Hubs for Freight and Passengers? Exploring the suitability of adding logistics functions to mobility hubs

In the coming years, cities will have to deal with transportation challenges in terms of accessibility and sustainability. Passenger and freight transport are expected to increase, while the transport sector is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and congestion in cities. Although historically both ecosystems (passenger transport and freight transport) were intertwined, the ecosystems have developed separately from each other over the past century. This research focuses on finding integrated logistics flows and logistics innovations and especially finding the conditions under which these can be added to different types of mobility hubs. By collecting and structuring information from literature and interviews using a requirement analysis, possible logistics additions and associated conditions are mapped into frameworks. The results show that small consumer goods flows have the highest potential to be added to mobility hubs. In addition, the frameworks show that they can be used as a first step in the analysis to investigate which logistics functions and under which conditions these could have potential on a mobility hub. Further research can, preferably quantitatively, examine whether the suggested logistics additions from the framework are applicable in more detailed areas.