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This paper seeks to address how firms may contribute to environmental improvement through structural changes of their logistics systems.

A comprehensive literature review discloses the low interest that has been directed to environmental issues in logistics, and findings relevant for structural issues at a firm level are described. Three cases where firms have implemented different types of structural changes to their logistics systems support the analysis.

A range of different measures to succeed in environmental as well as logistics performance are presented, comprising types of consolidation, logistics standardisation, and IS/IT solutions allowing a vast restructuring of logistics systems.

The discussion about logistics and the environment has mostly revolved around more environmental friendly technological solutions, concerning single firms as well as governmental support for technology development. The structural, more organisational issues, have been addressed on a societal level, where solutions concern infrastructure. There is a need to reduce the amount of transport in general. The paper discusses how logistics systems' environmental performance can be improved simultaneously with a non‐reduction of logistics performance in terms of costs and delivery service.

South Africa's logistics cost measurement was expanded to include externality costs, and scenarios based on the key exogenous risks were developed to inform mitigation strategies. This paper aims to discuss these issues.

The research approach is quantitative, based on a gravity-orientated freight flow model, a road transport cost model, actual transport costs for other modes, a warehousing cost survey, an inventory delay calculation (to inform warehousing cost calculations and inventory financing costs) and an externality cost calculation.

Transport cost pressures are expected to deteriorate due to the increasingly negative outlook for the oil price and the internalisation of externality costs. The nature of these forces compels transport cost challenges to be addressed strategically through collaborative, industry-wide and even nationwide initiatives.

Key limitations are inconsistent commodity classification schemes across information sources, and incomplete container content data. The researchers are collaborating with information providers to address these issues and refine model accuracy and forecasting.

The exogenous risks strengthen the argument for new approaches to South Africa's logistics cost challenges driven by the high densities of corridor freight flows.

The inclusion of externality costs highlighted the negative environmental impact of the current modal configuration and provides impetus for change.

Major advancements to logistics cost modelling were made by incorporating externality costs and developing scenarios for risk mitigation. Freight flow data granularity (in excess of one million records) allows both aggregation to national-level intelligence to inform policies, large-scale infrastructure investments and industrial positioning, and disaggregation to enable practical application.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyse how different ways of organising transport and logistics activities in construction impact on efficiency. The paper scrutinises three particular transport and logistics configurations: the de-centralised coordinated configuration, the on-site coordinated configuration and the supply network coordinated configuration.

Three configurations are derived from the literature and from case studies. The efficiency of the three configurations is analysed on three levels of analysis: the construction site, the supply chain, and across supply chains and construction sites.

The paper concludes that there are possibilities to enhance efficiency on all three levels of analysis by widening the scope of coordination beyond the individual construction site.

The analysis points to efficiency potentials in applying the supply network coordinated configuration, although this configuration puts high demands on collaboration amongst the actors involved.

The paper provides illustration, and explanation, of the efficiency potentials involved in the three configurations.

This paper aims to present a system dynamics model for the interdependencies between logistics strategies and freight transport. As efficient freight transport operations are a crucial part within securing the competitiveness of a company, the “right” logistics strategy plays a key role within realization of efficient transportation movements lowering environmental impacts.

Freight transport is affected by different parameters determined within a logistics strategy. This research approach models interdependencies between logistics strategies and transportation movements through a systemic point of view.

The paper starts with an overview of challenges in freight transport and highlights the parameters of a logistics strategy. Afterwards, the qualitative and quantitative model is presented. Numerical experimentation further illustrates the applicability while providing additional intuitively insights.

The authors present a system dynamics model for the interdependencies between logistics strategies and freight transport. The developed model allows the comprehensive description and analysis of the system operations (parameters of logistics strategy) and taking also transport relevant factors (toll, CO₂ internalization, infrastructure capacity) into account. The model should serve as a basis for the realization of sustainable transport operations. Thus, it may prove as useful to loaders/industry, logistics service providers as well as policy stakeholders regarding the realization of efficient, sustainable transport movements in future.

This paper defines the emerging intermodal issues, identifies alternative solutions and develops strategies to achieve them. It reviews intermodal logistics policies in the EU, NAFTA and Asia, focusing on the United States and Japan in NAFTA and Asia respectively, because they have been the prominent motors of international trade in their regions. From an Asian standpoint, it is a pity that it is not yet possible to report on a common intermodal strategy.

In the 21^st Century, a region 's growth and prosperity will depend upon its intermodal transportation infrastructure and its ability to efficiently move goods, materials, and people within the system whether it be from origin to destination; from supplier to customer through the various levels of the supply-chain; or from point to point within the system. Planning for the future focuses on improving a region 's intermodal transportation system efficiencies and infrastructure, its connection to other economies, and on the development of logistics institutions and facilities.

With China 's rapidly developing economy and society, record numbers of new modern facilities such as airports, ports, highways, logistics parks and warehouses are being built. Along with this, companies have made extensive investments in information technologies and software to support the tremendous growth that has taken place in the logistics industry. The development and improvement of China's historic inland water transport system is essential to their continued future growth and prosperity. In Korea, past and present National Governments have emphasized the importance of developing a North East Asian Logistics and Business Hub in their region and have worked on strategies, which include water transport, as part of an important national agenda to that end.

This article looks at how trade flows in the Yangtze and Yellow Sea Regions and between China and South Korea might be enhanced by application of improved shipping methods in marine commerce that will promote economic growth in the region. The application of logistics practices and use of barges is explored for the movement of containers on inland and coastal waterways as well as in short sea shipping which could greatly facilitate the region 's situation with respect to future economic growth.

A commonly suggested measure to make logistics greener is a shift to intermodal road‐rail transportation. Most research addresses the issue from the carrier's perspective, arguing for ways to improve the service production to better fit the shippers' demand. In this article the issue is addressed from the shipper's perspective. The purpose is to understand what contextual factors and operations changes that are possible and/or necessary for the shipper to make a fit to the current production system.

Six case companies selling non‐bulk, fast moving goods are examined. These firms have gone against the mainstream and shifted modes of transport. They are investigated through a multiple case‐study design.

The findings indicate that contextual factors stressed in the carrier‐focused literature, or rule of thumb decisions made by shipping logistics management, do not always clearly predict the success of a modal shift. However, some common denominators emerge among successful cases: large transport purchasing resources, high general carrier performance, low demand volatility, and centralized system control. The study also poses some propositions regarding the success of a modal shift.

The research is qualitative in nature and thus limited to the companies and their respective logistics systems. However, the models could be further evaluated empirically through quantitative and qualitative methods alike.

The paper poses a number of propositions of what constitutes a successful modal shift from a shipper's perspective, based on the identified factors and operational changes.

Previous research on the shift to intermodal road‐rail solutions are predominantly made from a carrier's perspective. This research addresses the issue from the shipper's perspective.

The role of logistics service provider (LSP) is essential for efficient logistics service quality (LSQ) and supply chain management, especially in multimodal transport. Multimodal transport routes that use the Trans-Siberian Railway (TSR) play an important role in the supply chains of Northeast Asia. This paper aims to identify current conditions of TSR LSQ and propose improvements to enhance the competitiveness of traditional routes. Therefore, this study sheds light on and provides recommendations for various managerial strategies to LSPs in the context of the TSR. This study utilizes Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA) to measure levels of importance and performance of the logistics service of LSPs that provide multimodal transport services via the TSR from South Korea to Europe. This study identifies capabilities on the basis of five criteria (price, timeliness, reliability, equipment systems, and customer service) from a customers’ perspective. The results of the research indicate that operational improvements should be considered to activate TSR multimodal transport for northern logistics routes from the perspective of Korean shippers. Specific findings show that balanced development strategies are needed for logistics routes that have not yet been significantly activated, while implying that logistics costs could be reduced initially to satisfy shippers. This study presents an operational strategy for LSPs using the TSR in northern logistics through IPA methods. Furthermore, this research can help policymakers propose specific policies to revitalize the northern logistics of Korean logistics companies and to provide incentive supports for shippers.

The purpose of this paper is to present the results of South Africa’s national freight demand model and related logistics cost models, and to illustrate the application of the modelling outputs to inform macrologistics policy.

Spatially and sectorally disaggregated supply and demand data are developed using the input-output (I-O) model of the economy as a platform, augmented by actual data. Supply and demand interaction is translated into freight flows via a gravity model. The logistics costs model is a bottom-up aggregation of logistics-related costs for these freight flows.

South Africa’s logistics costs are higher than in developed countries. Road freight volumes constitute 80 per cent of long-distance corridor freight, while road transport contributes more than 80 per cent to the country’s transport costs. These challenges raise concerns regarding the competitiveness of international trade, as well as the impact of transport externalities. The case studies highlight that domestic logistics costs are the biggest cost contributor to international trade logistics costs and can be reduced through inter alia modal shift. Modal shift can be induced through the internalisation of freight externality costs. Results show that externality cost internalisation can eradicate the societal cost of freight transport in South Africa without increasing macroeconomic freight costs.

Systematic spatially disaggregated commodity-level data are limited. There is however a wealth of supply, demand and freight flow information collected by the public and private sector. Initiatives to create an appreciation of the intrinsic value of such information and to leverage data sources will improve freight demand modelling in emerging economies.

A spatially and sectorally disaggregated national freight demand model, and related logistics costs models, utilising actual and modelled data, balanced via the national I-O model, provides opportunities for increased accuracy of outputs and diverse application possibilities.