are: - to improve methods of fret trafic prediction and data collection; - to propose theoratical models of logistic organisation that includes river ports within public urbain planning policies; - to compile historical, geographical and economical knowledge on the role of river transport for these four cities, while creating conditions of experimentation with a road transport company for the last leg of distribution in the city.

Gathering 31 partners from 10 different countries, DECARBOMILE aims to trigger an unprecedented improvement of the green last mile logistics in Europe. To reach that goal, DECARBOMILE relies on a strong experience of decarbonating urban logistics through European initiatives such as CIVITAS. Partners will build upon all previous results to develop improved delivery methods, tools and methodologies, and implement them across Europe. The solutions developed in DECARBOMILE will demonstrate the full potential of decarbonised last mile logistics in four living labs (in Logrono - Spain, Nantes -France, Hamburg - Germany and Istanbul - Turkey) and 4 satellites (Tallinn - Estonia, Getafe - Spain, Ghent - Belgium and Sarajevo - Bosnia and Herzegovina) will be involved at a smaller scale to test and study the solution in their own local contexts. To be successful in its implementation, DECARBOMILE will rely on developed methodologies to implement the new solutions and delivery methods in collaboration with all relevant local stakeholders, based on their needs and behaviours. The relation with and between stakeholders will be facilitated by the creation of a collaborative urban consolidation logistics framework that will include a digital platform, methodologies for collaboration, and ICT and IoT tools. This common framework, along with tailored innovative business models and recommendations on local policies, will allow for a strong collaboration during the project, allow to learn more about the end-users’ needs and behaviours. The delivery methods will be strongly improved with urban consolidation centres, micro urban consolidation centres including smart lockers, innovations on cargo bikes and how they can be used with load pooling for instance, electric barge and more. The goal is to use and improve existing solutions and allow their interoperability and modularity to improve their efficiency and use their complementarity.

IKIGAI, inspired by the Japanese concept combining “iki” (meaning “alive”) and “gai” (meaning “worth”), aims to accelerate the realisation of the PI by 2040 and achieve decarbonised freight transport and logistics by 2050. The project focuses on the establishment of affordable, collaborative, and coordinated Systems of Logistics Networks across Europe. It promotes the adoption of open standardised processes to enhance efficiency and reduce emissions, aligning with the UN 2030 sustainable development agenda. IKIGAI will scale up five complementary and forward-looking Logistics Innovations (LIs) (advancing them from TRL5 to 8, looking also into other scalability aspects e.g. regulation, market and social), building collaboration on shared resources and capacity, respect, openness, transparency and trust: [LI1] Online and offline trustee matchmaking and volume pooling for electrification and increased intermodality, [LI2] eFTI compliance Collaborative Service Platform for SMEs, [LI3] Smart and synchromodal hubs for hyperconnected urban logistics, [LI4] Intelligent, standard end-to-end chain of custody for carbon emission calculation, [LI5] Open volume pooled governance for reusable standard modular boxes. Recognising that companies can better evolve collaboratively, aligning logistics and decarbonisation within a unified transition path, IKIGAI will drive the Twin Transition to net-zero logistics by mobilising an open and collaborative ecosystem of global supply chain players committed to systemic change. Beyond adopting the LIs and testing them in real-world pilots, IKIGAI will re-engineer supply chain logistics services (Sx) such as volume pooling/asset sharing, warehousing, freight forwarding/intermodality, cross-docking and last-mile delivery.