London was ranked as one of the worst European capital cities for freight efficiency, according to new rankings published by a fleet telematics company.
In the survey conducted by Geotab, London was placed 6th out of 7th in the list of cities. London not only found to be heavily congested, but a city where congestion was difficult to plan around, with unpredictable traffic patterns. The same delivery might take 20 minutes one day, but 50 minutes the next, disrupting fleet schedules.
In Geotab’s European Freight Efficiency index, ‘The Cost of Standing Still’, London receives a score of 29 out of 100, well behind first-placed Berlin on 61, and beating only Madrid on 25.
According to Geotab, it is the stop-start nature of traffic in London that is a problem for fleets, leading to inefficiency that cannot be solved through routing or driver training alone.
Compared to a city like Rome, which although highly congested, sees vehicles moving in a continuous crawl rather than stopping and starting, London is said to feature a traffic pattern which increases fuel waste and emissions.
Edward Kulperger, senior vice president, EMEA at Geotab, said: “Urban freight has always been seen through the lens of congestion - how busy a city is and how slow traffic becomes at peak times.
“What this Index shows is that the real issue runs deeper. It’s not just how much traffic there is, but how that traffic behaves. In the most efficient cities, movement is consistent and predictable. In the least efficient, it becomes fragmented – and that destruction has a direct impact on cost, emissions and the ability of fleets to operate effectively.
“For fleet operators, unpredictability is one of the most challenging factors to manage. You can plan for congestion, you can route around known delays, but when journey times vary significantly from one day to the next, it creates a compounding effect across the entire operation.
“What connected vehicle data allows us to do is make that hidden layer visible - to move beyond assumption and into real-world insight. That visibility is what enables fleets, cities and policymakers to make more informed decisions about how urban transport ystems evolve.”
