Urban consolidation center with an economic welfare approach: a case study
An Urban Consolidation Center (UCC) is a city logistics solution that contributes to reducing traffic congestion and the negative effects of transportation activities, but few UCCs have been implemented fully. Financial sustainability is commonly mentioned as a constrain to their implementation. This study conducts the UCC economic evaluation from the point of view of Welfare Economics, which considers stakeholders` benefits derived from delivery optimization, a reduction in the time spent by the local population in traffic congestion, and a reduction in GHG emissions by cargo vehicles. From the viewpoint of the Kaldor–Hicks Criterion, if the stakeholders ́ benefits were high enough to compensate for the cost of an UCC operation, its implementation would be justified. In this case, the Kaldor–Hicks Criterion is applied to data from a study of an UCC implementation in Curitiba, Brazil and used to gauge its impact on stakeholders.