A Potentially Transferable Composite-Index Framework for Assessing the Territorial and Socioeconomic Performance of Logistics Infrastructure in Urban and Regional Systems: Evidence from COLOMBIA

Logistics infrastructure plays a strategic role in urban-regional connectivity, territorial development, supply chain integration, and the spatial organization of freight flows in emerging economies. However, the socioeconomic and territorial performance associated with logistics complexes is not automatic or homogeneous, since it depends on institutional capacity, linkages with local business networks, public investment, logistics services, and the development conditions of each territory. This study develops, applies, and examines a potentially transferable composite-index framework to assess the relative territorial and socioeconomic performance of nine logistics complexes in Colombia as part of broader urban and regional systems. The methodology compares a 2019 baseline with a 2024 follow-up observation, using independently compiled raw data from official and institutional sources. Economic, business, fiscal, social, labor, and distributive variables are transformed to a base of 100 and aggregated using an equal-weight benchmark specification, while PCA, Shannon entropy, Spearman correlation, Winsorization, and leave-one-indicator-out checks are used only as exploratory robustness and sensitivity exercises. Monetary variables are reported in nominal Colombian pesos and are therefore interpreted as changes in observed economic or fiscal scale, not as real welfare gains. The results show heterogeneous relative performance across the cases: the Bogotá Free Trade Zone and the Caribbean Logistics Complex record the highest values, while the Coffee Region shows no aggregate improvement after reviewing fiscal and health information. The main contribution of this study is to provide an adaptable decision-support tool for urban-regional planning, territorial performance assessment, infrastructure monitoring, and policy discussion in emerging economies, without claiming experimental causality.