Buffer areas for sustainable logistics. Assessing their added value towards port community

Port-City interface is becoming increasingly pivotal in both urban and infrastructural sustainable development. Urban centers tend to regain their overlook on the sea, while “gigantic” ships require ports to become bigger and bigger. These convergent processes frequently lead to conflicts and unsolved issues. This is the reason why solutions are often searched in defining specifical and dedicated areas and routes to reduce interferences. Buffer Areas for logistics-related operations and procedures are often mentioned. The present work concerns the stakeholders’ engagement process conducted in order to evaluate most suitable areas and relevant features to host these activities before freight vehicles reach the proper port area, thus reducing externalities on ordinary traffic flows. In particular, in-depth interviews to several stakeholders of Genoese Port community were conducted and their results were later mainstreamed into a multi-criteria analysis. Despite not being a structured participatory process, the present methodology could help defining intervention priorities and identifying the added value of this kind of facilities for different members of local port community