Untitled - Ministerstwo Rozwoju Regionalnego

the volume of sale of goods and services produced by their subsidiaries is nearly
50% higher than the volume of the world exports.
Global logistics is one of the powers stimulating information and IT innovations,
without which global interrelations between logistics entities would be
impossible. Big logistics providers very often have a strong potential capable of
creating specialised software on the basis of their long practical experience.
Large urban areas are where production, commercial and distribution businesses
concentrate. The fact that a great number of buildings and trade operations
are crammed within a limited space has led to another kind of logistics,
i.e. urban logistics. Cities with logistics systems adjusted to their character are
more attractive for business and create better living conditions for their inhabitants.
City logistics, in the full sense of the term, makes it possible to achieve the
following effects: • improvement of accessibility and capacity of transport systems;
• development of telematics as an intelligent transport control system;
• development of ecologistics and waste management; • development of night
and weekend transport; • development of public transport to retail centres. The
experience of great world cities in creating efficient urban logistics systems can
be spread elsewhere and applied in smaller places.
The development of a concept of logistics centres was one of the milestones
in the development of modern economic logistics centres. The centres, complex
logistics infrastructure facilities, do not have a specified form and constantly undergo
transformation processes. The issues related to their development in
Europe are discussed by Ireneusz Fechner in Chapter XXI. In Europe, the term
“logistics centres” refers to logistics network hubs, where storage suprastructure
and logistics services are concentrated, and which offer intermodal transport
services, i.e. they have container terminals handling transhipment for at least
two transport modes.
The idea of logistics centres was conceived because of such factors as:
• shortage of modern storage space on the outskirts of big cities; • dynamic development
of road transport; • specific requirements of growing intermodal
transport; • growing conflicts caused by heavy trucks going through city centres.
In future, single-mode transport logistics centres and warehouse clusters
will be complemented with container terminals if conditions for intermodal
transport are improved and state governments are more engaged in the implementation
of sustainable transport policy.
Logistics costs constitute a big proportion (over 10%) of global costs of goods
production and distribution. Their volume is not a fixed economic value; modern
methods can and must be used to keep records of the costs, analyse and reduce
them. These issues are discussed by Henryk WoŸniak in Chapter 22. The
studies of the volume of logistics costs in economy have been carried out quite
regularly for many years; they have, however, one essential flaw: various methods
are applied for cost account and estimation, which results in significant differences
in presented results. The level of logistics costs depends on the branch
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