​BEST Urban Freight Solutions

**BESTUFS** was a coordination initiative aimed at fostering cooperation among experts, research institutions, urban transport operators, and city administrations to identify and disseminate the best Urban Freight Solutions (UFS) across Europe. **Key Motivations**: 1. Urban goods transport procedures negatively impact city life. 2. Structural changes in urban areas, such as new infrastructure and commercial developments, necessitate improved UFS. 3. Technological innovations (e.g., low-emission vehicles, small containers) are becoming more competitive. **Challenges**: Public/private partnerships were established to improve urban goods transport, but these partnerships often failed due to insufficient guidance on best practices. **Objectives**: BESTUFS aimed to identify and promote best practices in urban freight transport by creating a thematic network that would: - Build and maintain an open European network of experts, user groups, ongoing projects, and other stakeholders focused on urban goods movement. - Facilitate ongoing dialogue during the 5th Framework Programme. - Identify key themes in UFS, support project clustering at the European level, and integrate results into the network. - Collect and analyze UFS-related projects and initiatives, primarily from Europe but also from the USA and other countries. - Disseminate best practices and success criteria to a wide audience, aiming for solution transferability. - Establish links with other relevant thematic networks to share results and avoid duplication of work. - Provide support and contacts to encourage collaboration within the UFS domain. **Methodology**: The project was structured into four work packages: network coordination, collection and analysis of project results, administrative support, and dissemination of findings through various platforms.