Experimentations and innovations flourish in France that involve a container barge transport (CBT) as the main leg for urban distribution of goods. Based on the study of existing chains, the paper shows how coordination issues are actually managed by CBT stakeholders. With the help of Transaction Costs Economics, the paper shows that coordination and pooling issues lead CBT stakeholders to adopt hierarchical or hybrid governance structures to build regular inland shipping line. Based on this result, several examples are used to identify the economic and organizational conditions of river logistics in urban area.
