FLUIDE

Paris, Lyon, Lille and Strasbourg all have river ports located within their urban area. What role can these river ports play in the implementation of a sustainable transport corridor integration from international trade to the urban distribution’ Acknowledging that road transport is the dominant mode in France and Europe for either long or short distance and urban distribution, this raises the concern regarding of the potential of river transport and how it can be inserted locally. These cities depend on national and international trades, the latter coming primarly through seaports. Their river ports are well connected with major european maritime gatweays (Le Havre, Marseille, Dunkerque, Antwerp and Rotterdam), while being at the same time, inserted into vast urban areas. This raises the questions of logistic distribution within the city and the role of river ports in the organisation of this particular urban logistic distribution. Road transport and land value are the main factors for the urban and logistic sprawl phenonemon. These facts raise the question on how these cities can concentrate, organize and articulate international, national and local trades within their urban area. We make a clear distinction between international and national trade and how can cities manage both within an efficient platform infrastructure. The main problematic is to conceive if river ports can be efficient tools in the development of sustainable transport in regard to the modal shift from road to sea, while being integrated without conflict into large urban areas. We are conducting our researches on the development of river ports located in cities, while understanding the interaction of logistic activites within the urban areas, at different scales. Our research is both systemic and multiscalar. Studies on this particular topic should bring insights regarding sustainable cities development. Scientifics objectives are as follow : - showing the potentiel of trafic at different scales (international, national and urban); - analysing combined transport chains, with an emphasis on road transport. This requires the identification of actors and their organisation, to propose multiscalar logistic schemes, in particular with the urban distribution pattern and to evaluate their environement and economical potential; - studying urban insertion of river ports, understanding the relationships between urban sprawling, road transport and land value, while defining an adapted logistic urbanism pattern that take advantage of river ports into public urban planning policies. Contributions of this project are: - to improve methods of fret trafic prediction and data collection; - to propose theoratical models of logistic organisation that includes river ports within public urbain planning policies; - to compile historical, geographical and economical knowledge on the role of river transport for these four cities, while creating conditions of experimentation with a road transport company for the last leg of distribution in the city.