Jarosław Witkowski and Maja Kiba-Ja

Jarosław Witkowski and Maja Kiba-Janiak / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 125 ( 2014 ) 373 – 385
expected that in 2050 in the EU countries, road transport will continue to play a dominant role in both freight and
passenger transport. (European Commission, 2011).
City logistics requires a huge commitment from stakeholders, such as: freight carriers, residents (consumers),
manufacturing, services and trade companies (shippers), local authorities and passenger transport companies. Each
of these stakeholders has different expectations towards city logistics (Taniguchi & Tamagawa, 2005; Tseng, Yue
& Taylor, 2005; Witkowski, 2011; Kiba-Janiak, 2011). However, a key role in the area of city logistics is played
by the local government (Kiba-Janiak 2011, Lindholm, 2012). Local government, according to the legal
regulations, may introduce: restricted entry of trucks into the city centre, tolls for car entrance to the city centre,
separate bus-lanes for public transport, and the changes in the road marking, traffic lights and information flow etc.
One of the main purposes of local government is to improve the citizens’ quality of life by satisfying their
needs, including the economic and social sphere. According to the research (Kiba-Janiak & Cheba, 2010) city
logistics impacts upon these areas that are less important from the point of view of all the criteria that affects the
quality of life (such as salary, access to work, health care institutions, security or housing conditions etc.). The
extent to which ease of movement within a city becomes a significant cause of "complaint", is dependent on
whether other causes of "discomfort" are solved.
The purpose of the research was to analyse the activities of city logistics undertaken by local governments in
Polish cities with county rights. The authors made an attempt to verify the hypothesis: Polish local governments
are insufficiently involved in improving the movement of goods and people within the city, despite the fact
they note the growing congestion problem. During the research, the authors have made the diagnosis of
organisational structures of local governments in terms of departments, which carry out tasks in the field of city
logistics., A questionnaire was been sent to the Polish cities with county rights. A survey helped elicit answers to
the following questions: