Press Releases

The kick-off meeting, held today at CRF (Centro Ricerca Fiat), in Turin, brought together the partners of the CITYLOG project whose aim is to improve the freight distribution logistics process in urban areas, reducing road congestion and improving energy efficiency.
Present at this first meeting was Councillor with special responsibility for transport within the region of Piemonte, Daniele Borioli who, with representatives from CRF, welcomed the participants to Turin and underlined the importance of this project for Turin and for the Piemonte region – that has provided financial support for the initiative – and indeed for all cities, including of course, Berlin and Lyon, also partners in this project.
The CITYLOG project proposal, co-funded by the European Union within the framework 7 research programme, aims to increase the sustainability and the efficiency of urban delivery of goods through an adaptive and integrated mission management solutions and the application of innovative freight vehicles. Three action areas have been identified to improve today’s city logistic system:
• logistic-oriented telematics services are expected to give a decisive contribution to improve mission planning processes through an optimized routing and drivers’ support system. For the final customers, tracking and communication capabilities should be deployed to reduce the number of unsuccessful deliveries;
• new vehicle technologies will represent a key factor to increase the operational flexibility of heavy and light commercial vehicles. This requires that the vehicles shall be requested to support different mission profiles, and this will allow a reduction in their number. In other words, what should be achieved is the interoperability among the vehicles, especially in terms of load unit handling;
• innovative loading units shall be carefully designed to operate, like the vehicles, according to different missions. Therefore, a re-configurable internal layout will enable different uses either as simple container or mobile pack station (BentoBox concept). In the latter case, the goal is the de-synchronization of the delivery process between operators and final customers in order to reduce the unsuccessful deliveries.
The innovative approach of CITYLOG will lead to decrease the number and optimise the use of delivery vehicles in urban areas, while bringing an increased quality of service. From the point of view of the logistics operator the groundbreaking CITYLOG solutions and technologies are of highest interest due to the increased energy efficiency and quality of service.
The Iveco ECODAILY will form the basis of the last-mile distribution transport within the project.

Iveco
Iveco designs, manufactures, and markets a broad range of light, medium and heavy commercial vehicles, off-road trucks, city and intercity buses and coaches as well as special vehicles for applications such as fire fighting, off-road missions, defence and civil protection.
Iveco employs almost 25,000 people and runs 27 production units in 16 Countries in the world using excellent technologies developed in 6 research centres. Besides Europe, the company operates in China, Russia, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, and South Africa. With around 5000 sales and service outlets in over 160 Countries guarantee technical support wherever in the world an Iveco vehicle is at work.

Torino, February 3, 2010