Research On Logistics Park-Proactive Collaborative Planning Model And Its Application In Hong Kong

Developing logistics park is with an aim to reducing the logistics costs and enhances the service level. As Hong Kong has the world class container terminals and airport, it was the first time to propose a logistics park devetopment in2001. However, there is nothing happened after10years since then. The development of logistics park should go hand-in-hand with the local/regional economies as well as the demand for logistics service and also takes time to construct. The proposed logistics park for Hong Kong was recommended in the good economic climate around2001. The findings of the Government consultancy study were well presented with a rosy picture to meet the demand for logistics park in the next20years. Unfortunately, the economic situation has dramatic changed and there is a clear down turn trend in the logistics business environment. The logistics industry has serious concerns to identify the right timing to trigger off the implementation of such development. Hong Kong SAR Government has put resources to keep track on the demand and timing for such development on a regularly basis. This kind of expensive monitoring work includes the study of various stakeholders such as logistics property developers, logistics service providers, related third parties etc. The author has been working in the Planning Department, HKSAR Government for many years and paid particular attention to the development of logistics park. To keep track of the development'timing'could be a wasting of resources and low work efficiency. This thesis recommends a new way of work to the Government to respond proactively to the logistics market and local community but it does not address scale (size) and location issue of the logistics park. If the new way of work can be endorsed, the work efficiency for the development planning of logistics park can be raised and be able to meet the logistics demand in time. As the existing research on Government's planning work for logistics park is very little, the results of this study carries a significant contributions. All in all, this thesis has successfully developed the following3innovations:(1) to develop a new thinking for the HKSAR Government in implementing logistics park. It is a'proactive'collaborative planning method which carries3essential elements, namely'forward looking','just-in-time'and'implementable'.(2) to deduce a set of influential factors for the development planning of logistics park. They are:(i) there is a sustainable development environment;(ii) capabilities of the logistics infrastructures;(iii) supportive Government land use and logistics policies;(iv) bearing regional logistics market competitive edge; and (v) local logistics service providers carrying competitive advantages.(3) to create a'proactive collaborative planning'model. The5components in the proactive collaborative planning model will reflect the logistics business environment via an index-H-index. The implementation of the logistics park depending on the index which provides a'proactive'monitoring mechanismThe new'proactive collaborative planning'model does not require a lot of hard data and complicated mathematical formula since it is just the analysis of the information extracted from existing Government statistics and supplementary with simple user survey if required.The conclusions of the thesis are that once the business environment for logistics park is under monitoring process, the implementation can automatically commence. It is possible to explain why Hong Kong has put on hold on the devefopment of the proposed logistics park because the H-index has a down turn since2001. This is also reflected in the user survey which shows the change in demand for logistics park of40%down to16%from2002to2006. The3innovations are verified as through the empirical analysis of Hong Kong proposed logistics park. On the other hand, this implies that in the future, the Government will not require to spend a lot of resources in keeping track of the development of the logistics park. It is simply monitoring the change of the H-index and its projection. If it does not reach the target index, the implementation mechanism would not be triggered off.