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The purpose of this paper is to investigate and quantify the impact of delivery restrictions on costs and environmental performance for a distribution operation.

Data were gathered from a company and several scenarios with varying delivery restrictions were investigated.

The results show significant reductions in cost and environmental impacts are achieved when restrictions are relaxed. However, the research also highlighted the importance of adopting a supply chain (SC) approach to the removal of restrictions and the need for public/private sector cooperation.

The case study is based on one company only. However, the company performs many trips each day to many different customers.

The paper provides insight into the scope for change in the SC decision‐making processes in order to reduce environmental impacts (and identifies limitations).

The paper is a contribution to better understanding the importance of logistics decisions and not only transport when considering urban freight problems.

This article describes an investigation into the factors affecting load and vehicle sizes for road delivery of oil products. An overall framework of analysis was developed, a sampling method was used, and potential cost savings identified and achieved. The ability to construct an analytical framework of sufficient accuracy depended on a reasonably convincing costing formula for part loads, which is also described.

The purpose of the paper is to give an overview about the framework of copyright law and licences as well as the development of German National Library of Science and Technology (TIB) full-text supply services within that framework. The change of German copyright law in 2008 posed a challenge to TIB’s full-text supply services. While TIB can deliver on the basis of a statutory limitation any document to customers within Germany via mail and fax, there are restrictions for electronic delivery.

The article describes the framework of German copyright law and licences for document delivery as well as activities of TIB to continue servicing customers in a best possible way within the existing framework.

Licence agreements with publishers or intermediaries such as Rights Reproduction Organizations are now in place to allow delivery of electronic documents on a wide scale. Within this complicated framework of licence agreements, digital rights management (DRM) systems are a challenge for customers and the delivery service. However, it can be noted, that a simple watermark suffices nearly all publishers in agreements covering pay-per-view delivery of generic digital article files, and only 25 per cent require strict DRM for document delivery scanned from the print. At the same time, TIB looks for more customer-friendly DRM systems. Also, TIB is looking for ways to cooperate with partners to raise efficiency gains and to offer a more convenient service to its customers. Finally, TIB experiences that inadequate copyright law still poses a major hindrance for the international exchange of scientific information being part of its collection.

The article describes the development of document supply services of the major TIB publications. It also shows the barriers which inadequate copyright law poses to the exchange of scientific information.

In February 2003, London became the first city in the UK to introduce a comprehensive congestion‐charging scheme, whereby road users are charged on a per day basis in order to use the road space. In response to concerted lobbying, a number of sectors and user groups have been granted exemptions from the charge. This paper explores the likely effect of congestion charging and the case for exempting construction delivery vehicles. A case study of a live construction project currently being undertaken in the city of London is used to illustrate the impact of the scheme. Based on this case example, it would seem that the impact of the scheme on construction companies has been fairly benign to date, but concerns relate to the longer term effect of charging on the future regeneration of city centres. Furthermore, it would appear that there are lessons to be learnt from the industry's apparent inability to bring to bear its collective weight to lobby for exemptions, which leaves it vulnerable to similar schemes under consideration in other cities both nationally and internationally.

The purpose of this paper is to verify a transport uncertainty triad model taking a supply chain perspective, and determine which different forms of uncertainty impact on transport operations. The aim is to qualitatively evaluate the different types of uncertainty impacting on transport operations rather than estimating the risk that each of them involved. The literature indicates that there are many factors that influence transport operations. This paper aims to determine the key factors that impinge practice.

On the basis of a literature review, a conceptual model was developed to categorise the different factors that impact on transport operations. In order to determine the credibility of this model and assess which factors are the main barriers to effective transport operations a series of focus groups involving UK logistics practitioners and policy makers was undertaken.

The findings indicate that the main drivers impacting on transport operations are delays, delivery constraints, lack of coordination, and variable demand/poor information. The consequence of these is to reduce the efficiency of transport operations. Also, in the overall focus groups' data, unplanned road congestion represents the biggest individual issue leading to uncertainty.

The model is refined based only on participants' perceptions. Therefore, further empirical‐based research is needed to quantitatively validate it, for each cluster identifying the frequency with which it occurs and the impact on economic and environmental performance. This will further strengthen understanding of the main uncertainty causes within supply chains in the UK. The model should also be tested through the investigation of real‐world situations, measuring the marginal impact of logistics disruptions, in economic and environmental terms.

The paper highlights the importance of looking at the whole of the logistics triad when dealing with uncertainty, as often there are multiple sources involving the shipper, carrier and customer. Equally, the paper highlights the importance of external factors, and managers need to consider how to deal with these issues. Although the easiest approach is to accommodate them within operational plans, there is scope for engaging with policy makers to identify ways forward.

Many researchers have developed supply chain uncertainty models focusing mainly on manufacturing. Transport has traditionally been considered as a marginal activity within supply chains and it has not been explicitly taken into account in those frameworks. It is necessary to determine the forms of supply chain uncertainty that exist and their impact on transport operations, as they will define the performance of logistics operations.

The problems of urban distribution and the need to confront them particularly at a time of escalating petrol costs, is one of the most urgent issues facing retailers and food suppliers today. Hence the conference held recently, organised by the National Materials Handling Centre, and entitled ‘Urban distribution — strategy for the future’. One of the major preoccupations was the conflict of interests which impedes progress; environmental lobbies, central and local planning, EEC legislation. However, this paper by Alan Rushton buries these differences beneath his overriding concern with the practical rather than the ideological aspect of the subject. His point of reference is a study which looked into the problems of high street delivery, producing a scale of importance for the various difficulties encountered, and assessing the likely success of the solutions available.

The licensing of electronic journals is affecting interlibrary loan and document delivery services. This article reports on a survey done in 2003 at 13 large research libraries on how licensing affects both the lending and borrowing operations at those libraries. A brief history on copyright legislation and guidelines as they relate to ILL are provided as background on how licenses can undermine the copyright support libraries have needed to provide the services users require. ILL data is presented to illustrate that the volume of use per title is not what publishers may imagine. The shift to leasing electronic titles and therefore the requirements that underlie licensing are still relatively new; the article recommends that libraries take every opportunity to converse and negotiate with publishers as access evolves.

The BIBDEL: Libraries Without Walls Research Project is described. Details are given of two experiments carried out by researchers at Dublin City University Library as part of this project, to investigate the delivery of library services to distance education students. Each experiment examined a different scenario: delivery of library services directly to the home, and delivery via local study centres or libraries. In addition, scanning and file transfer were tested as methods of document delivery. Findings include that the delivery of library services to remote students is feasible using the current industry standard hardware and software. Scanning is also a viable technical option for document delivery, copyright restrictions being the only bar to its use.