The Impacts of Congestion on Supply Chains: Recent Results from an Inter-American Development Bank Initiative

Congestion in urban areas heavily impacts supply chains. This webinar will present a methodology to assess the economic impacts of congestion on logistic costs and estimate the direct environmental impacts of urban freight activity. Collecting information to characterize supply chains is a highly complex task, due to the diversity of participants in the logistical operations, and the fact that these participants have a partial view of the system. In designing the methodology, the following objectives guided the process: (1) Applicability; (2) Comparability; (3) Practicality; and (4) Robustness. In order to test the principles developed, pre-pilot studies were conducted in three Latin American Cities: Barranquilla, Colombia; Santiago, Chile and Sao Paulo, Brazil. Results from these pilot tests will also be discussed.