Carriers face serious challenges in making their urban freight transport efficient and sustainable. Local authorities claim that many carriers are not innovative and do not cooperate in improving their city logistics operations. There are three solution directions to make urban freight transport more efficient and more sustainable: policy, technology and logistics. Carriers can use logistical and technical solutions. In this paper several best practices and carrier-initiatives are presented that are actually brought in practice (in the Netherlands) to improve city logistics. It depends on the type of carrier, either a regional or functional specialist or a generalist, which solution can be effectively used in the urban freight transport operations.