Entre police et service : l'action publique sur le transport de marchandises en ville. Le cas des métropoles de Paris et New York

Abstract

The main objective of this thesis is to analyze public governments' response to urban freight. To do this, patterns of goods movements and related public policies were observed in Paris and New York as well as in a dozen medium-size urban areas, mostly in Northern Europe. In part I, freight transport economics have been applied to establish the notion of an over-representation of logistics in large cities : Paris and New York, acting as national/international hubs for goods, are characterized by a higher number of vehicle-miles traveled or freight terminals than local needs only would require. A reason for that is that modern logistics tend to concentrate supply and distribution terminals close to major consumer areas. Part II, concentrating on political science, looks at public institutions dealing with freight. Freight operations today depend less on economic regulations (market entry, rate levels) than on operational regulations (traffic laws, vehicles' size and weight), which are mostly local governments' responsability. This results in very heterogenous rules within metropolitan areas : local carriers have to cope with fragmented routes or delivery hours that prevent them from consolidating delivery operations. Part III uses the two major foundations of public law to analyze previous field results. The "police power" is the set of regulatory powers "prohibiting" or "imposing" the patterns of private activities, whereas the "provision of service" is the means by which government organizes directly (or through a private sub-contractor) an urban service. We highlight a tendency for freight to move from the "police section" towards the "service section" of government activities. While most policies remain focused on police regulations, innovative policies today are based on the identification of a freight urban service and its provision by means of "licenses" or distribution centers. We discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this evolution. ; L'objectif général de cette thèse est de contribuer à la ...