This twofold work first presents a state-of-the-art review of the roots and context for freight mobility barriers, and secondly investigates the key barriers to freight mobility in Canada from the perspective of stakeholders. The review provides a holistic approach to understanding the interconnected nature of mobility, spatial structure, congestion, supply chains, and the economy on generating, demanding, and hindering freight movements. The investigation develops a novel theory grounded in the experiences of stakeholders following the Strauss/Corbin extended Grounded Theory approach of symbolic interactionism. From interviews with 28 industry and government stakeholders, a total of 50 themes emerged as barriers. These barriers were grouped into four categories which frame the issue of freight mobility as being impacted by high infrastructure utilization, cost impacts of diminishing distribution reliability, rapidly growing regions and ineffective or absent policy support, and lacking a robust data collection, analysis, and sharing framework. The categories were considered in the frame of addressing goods movement barriers and were argued to be influenced by factors of cost, political risk, implement-ability, and maintainability. A framework was developed by integrating the emergent categories and factors, identifying four high-level interventions: data and knowledge mobilization; public-private collaborative freight evaluations; government funding and political support; and, capacity alterations: improvements and expansions. Overall, the key concepts of the emergent theory are to collect and analyze data to inform public-private stakeholder evaluations of policy interventions, with government funding to support both knowledge generation efforts, policy actions and capacity investments. There is a significant need to expand data collection and information sharing to enable firms and government to address physical and policy barriers which impede the effective goods movements, including infrastructure and land use planning. The theory is generally consistent with barriers identified internationally. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / This twofold work first presents a state-of-the-art review of the roots and context for hinderances to the movement of freight, and secondly, investigates the key barriers to freight mobility in Canada as perceived by Canadian stakeholders. The review provides a holistic approach to understanding the interconnected nature of mobility, spatial structure, congestion, supply chains, and the economy on generating, demanding, and hindering freight movements. The investigation develops a novel theory grounded in the experiences of stakeholders in Canada. Emergent are categories which frame the barriers to freight mobility as high infrastructure utilization, diminishing reliability, rapidly growing regions, ineffective or absent policy support, and insufficient data collection and sharing. These categories are theorized to be influenced by cost, political risk, implement-ability, and maintainability considerations. The concepts are to collect and analyze data to inform stakeholder evaluations of policy interventions, with government funding to support knowledge generation, policy actions, and capacity investments.

Encore méconnu il y a une trentaine d’années, le transport de marchandises en ville connaît aujourd’hui un essor scientifique incontestable, sous la tutelle d’instances nationales et internationales. Le sujet émerge aujourd’hui comme un enjeu d’autant plus fort que les modes de consommation et de gestion logistique restructurent les flux de biens et impactent la durabilité des villes. Pour autant, il semblerait que l’aménageur peine à se saisir à l’échelle locale de cette nouvelle thématique. Elément essentiel au fonctionnement du système urbain, le transport de marchandises reste ainsi un élément généralement ignoré par les décideurs publics, s’il n’est pas vécu comme une manifestation néfaste de l’activité urbaine.Dans cette thèse nous examinons, à l’échelle des collectivités territoriales l’intégration d’une thématique encore considérée comme faiblement structurante pour l’aménageur public. Si le transport de marchandises en ville a nécessité au début des années 1990 une conceptualisation différente du transport de fret interurbain, ce sujet exige également une adaptation spécifique aux enjeux que se pose l’aménageur. En ce sens nous, discutons les bases conceptuelles permettant de passer d’une approche technique et statistique du transport à la mobilité urbaine des marchandises pour englober les dynamiques du système urbain des « marchandises ». A travers neuf agglomérations françaises, nous confrontons les dispositifs stratégiques d’aménagement aux spécificités de la mobilité urbaine des marchandises et les conflits et incohérences qui en découlent. Nous développons par la suite le cas lyonnais pour illustrer les dynamiques et interactions territoriales complexes qui sous-tendent la mobilité urbaine des marchandises et l’évolution ainsi que les limites de la prise en compte de cette thématique. Enfin, pour discuter les effets de ces modes d’(in)action sur l’environnement urbain nous détaillons le processus d’intégration opérationnelle de la mobilité des marchandises dans deux opérations d’aménagement emblématiques de la ville de Lyon, le projet Lyon-Confluence et la rue Garibaldi.Malgré l’existence d’outils de mesure et d’action, nous montrons que la mobilité urbaine des marchandises est une thématique encore illégitime, en conflit avec le processus d’aménagement classique. Dans ce contexte les techniciens spécialistes du sujet se retrouvent marginalisés du processus d’aménagement mais servent toutefois d’alibi technique et politique pour afficher les capacités de réflexions de la collectivité sur une thématique complexe. / Still widely unexplored thirty years ago, urban freight transport is now undergoing an indisputable scientific development under the tutelage of national and international institutions. This subject now emerges as a substantial issue since consumers’ behaviours and supply chain management evolutions strongly impact cities’ sustainability. However, it seems that urban planners hardly take this new topic into account on a local level. Although it is an essential function of the urban system, freight transport remains widely unregarded by public decision makers, when it is not considered as a negative consequence of urban activity.This thesis focuses on the integration of a subject envisioned as poorly structuring for urban planners, studied here at the local authorities’ level. In the 1990s the necessity emerged for urban freight transport to be conceptualised in a way that differed from interurban freight transport. We now also consider that this subject needs to be specifically adapted to suit urban planners’ issues and we discuss the conceptual bases necessary to shift from a technical and statistical approach of transport to a view of urban freight mobility encompassing the dynamics of the “urban freight” system. Relying on the examples of nine French conurbations, we then confront urban planning policies to the specificities of urban freight mobility and describe the resulting conflicts and inconsistencies. We then develop the case of Lyons to illustrate the complex territorial dynamics and interactions underlying urban freight mobility and provide an analysis of how the actors’ awareness of this topic has evolved and to what extent it can be raised. Finally, in order to study the effects the (in)actions of city planners on urban environment we detail the process of integration of freight mobility through two urban development operations in Lyons, the “Lyon Confluence” project and the Garibaldi street project.Despite the existence of measuring and action tools, we show that urban freight mobility is still an illegitimate subject, at odds with mainstream urban planning. In this context, freight specialists in local authorities are largely kept away from the planning process, but are exposed and used as an alibi to demonstrate the capacity of public authorities to work on a complex subject.