Report

The Final 50 Feet of the Urban Goods Delivery System: Tracking Curb Use in Seattle

Publication Date: 2019

Summary:

Vehicles of all kinds compete for parking space along the curb in Seattle’s Greater Downtown area. The Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) manages use of the curb through several types of curb designations that regulate who can park in a space and for how long. To gain an evidence-based understanding of the current use and operational capacity of the curb for commercial vehicles (CVs), SDOT commissioned the Urban Freight Lab (UFL) at the University of Washington Supply Chain Transportation & Logistics Center to study and document curb parking in five selected Greater Downtown areas.

This study documents vehicle parking behavior in a three-by-three city block grid around each of five prototype Greater Downtown buildings: a hotel, a high-rise office building, an historical building, a retail center, and a residential tower. These buildings were part of the UFL’s earlier SDOT-sponsored research tracking how goods move vertically within a building in the final 50 feet.

The areas around these five prototype buildings were intentionally chosen for this curb study to deepen the city’s understanding of the Greater Downtown area.

Significantly, this study captures the parking behavior of commercial vehicles everywhere along the curb as well as the parking activities of all vehicles (including passenger vehicles) in commercial vehicle loading zones (CVLZs). The research team documented: (1) which types of vehicles parked in CVLZs and for how long, and; (2) how long commercial vehicles (CVs) parked in CVLZs, in metered parking, and in passenger load zones (PLZ) and other unauthorized spaces.

Four key findings, shown below, emerged from the research team’s work:

Commercial and passenger vehicle drivers use CVLZs and PLZs fluidly: commercial vehicles are parking in PLZs, and passenger vehicles are parking in CVLZs. Passenger vehicles made up more than half of all vehicles observed parking in CVLZs (52%). More than one-quarter of commercial vehicle drivers parked in PLZs (26 %.) This fact supports more integrated planning for all curb space, versus developing standalone strategies for passenger vehicle and for commercial vehicle parking.
Most commercial vehicle (CV) demand is for short-term parking: 15 or 30 minutes. Across the five locations, more than half (54%) of all CVs parked for 15 minutes or less in all types of curb spaces. Nearly three-quarters of all CVs (72%) parked for 30 minutes or less. When considering just the delivery CVs, an even higher percentage, 60%, parked for 15 minutes or less. Eighty-one percent of the delivery CVs parked for 30 minutes or less.
Thirty-six percent of the total CVs parked along the curb were service CVs, showing the importance of factoring their behavior and future demand into urban parking schemes. In contrast to delivery CVs that predominately parked for 30 minutes or less, service CVs’ parking behavior was bifurcated. While 56% of them parked for 30 minutes or less, 44% parked for more than 30 minutes. And more than one quarter (27%) of the service CVs parked for an hour or more. Because service vehicles make up such a big share of total CVs at the curb, this may have an outsize impact on parking space turn rates at the curb.
Forty-one percent of commercial vehicles parked in unauthorized locations. But a much higher percentage parked in unauthorized areas near the two retail centers (55% – 65%) when compared to the predominately office and residential areas (27% – 30%). The research team found that curb parking behavior is associated with granular, building-level urban land use. This occurred even as other factors such as the total number, length and ratio of CVLZs versus PLZs varied widely across the five study areas.

The occupancy study documents that each building and the built environment surrounding it has unique features that impact parking operations. As cities seek to more actively manage curb space, the study’s findings illuminate the need to plan a flexible network with capacity for distinct types (time and space requirements) of CV parking demand.

This study also drives home that the curb does not function in isolation, but instead forms one element of the Greater Downtown’s broader, interconnected load/unload network, which includes alleys, the curb, and private loading bays and docks. (1,2,3) SDOT commissioned this work as part of its broader effort with the UFL to map—and better understand—the entire Greater Downtown area’s commercial vehicle load/unload space network. Cities and other parties interested in the details of how to conduct a commercial vehicle occupancy study can see a step-by-step guide in Appendix C.

In this study, researchers deployed six data collectors to observe each curb study area for three days over roughly six weeks in October and December 2017. To make the data produced in this project as useful as possible, the research team designed a detailed vehicle typology to track specific vehicle categories consistently and accurately. The typology covers 10 separate vehicle categories, from various types of trucks and vans to passenger vehicles to cargo bikes. Passenger vehicles in this study were not treated as commercial vehicles, due to challenges in systematically identifying whether passenger vehicles were making deliveries or otherwise carrying a commercial permit.

The five prototype Seattle buildings studied are Seattle Municipal Tower (also the site of a common carrier parcel locker pilot), Dexter Horton, Westlake Center, and Insignia Towers. (4) The study shows how different building and land uses interact with the broader load/unload network. By collecting curb occupancy data in the same locations as their earlier work, the research team added a new layer of information to help the city evaluate—and manage—the Greater Downtown area load/unload network more comprehensively.

This report is part of a broader suite of UFL research to date that equips Seattle with an evidence-based foundation to actively and effectively manage Greater Downtown load/unload space as a coordinated network. The UFL has mapped the location and features of the legal landing spots for trucks across the Greater Downtown, enabling the city to model myriad urban freight scenarios on a block-by-block level. To the research team’s knowledge, no other city in the U.S. or the E.U. has this data trove. The findings in this report, together with all the UFL research conducted and GIS maps and databases produced to date, give Seattle a technical baseline to actively manage the Greater Downtown’s load/unload spaces as a coordinated network to improve the goods delivery system and mitigate gridlock.

The UFL will pilot such active management on select Greater Downtown streets in Seattle and Bellevue, Washington, to help goods delivery drivers find a place to park without circling the block in crowded cities for hours, wasting time and fuel and adding to congestion. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy under the Vehicles Technologies Office is funding the project. (5) The project partners will integrate sensor technologies, develop data platforms to process large data streams, and publish a prototype app to let delivery firms know when a parking space is open – and when it’s predicted to be open so they can plan to arrive when another truck is leaving. This is the nation’s first systematic research pilot to test proof of concept of a functioning system that offers commercial vehicle drivers and dispatchers real-time occupancy data on load/unload spaces–and test what impact that data has on commercial driver behavior. This pilot can help inform other cities interested in taking steps to actively manage their load/unload network.

Actively managing the load/unload network is more imperative as the city grows denser, the e-commerce boom continues, and drivers of all vehicle types—freight, service, passenger, ride-sharing and taxis—jockey for finite (and increasingly valuable) load/unload space. Already, Seattle ranks as the sixth most-congested city in the country.

The UFL is a living laboratory made up of retailers, truck freight carriers and parcel companies, technology companies supporting transportation and logistics, multifamily residential and retail/commercial building developers and operators, and SDOT. Current members are Boeing HorizonX, Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) – Seattle King County, curbFlow, Expeditors International of Washington, Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Kroger, Michelin, Nordstrom, PepsiCo, Terreno, USPack, UPS, and the United States Postal Service (USPS).

Authors: Urban Freight Lab

Recommended Citation:
Urban Freight Lab (2019). The Final 50 Feet of the Urban Goods Delivery System: Tracking Curb Use in Seattle.

Report

Curbing Conflicts: Curb Allocation Change Project Report

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Publication Date: 2019

Summary:

Like many congested cities, Seattle is grappling with how best to manage the increasing use of ride-hailing services by Transportation Network Companies (TNCs) like Uber and Lyft. According to a 2018 Seattle Times analysis, TNC ridership in the Seattle region has grown to more than five times the level it was in the beginning of 2015, providing, on average, more than 91,000 rides a day in 2018. And the newspaper reports Uber and Lyft trips are heavily concentrated in the city’s densest neighborhoods, where nearly 40,000 rides a day start in ZIP codes covering downtown, Belltown, Capitol Hill and South Lake Union.

This University of Washington (UW) study focuses on a strategy to manage TNC driver stops when picking up and dropping off passengers to improve traffic flow in the South Lake Union (SLU) area. SLU is the site of the main campus for Amazon, the online retail company. The site is known to generate a large number of TNC trips, and Amazon reports high rates of ride-hailing use for employee commutes. This study also found that vehicle picking-up/dropping-off passengers make up a significant share of total vehicle activity in SLU. The center city neighborhood is characterized by multiple construction sites, slow speed limits (25 mph), and heavy vehicle and pedestrian traffic.

Broad concerns about congestion, safety, and effective curb use led to this study, conducted by researchers at the UW’s Urban Freight Lab and Sustainable Transportation Lab. Amazon specifically was concerned about scarcity of curb space where TNC drivers could legally and readily stop to pick up and drop off passengers. Without dedicated load/unload curb space, TNC vehicles stop and wait at paid parking spots, other unauthorized curb spots, or in the travel lane itself, potentially blocking or slowing traffic. To try to mitigate the impacts of passenger pick-up/drop-off activity on traffic, the city proposed a strategy of increasing passenger loading zone (PLZ) spaces while Uber and Lyft implemented a geofence, which directs their drivers and passengers to designated pick-up and drop-off locations on a block. (Normally, drivers pick up or drop off passengers at any address a rider requests via the ride-hailing app.)

By providing ample designated pick-up and drop-off spots along the curb, the thinking goes, TNC drivers would reduce the frequency with which they stop in the travel lane to pick up or drop off passengers and the time they stay stopped there. By these measures, this study’s findings show the approach was successful. But it is important to note that the strategy is not a silver bullet for solving traffic congestion—nor is it designed as such. It is also important to note that any initiative to manage use of curbs and roads (by TNCs or others) is part of a city’s broader transportation policy framework and goals.

For this study, researchers analyzed an array of data on street and curb activity along three block-faces on Boren Ave N in December 2018 and January 2019. At a minimum, data were collected during the morning and afternoon peak travel times (with some collected 24 hours a day). The research team collected data using video and sensor technology as well as in-person observation. Researchers also surveyed TNC passengers for demographic, trip-related and satisfaction data. The five Amazon buildings in the area studied house roughly 8,650 employees. Researchers collected data in three stages. Phase 1, the study baseline, was before PLZs were added and geofencing started. Phase 2 was after the new PLZs were added, expanding total PLZ curb length from 20 feet (easily filled by one to two vehicles) to 274 feet. Phase 3 was after geofencing was added to the expanded PLZs. The added PLZ spaces were open to any passenger vehicle—not just TNC vehicles—weekdays from 7am to 10am and 2pm to 7pm. (Permitted food trucks were authorized from 10am to 2pm.)

Note that while other cities can learn from this analysis, the findings apply to streets with comparable traffic speed, mix of roadway users, and street design.

The study’s main findings include:

A significant percentage of vehicles performing a pick-up/drop-off stop in the travel lane. Those in-lane stops appear connected to the lack of available designated curb space: Adding PLZs and geofencing increased driver compliance in stopping at the curb versus stopping in the travel lane to load and unload passengers. But it was not lack of curb space alone that influenced driver activity: Between 7 percent and 10 percent of drivers still stopped in the travel lane even when PLZs were empty. After adding PLZs and geofencing, in-lane stops fell from 20 percent to 14 percent for pick-ups and from 16 percent to 15 percent for drop-offs.
Adding PLZs and geofencing reduced the average amount of time drivers stopped to load and unload passengers. For example, 90 percent of drop-offs took less than 1 minute 12 seconds, 42 seconds faster than the average with the added PLZs alone.
While curb occupancy increased after adding PLZs and geofencing, occupancy results show the current allocation of PLZ spaces is more than what is needed to meet observed demand: Average PLZ occupancy remained under 20 percent after PLZ expansion, even during peak commute hours.
Vehicles picking-up/dropping-off passengers account for a significant share of total traffic volume in the study area: during peak hours the observed average percentage of vehicles performing a pick-up/drop-off with respect to the total traffic volume was 29 percent (in Phase 1), 32 percent (in Phase 2) and 39 percent (in Phase 3).
High volumes of pedestrians (400-500 per hour on average) cross the street at points where there was no crosswalk. Passengers picked-up/dropped-off constituted a fraction (five to seven percent) of those pedestrians, but high rates of passengers (30 to 40 percent) cross the street at non-crosswalk locations.
Adding PLZs and geofencing did not have a significant impact on traffic safety. Researchers found no significant change in the number of observed conflicts from baseline to the addition of PLZs and geofencing. Conflicts are situations where a vehicle, bike, or pedestrian is interrupted, forced to alter their path, or engaged in a near-miss situation. Conflicts include vehicles passing in the oncoming traffic lane. • Adding PLZs and geofencing also did not produce a significant impact on roadway travel speed.
Of the 116 TNC passengers surveyed in the study area:
- Roughly 40 percent to 50 percent said their trip was work related. More than half said they used ride-hailing service at least once a week and 70 percent or more used TNC alone (versus in combination with other transportation options) to get from their origin to their destination.
- Most responded positively to the added PLZs and geofence: 79 percent rated their pick-up satisfactory and 100 percent rated their drop-off satisfactory as compared to 72 percent and 89 percent in the baseline.
- Nearly half said they would have taken transit and one-third would have walked if ride-hailing was not available.
- 40 percent requested a shared TNC vehicle in Phase 1 and 47 percent in Phase 3.

The study suggests that while vehicles picking-up/dropping-off passengers account for a significant share of traffic volume in SLU, they are not the primary cause of congestion. Myriad factors impact neighborhood congestion, including high vehicle volume overall and bottlenecks moving out of the neighborhood onto regional arterials. As researchers observed in the afternoon peak, these bottlenecks cause spillbacks onto local streets. Amazon garages exit vehicles onto streets that then feed into these clogged arterials.

Regarding traffic safety in SLU, this study was not designed to assess whether TNC driver behavior on average is safer or less safe than that of other vehicles. It is important to understand the safety and speed findings in the context of the SLU traffic environment. Drivers tend to drive at relatively slow speeds, navigating around high pedestrian and jaywalking volumes, and seem relatively comfortable stopping in the middle of the street for short periods of time. Due to the nature of area traffic, this seems to have relatively little impact on other drivers. Drivers appear to anticipate both this behavior and the high volumes of vehicles moving onto/off the curb and into/out of driveways and alleys.

Whether the strategy this study analyzed is recommended depends on a city’s transportation goals and approach. The researchers found the increased PLZ allocation and geofencing strategy worked in that it improved driver compliance, reduced dwell times, and boosted TNC user satisfaction. However, this may encourage commuters to use TNC. The passenger survey clearly shows that TNC service is attracting passengers who would have otherwise walked or used transit. While in the short term the increased PLZs and geofencing had a positive effect on traffic, if this induces TNC demand, there could be larger, more negative long-term consequences. If the end goal is to reduce traffic congestion, measures to reduce—rather than encourage—TNC and passenger car use as the predominant mode of commuting will yield the most substantial benefits.

In the news:

Geekwire: As Uber and Lyft pick-ups and drop-offs clog traffic, new study calls load zones a move in right direction

The Seattle Times: Seattle Uber and Lyft drivers often stop in the street to pick up or drop off riders. Here’s a way to reduce that.

Authors: Dr. Anne GoodchildJosé Luis Machado LeónDr. Giacomo Dalla ChiaraDr. Andisheh Ranjbari, Don MacKenzie

Recommended Citation:
Goodchild, Anne. Giacomo dalla Chiara. Jose Luis Machado. Andisheh Ranjbari. (2019) Curb Allocation Change Project.

Report

Seattle Center City: Alley Infrastructure Inventory and Occupancy Study

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Publication Date: 2018

Summary:

The Supply Chain and Transportation Logistics (SCTL) Center conducted an alley inventory and truck load/unload occupancy study for the City of Seattle. Researchers collected data identifying the locations and infrastructure characteristics of alleys within Seattle’s One Center City planning area, which includes the downtown, uptown, South Lake Union, Capitol Hill, and First Hill urban centers. The resulting alley database includes GIS coordinates for both ends of each alley, geometric and traffic attributes, and photos. Researchers also observed all truck load/unload activity in selected alleys to determine minutes vacant and minutes occupied by trucks, vans, passenger vehicles, and cargo bikes. The researchers then developed alley management recommendations to promote safe, sustainable, and efficient goods delivery and pick-up.

Key Findings:

The first key finding of this study is that more than 90% of Center City alleys are only one lane wide. This surprising fact creates an upper limit on alley parking capacity, as each alley can functionally hold only one or two vehicles at a time. Because there is no room to pass by, when a truck, van, or car parks it blocks all other vehicles from using the alley. When commercial vehicle drivers see that an alley is blocked they will not enter it, as their only way out would be to back up into street traffic. Seattle Municipal Code prohibits this, as well as backing up into an alley, for safety reasons.

When informed by the second key finding—68% of vehicles in the alley occupancy study parked there for 15 minutes or less—it is clear that moving vehicles through alleys in short time increments is the only reasonable path to increase productivity. As one parked vehicle operationally blocks the entire alley, the goal of new alley policies and strategies should be to reduce the amount of time alleys are blocked to additional users.

The study surfaces four additional key findings:

87% of all vehicles in the 7 alleys studied parked for 30 minutes or less. Given the imperative to move alley traffic quickly, vehicles that need more parking time must be moved out of the alleys and onto the curb where they don’t block others.
15% of alleys’ pavement condition is so poor that delivery workers can’t pass through with loaded hand carts. Although trucks can drive over fairly uneven pavement without difficulty, it is not the case for delivery people walking with fully loaded handcarts. The alley pavement rating was done with a qualitative visual inspection to identify obvious problems; more detailed measurements would be needed to fully assess conditions.
73% of Center City area alleys contain entrances to passenger parking facilities. Placing garage entrances in alleys has been a city policy goal for years. But it increases the frequency of cars in alleys and adds demands on alley use. Understanding why cars are queuing for passenger garages located off alleys, and providing incentives and disincentives to reduce that, would help make alleys more productive.
Alleys are vacant about half of the time during the business day. While at first blush this suggests ample capacity, the fact that an alley can only hold one-to-two parked trucks at a time means alleys are limited operationally and therefore are not a viable alternative to replace the use of curb CVLZs on city streets.

These findings indicate that, due to the fixed alley width constraint, load/unload space inside Seattle’s existing Center City area alleys is insufficient to meet additional future demand.

Authors: Urban Freight Lab

Recommended Citation:
Urban Freight Lab (2018). Seattle Center City: Alley Infrastructure Inventory and Occupancy Study.

Report

The Final 50 Feet of the Urban Goods Delivery System: Common Carrier Locker Pilot Test at the Seattle Municipal Tower

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Publication Date: 2018

Summary:

This report provides compelling evidence of the effectiveness of a new urban goods delivery system strategy: Common Carrier Locker Systems that create parcel delivery density and provide secure delivery locations in public spaces.

Common carrier locker systems are an innovative strategy because they may be used by any retailer, carrier, and goods purchaser, and placed on public property. This contrasts with branded lockers such as those operated by Amazon, UPS, and FedEx that are limited to one retailer’s or one carrier’s use. Common carrier lockers use existing smart locker technology to provide security and convenience to users.

The Common Carrier Locker System Pilot Test in the Seattle Municipal Tower was uniquely designed for multiple retailers’ and delivery firms’ use in a public space. In spring 2018, a common carrier locker system was placed in the 62-floor Seattle Municipal Tower for ten days as part of a joint research project of the Urban Freight Lab (UFL) at the University of Washington’s Supply Chain Transportation & Logistics Center and the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT), with additional funding from the Pacific Northwest Transportation Consortium (PacTrans).

This report demonstrates common carrier lockers’ potential to reach both public and private goals by reducing dwell time (the time a truck is parked in a load/unload space in the city) and the number of failed first delivery attempts to dense urban areas. This research provides evidence that delivering multiple packages to a single location such as a locker, rather than delivering packages one-by-one to individual tenants in an urban tower increases the productivity of public and private truck load/unload spaces.

The concept for this empirical pilot test draws on prior UFL-conducted research on the Final 50 Feet of the urban goods delivery system. The Final 50 Feet is the term for the last segment of the supply chain. It begins when a truck parks in a load/unload space, continues as drivers maneuver goods along sidewalks and into urban towers to make the final delivery, and ends where the customer takes receipt of the goods.

The UFL’s 2017 research documented that of the 20 total minutes delivery drivers spent on average in the Seattle Municipal Tower, 12.2 of those minutes were spent going floor-to-floor in freight elevators and door-to-door to tenants on multiple floors. The UFL recognized that cutting those two steps from the delivery process could slash delivery time in the Tower by more than half—which translates into a substantial reduction in truck dwell time.

Authors: Haena KimDr. Ed McCormackDr. Anne GoodchildBarbara Ivanov

Recommended Citation:
Urban Freight Lab (2018). The Final 50 Feet of the Urban Goods Delivery System: Common Carrier Locker Pilot Test at the Seattle Municipal Tower.

Report

Travel Costs Associated with Flood Closures of State Highways near Centralia/Chehalis, Washington

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URL: http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/research/reports/fullreports/832.1.pdf

Publication: The State of Washington Department of Transportation

Publication Date: 2014

Summary:

This report discusses the travel costs associated with the closure of roads in the greater Centralia/Chehalis, Washington region due to 100-year flood conditions starting on the Chehalis River. The costs were computed for roadway closures on I-5, US 12, and SR 6, and are based on estimated road closure durations supplied by WSDOT. The computed costs are only those directly related to travel that would otherwise have occurred on the roads affected by the flooding closures. The computed costs do not include the economic losses associated with delayed delivery of goods or services, losses in economic activity attributable to travelers being unable to reach their intended destinations, or economic losses associated with the loss of goods because they could not be delivered. The reported costs do include the added costs of time and vehicle mileage associated with available detour routes. Costs were also estimated for each trip that will be abandoned. That is, this study estimated the number of trips that will not be made as a result of road closures. The researchers also conducted a sensitivity analysis of the findings for the I-5 cost computation. Sensitivity tests were conducted for the value of time, the speeds and level of congestion assumed to occur on the routes used for detours, the values associated with trips that are not made via the expected detours, the percentage of personal trips made for work/business purposes versus those being made for personal reasons, the fraction of cars and trucks willing to detour, the effects of flood closure during the weekend or the summer, and growth in traffic volumes on I-5.

Authors: Dr. Anne Goodchild, Mark Hallenbeck, Jerome Drescher

Recommended Citation:
Hallenbeck, Mark E., Anne Goodchild, and Jerome Drescher. Travel costs associated with flood closures of state highways near Centralia/Chehalis, Washington. No. WA-RD 832.1. Washington (State). Dept. of Transportation. Research Office, 2014.

Report

Evaluation of Sound Transit Train Stations and Transit-Oriented Development Areas for Common Carrier Locker Systems (Final Report)

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Publication Date: 2018

Summary:

The rapid expansion of ecommerce has flooded American cities with delivery trucks, just as those cities are experiencing booming population growth. Retailers need a more efficient, reliable, and cost-effective way to deliver goods in increasingly crowded urban environments. For their part, cities like Seattle want to minimize traffic congestion, both sustain quality of life for residents and ensure a smooth flow of goods and services.

Common carrier parcel lockers hold tremendous potential for streamlining the urban goods delivery system and addressing these challenges. This research study explores the viability of providing public right of way for common carrier lockers at or near transit stations in Seattle, a ground-breaking step toward improving freight delivery in the city’s fast-growing urban core.

Authors: Urban Freight Lab

Recommended Citation:
Supply Chain Transportation & Logistics Center. (2018) Evaluation of Sound Transit Train Stations and Transit Oriented Development Areas for Common Carrier Locker Systems.

Report

The Final 50 Feet of the Urban Goods Delivery System (Executive Summary)

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Publication Date: 2018

Summary:

Urban Freight Lab’s foundational report is the first assessment in any American city of the privately-owned and operated elements of the Final 50 Feet of goods delivery supply chains (the end of the supply chain, where delivery drivers must locate both parking and end customers). These include curb parking spaces, private truck freight bays and loading docks, street design, traffic control, and delivery policies and operations within buildings.

Two key goals have been identified early for the Final 50 Feet program:

Reducing truck time in a load/unload space in the city (“dwell time”)
Minimizing failed first package deliveries. About 8-10% of first delivery attempts in urban areas are unsuccessful, creating more return trips

Authors: Urban Freight Lab

Recommended Citation:
Supply Chain Transportation & Logistics Center. (2018) The Final 50 Feet of the Urban Goods Delivery System: Executive Summary.

Report

Analysis of Online Shopping and Shopping Travel Behaviors in West Seattle

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Publication Date: 2023

Summary:

The purpose of this research is to explore consumers’ online shopping and in-person shopping travel behaviors and the factors affecting these behaviors within the geographical context of the study area of West Seattle.

West Seattle is a peninsula located southwest of downtown Seattle, Washington State. In March 2020, the West Seattle High Bridge, the main bridge connecting the peninsula to the rest of the city, was closed to traffic due to its increased rate of structural deterioration. The closure resulted in most of the traffic being re-distributed across other bridges, forcing many travelers to re-route their trips in and out of the peninsula. At about the same time, the COVID-19 pandemic caused business-shuttering lockdowns. Both events fundamentally changed the nature of shopping and the urban logistics system of the study area.

The Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) engaged the Urban Freight Lab (UFL) at the University of Washington to conduct research to understand current freight movements and goods demands in West Seattle and identify challenges related to the bridge closure to inform data-driven mitigation strategies. The study took place in two phases: the first phase documented the challenges experienced by local businesses and carriers through a series of interviews and quantified the freight trip generated by land use in the case study area1 ; the second phase, described in the current report, performed an online survey to understand online shopping and in-person shopping travel behaviors for West Seattle residents.

The main objectives of the current study are twofold:

Describe online shopping and shopping travel consumer behaviors for West Seattle residents.
Understand what factors influence consumer shopping behaviors, from accessibility to local stores, to the characteristics of goods purchased, to socio-economic factors.

Methods

To address these objectives, the research team designed an online questionnaire that was advertised through a West Seattle Bridge Closure-related SDOT newsletter and other local online media outlets during the spring and summer of 2022. The questionnaire asked respondents about their socioeconomic conditions (age, income, education, etc.), where they live and their access to transportation (vehicle ownership and types of vehicles), their online shopping behavior, the impact of the West Seattle High Bridge closure on their shopping habits, and about their most recent purchase for a given category of goods among clothing items, groceries, restaurant food, and household supplies. The questionnaire was collected anonymously, and no personally identifiable information was collected. A total of 1,262 responses were collected, and after data processing, the final sample data consisted of 919 responses, corresponding approximately to 1 percent of the study area population.

Comparing the socioeconomic characteristics of the sample with those of the West Seattle study population it should be noted that individuals identifying themselves as white and female and of older age were oversampled, while individuals with lower than a college degree and with annual income less than $50,000 were under-sampled. Therefore, the sample in general is more representative of a more affluent, older population.

Key Findings

The key findings are summarized as follows:

Online shopping is widespread for clothing items and restaurant food.

Respondents receive on average 5 deliveries per week, across all goods categories. 38.7 percent of the respondents reported performing their most recent shopping activity online, considering all goods categories. However, the frequency of online shopping varied across different goods categories. Most of the respondents that purchased groceries or household supplies reported having shopped in person (89 and 75 percent of the respondents respectively), while, in contrast, for those that purchased restaurant food and clothing items, two-thirds of respondents reported buying online in both categories. Online shopping is widespread in the clothing and restaurant food markets, but less in grocery and household supplies markets. Of the consumers that shopped online for restaurant food, 76 percent of them decided to travel to take out (also referred to as curbside pickup), and only 24 percent of them chose to have the meal delivered directly to their home.

Online shopping is more widespread among mobility-impaired individuals

Participants were asked whether they had a disability that limited physical activities such as carrying, walking, lifting, etc. Of the 918 participants, 98 (11%) responded that they did have a disability that fit this description. The share of respondents that shop online was higher among mobility-impaired individuals (30 percent online for delivery and 19 percent online for pick-up) compared to individuals that did not report any mobility impairment (23 percent online for delivery and 12 percent online for pick-up).

Driving is the predominant shopping travel mode

Of the sample of respondents, 96 percent reported having access to a motorized vehicle within their household. Driving is also the most common shopping mode of in-person travel, with 81.3 percent of respondents reporting that they drove to a store to shop. Walking is a distant second preferred shopping travel mode, with 13.1 percent of respondents reporting having walked to a store. Biking and public transit were rarely adopted as a shopping travel mode, together they were observed 5.6 percent of the time. Though included as a travel option, only 1 participant reported using a rideshare vehicle to shop.

Electrification in West Seattle

Of the respondents that have access to a motorized vehicle in their households, 9.8 percent of them reported owning an electric vehicle. Car ownership is much more widespread than bike ownership, with 51.6 percent of the respondents reporting having access to a bike. Among these, 15.5 percent of them said that at least one of their bikes is electric.

The 10-minute city

The average walking time across all types of goods purchased was 10 minutes. The average driving time, for those respondents that reported driving to a store, was also about 10 minutes, except for those who reported purchasing clothing items, which reported on average of 27-minute trip time (both using a private car or using public transit). The longest travel times are seen mostly for respondents that took public transit as a shopping travel mode.

Living in proximity to stores reduces driving and online deliveries

A higher number of stores within a 10-minute walking distance (0.5 miles) is correlated with a higher number of consumers choosing to walk to a store, compared to those that chose to drive to a store or that shopped online. This is true across all goods types, but it is more significantly seen in grocery shopping. Moreover, accessibility to commercial establishments at a walking distance has a stronger impact on reducing the likelihood of driving, and at a lesser magnitude, reduces the propensity of shopping online.

Delivery to the doorstep is the most common destination for online deliveries

For those that chose to buy online, the most common delivery destination was at the respondents’ home doorstep (84 percent of respondents reported receiving online deliveries at home). The second most frequently used delivery destination was parcel lockers (15 percent of respondents), with 12 percent of respondents making use of private lockers, while only 3 percent made use of public lockers. The remaining one percent received deliveries at other destinations (e.g. office or nearby store).

The West Seattle High Bridge closure incentivized local shopping

When asked about the impacts of the West Seattle Bridge closure on individual online and shopping travel behaviors, more respondents reported buying more locally and online, vs. traveling farther for shopping and buying in person.

Authors: Dr. Anne GoodchildDr. Giacomo Dalla ChiaraRishi VermaKelly Rula

Recommended Citation:
Goodchild, A., Dalla Chiara, G., Verma, R., Rula, K. (2023) Analysis of Online Shopping and Shopping Travel Behaviors in West Seattle, Urban Freight Lab.

Report

Supporting Comprehensive Urban Freight Planning by Mapping Private Load and Unload Facilities

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Publication Date: 2023

Summary:

Freight load and unload facilities located off the public right-of-way are typically not documented in publicly available databases. Without detailed knowledge of these facilities, i.e. private freight load and unload infrastructure, cities are limited in their ability to complete system-wide freight planning and to comprehensively evaluate the total supply of load and unload spaces in the city. To address this challenge, this research describes the development and application of a data collection methodology and a typology of private freight load/unload facilities for their inventory and documentation in dense urban centers.

The tools developed in this research are practice-ready and can be implemented in other cities to support research, policy and planning approaches that aim to improve the urban freight system. Assessment of the degree of harmonization between the current delivery vehicle dimensions and infrastructure they service is a crucial step of any policy that addresses private freight load/unload infrastructures. This includes providing: the adequate access dimensions, capacity to accommodate the volume and vehicle type, and an effective connecting design between the facilities and the public right-of-way.

A case study in Downtown Seattle found more than 337 private freight facilities for loading/unloading of goods but that translates into only 5% of the buildings in the densest areas of the city had these facilities. Alleys were found to play a critical role since 36% of this freight infrastructure was accessed through alleys.

This research results in the first urban inventory of private freight load/unload infrastructure, which has been shown to be a valuable resource for the City of Seattle that can be used to better understand and plan for the urban freight system.

Authors: José Luis Machado LeónGabriela Girón-ValderramaDr. Anne GoodchildDr. Ed McCormack

Recommended Citation:
Machado León, J., Girón-Valderrama, G., Goodchild, A., & McCormack, E. Supporting Comprehensive Urban Freight Planning by Mapping Private Load and Unload Facilities (2023).

Report

Final Report: Technology Integration to Gain Commercial Efficiency for the Urban Goods Delivery System, Meet Future Demand for City Passenger and Delivery Load/Unload Spaces, and Reduce Energy Consumption

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Publication Date: 2022

Summary:

This three-year project supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Vehicle Technologies Office has the potential to radically improve the urban freight system in ways that help both the public and private sectors. Working from 2018-2021, project researchers at the University of Washington’s Urban Freight Lab and collaborators at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have produced key data, tested technologies in complex urban settings, developed a prototype parking availability app, and helped close major knowledge gaps.

All the fruits of this project can be harnessed to help cities better understand, support and actively manage truck load/unload operations and their urban freight transport infrastructure. Project learnings and tools can be used to help make goods delivery firms more efficient by reducing miles traveled and the time it takes to complete deliveries, benefitting businesses and residents who rely on the urban freight system for supplies of goods. And, ultimately, these project learnings and tools can be used to make cities more livable by minimizing wasted travel, which, in turn, contributes to reductions in fuel consumption and emissions.

Cities today are challenged to effectively and efficiently manage their infrastructure to absorb the impacts of ever-increasing e-commerce-fueled delivery demand. All delivery trucks need to park somewhere to unload and load. Yet today’s delivery drivers have no visibility on available parking until they arrive at a site, which may be full. That means they can wind up cruising for parking, which wastes time and fuel and contributes to congestion. Once drivers do find parking, the faster they can unload at the spot, the faster they free up space for other drivers, helping others avoid circling for parking. This makes the parking space—and thus the greater load/unload network—more productive.

To this end, the research team successfully met the project’s three goals, developing and piloting strategies and technologies to:

Reduce parking-seeking behavior in the study area by 20%
Reduce parcel truck dwell time (the time a truck spends in a spot to load/unload) in the study area by 30%
Increase curb space, alley space, and private loading bay occupancy rates in the study area

The research team met these goals by creating and piloting on Seattle streets OpenPark, a first-of-its-kind real-time and forecasting curb parking app customized for commercial delivery drivers—giving drivers the “missing link” in their commonly used routing tools that tell them how best to get to delivery locations, but not what parking is available to use when they get there. Installing in-ground sensors on commercial vehicle load zones (CVLZs) and passenger load zones (PLZs) in the 10-block study area in Seattle’s downtown neighborhood of Belltown let researchers glean real-time curb parking data. The research team also met project goals by piloting three parcel lockers in public and private spaces open to any delivery carrier, creating a consolidated delivery hub that lets drivers complete deliveries faster and spend less time parked. Researchers collected and analyzed data to produce the first empirical, robust, statistically significant results as to the impact of the lockers, and app, on on-the-ground operations. In addition to collecting and analyzing sensor and other real-time and historical data, researchers rode along with delivery drivers to confirm real-world routing and parking behavior. Researchers also surveyed building managers on their private loading bay operations to understand how to boost usage.

Key findings that provide needed context for piloting promising urban delivery solutions:

After developing a novel model using GPS data to measure parking-seeking behavior, researchers were able to quantify that, on average, a delivery driver spends 28% of travel time searching for parking, totaling on average one hour per day for a parcel delivery driver. This project offers the first empirical proof of delivery drivers’ cruising for parking.
While many working models to date have assumed that urban delivery drivers always choose to double-park (unauthorized parking in the travel lane), this study found that behavior is rare: Double parking happened less than 5% of the times drivers parked.
That said, drivers do not always park where they are supposed to. The research team found that CVLZ parking took place approximately 50% of the time. The remaining 50% included mostly parking in “unauthorized” curb spaces, including no-parking zones, bus zones, entrances/exits of parking garages, etc.
Researcher ride-alongs with delivery drivers revealed parking behaviors other than unauthorized parking that waste valuable time and fuel: re-routing (after failing to find a desired space, giving up and doubling back to the delivery destination later in the day) and queuing (temporarily parking in an alternate location and waiting until the desired space becomes available).
Some 13% of all parking events in CVLZ spaces were estimated as overstays; the figure was 80% of all parking events in PLZ spaces. So, the curb is not being used efficiently or as the city intended as many parking events exceed the posted time limit.
Meantime, there is unused off-street capacity that could be tapped in Seattle’s Central Business District. Estimates show private loading bays could increase area parking capacity for commercial vehicles by at least 50%. But surveys show reported use of loading bays is low and property managers have little incentive to maximize it. Property managers find curb loading zones more convenient; it seems delivery drivers do, too, as they choose to park at the curb even when loading bay space is available.

Key findings from the technology and strategies employed:

Carriers give commercial drivers routing tools that optimize delivery routes by considering travel distance and (often) traffic patterns—but not details on parking availability. Limited parking availability can lead to significant driver delays through cruising for parking or rerouting, and today’s drivers are largely left on their own to assess and manage their parking situation as they pull up to deliver.

The project team worked closely with the City of Seattle to obtain permission to install parking sensors in the roadway and communications equipment to relay sensor data to project servers. The team also developed a fully functional and open application that offers both real-time parking availability and near-time prediction of parking availability, letting drivers pick forecasts 5, 15, or 30 minutes into the future depending on when the driver expects to arrive at the delivery destination. Drivers can also enter their vehicle length to customize availability information.

After developing, modeling, and piloting the real-time and forecasting parking app, researchers conducted an experiment to determine how use of the app impacted driver behavior and transportation outcomes. They found that:

Having access to parking availability via the app resulted in a 28% decrease in the time drivers spent cruising for parking. Exceeding our initial goal of reducing parking seeking behavior by 20%. In the study experiment, all drivers had the same 20-foot delivery van and the same number of randomly sampled delivery addresses in the study area. But some drivers had access to the app; others did not.
Preliminary results based on historic routing data show that the use of such a real-time curb parking information and prediction app can reduce route time by approximately 1.5%. An analysis collected historic parking occupancy and cruising information and integrated it into a model that was then used to revise scheduling and routing. This model optimally routed vehicles to minimize total driving and cruising time. However, since the urban environment is complex and consists of many random elements, results based on historic data underly a high amount of randomness. Analysis on synthetic routes suggests including parking availability in routing systems is especially promising for routes with high delivery density and with stops where the cruising time delays vary a lot along the planned time horizon; here, route time savings can reach approximately 20.4% — conditions outlined in the report.
The central tradeoff among four approaches to parking app architecture going forward is cost and accuracy. The research team found that it is possible to train machine learning models using only data from curb occupancy sensors and reach a higher than 90% accuracy. Training of state-space models (those using inputs such as time of day, day of the week, and location to predict future parking availability) is computationally inexpensive, but these models offer limited accuracy. In contrast, deep-learning models are highly accurate but computationally expensive and difficult to use on streaming data.

Common carrier lockers create delivery density, helping delivery people complete their work faster. The driver parks next to the locker system, loads packages into it, and returns to the truck. When delivery people spend less time going door-to-door (or floor-to-floor inside a building), it cuts the time their truck needs to be parked, increasing turnover and adding parking capacity in crowded cities. This project piloted and collected data on common carrier lockers in three study area buildings.

From piloting the common carrier parcel lockers, researchers found that:

The implementation of the parcel locker allowed delivery drivers to increase productivity: 40%-60% reduction in time spent in the building and 33% reduction in vehicle dwell time at the curb.

Authors: Dr. Anne GoodchildDr. Giacomo Dalla ChiaraFiete KruteinDr. Andisheh RanjbariDr. Ed McCormackElizabeth Guzy, Dr. Vinay Amatya (PNNL), Ms. Amelia Bleeker (PNNL), Dr. Milan Jain (PNNL)

Recommended Citation:
Urban Freight Lab (2022). Final Report: Technology Integration to Gain Commercial Efficiency for the Urban Goods Delivery System.