A conceptual framework for examining urban goods movements

As a means of shaping our understanding of urban goods movement process we need to develop a conceptual framework. The framework, in part, will condition any future modelling approach because it will indicate 'what may be accepted as significant facts, what are already assumed to be data and what remains problematic with reference to that conceptual scheme'. A description of urban network through which goods pass from initial shipper to ultimate consumer provides underlying structure of conceptual framework. The network supplies the stage on which actors united in process of urban goods movement interact to generate either goods flows, truck movements, highway and terminal capacity, or resource availability (a).