Themes and challenges in making freight transport sustainable
Author
Summary, in English
The purpose of this article is to explore themes and challenges in making freight transport sustainable out of a logistics service providers’ perspective.
The approach is explorative and the main method for data collection is interviews. The study has a cross sectional design which takes advantage of nine semi-structured interviews from selected logistics service providers operating in the Scandinavian countries.
Our findings illustrate the major themes of sustainable freight transport, by analyses of current as well as future activities, in perspective of nine interviewed logistics service providers. In addition, the patterns of current and probable emerging challenges for developing sustainable freight transport were discovered. It is concluded that there is great need for a holistic perspective where logistics service providers and product owners together analyse and design future freight transport set-ups. The analysis of complex interactions among LSPs and other actors of supply chains provide several opportunities for future research.
The results offered in this paper provide a systematic structure for classifying issues related to sustainable freight transport; something which will be beneficial for managers and policy-makers when they approach sustainable supply chain management challenges. Syntheses and discovery of themes and challenges of making freight transport sustainable are critical for a sustainable society. This paper combines the results from interviews with a thorough review of related articles and homepages. The study ends with research propositions contributing to the further advancement of supply chain sustainability and management.
The approach is explorative and the main method for data collection is interviews. The study has a cross sectional design which takes advantage of nine semi-structured interviews from selected logistics service providers operating in the Scandinavian countries.
Our findings illustrate the major themes of sustainable freight transport, by analyses of current as well as future activities, in perspective of nine interviewed logistics service providers. In addition, the patterns of current and probable emerging challenges for developing sustainable freight transport were discovered. It is concluded that there is great need for a holistic perspective where logistics service providers and product owners together analyse and design future freight transport set-ups. The analysis of complex interactions among LSPs and other actors of supply chains provide several opportunities for future research.
The results offered in this paper provide a systematic structure for classifying issues related to sustainable freight transport; something which will be beneficial for managers and policy-makers when they approach sustainable supply chain management challenges. Syntheses and discovery of themes and challenges of making freight transport sustainable are critical for a sustainable society. This paper combines the results from interviews with a thorough review of related articles and homepages. The study ends with research propositions contributing to the further advancement of supply chain sustainability and management.
Department/s
Publishing year
2012
Language
English
Links
Document type
Conference paper
Topic
- Other Mechanical Engineering
Keywords
- third party logistics
- logistics service provider (LSP)
- logistics
- freight transport
- sustainability
- environment
- packaging logistics
Conference name
TRF Annual Forum
Conference date
2012-03-14 - 2012-03-17
Status
Published