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Urban Freight Lab

Research Keyword: Last-mile (final mile) delivery

Last-mile (or final-mile) delivery refers to the transportation of a shipment from the fulfillment center to its final customer.

Student Thesis and Dissertations

Preparing Cities for Package Demand Growth: Predicting Neighborhood Demand and Implementing Truck VMT Reduction Strategies

URL: https://digital.lib.washington.edu/researchworks/handle/1773/41755
Publication Date: 2018
Summary:

E-commerce has empowered consumers to order goods online from anywhere in the world with just a couple of clicks. This new trend has led to significant growth in the number of package deliveries related to online shopping. Seattle’s freight infrastructure is challenged to accommodate this freight growth. Commercial vehicles can already be seen double parked or parked illegally on the city’s streets impacting traffic flow and inconveniencing other road users. It is vital to understand how the package demand is growing in the neighborhoods and what freight trips reduction strategies can cities implement to mitigate the freight growth. The purpose of the research is to analyze Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) reduction strategies in the neighborhoods with different built environment characteristics. First, the impact of individual factors on person’s decision to order goods online for home delivery is analyzed. A predictive model was built that estimates online order probability based on these factors. This model is then applied to synthetic Seattle population to produce estimated demand levels in each neighborhood. Second, two VMT reduction strategies were modeled and analyzed: 1) decreasing number of trucks needed to deliver neighborhoods’ package demand and 2) package locker implementation. Based on packages demand and built environment characteristics, two neighborhoods were chosen for a case study. ArcGIS toolbox was developed to generate delivery stops on the route, ArcGIS Network Analyst was used to make a delivery route and calculate VMT. It was found that VMT reduction strategies have different effects on the delivery system in two neighborhoods. Delivering neighborhoods’ demand in a smaller number of trucks would save slightly more VMT in a dense urban area compared to suburban one. Moreover, since the traffic perception by different road users varies by neighborhood, VMT reduction strategies will be more critical to implement in dense urban areas. Locker implementation strategy will also be more effective in VMT reduction in a dense urban area due to high residential density.

Authors: Polina Butrina
Recommended Citation:
Butrina, Polina (2018). Preparing Cities for Package Demand Growth: Predicting Neighborhood Demand and Implementing Truck VMT Reduction Strategies. University of Washington Master's Degree Thesis.
Thesis: Array

Roadblocks to Sustainable Urban Freight

While freight transportation is a necessary activity to sustain cities’ social and economic life, enabling the movement and deployment of goods and services in and between urbanized areas, it also accounts for a significant portion of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and therefore it is a major contributor to climate change. Guaranteeing an efficient and sustainable urban freight transport ecosystem is necessary for cities to survive and tackle the climate emergency.
Several stakeholders in the private and public sectors are currently taking action and drafting roadmaps to achieve such goals. However, as the urban freight ecosystem is a complex network of stakeholders, achieving such sustainability goals requires collaboration and coordination between multiple agents.
The project will collect and synthesize expert views from both the private and public sectors on what is needed to sustainably deliver the last mile and aims at identifying the roadblocks towards this goal. All types of goods and services will be considered, with the end goal of raising the entire industry’s understanding of the barriers to achieving sustainable urban freight.

Approach

Task 1: Research Scan (September-November 2020) Subtasks:

  1. identify an accepted and shared definition of sustainable urban freight;
  2. identify and classify the main agents of the urban freight system from both the private and public sectors and their main role in the last-mile ecosystem;
  3. identify and classify the main accepted strategies currently adopted towards sustainability.
The research team will also define the boundaries of the study, including the geographical region of concentration.

Task 2: Private sector expert interviews (December 2020-April 2021)

The main private sector agents identified in Task 1 will include vehicle manufacturers, retailers, carriers and more. The research team will identify and reach out to representatives of at least 15 companies. Participants will be interviewed using an open question format and will have an optional follow-up online survey. The objectives of the interviews and surveys are:
  1. listing the current strategies adopted to reach sustainable urban freight;
  2. understanding what the impacts are of other private and public sectors agents’ decisions on their sustainability strategies;
  3. identifying agents’ needs and obstacles to achieve their stated sustainable goals.

Task 3: Public sector expert interviews (December 2020-April 2021)

The research team will identify different urban typologies, classifying cities into homogeneous groups according to economic, demographic, urban form, mobility and sustainability indicators. The typologies will be used to sample cities from each identified urban typology.
The team will then reach out to representatives from the public sector agents from the sampled cities, including regulators, planners and public utility representatives, and perform a combination of online survey and online/phone interviews. At least 15 representatives from public sector agents will be contacted. The objectives of the interviews are:
  1. listing the current policies adopted by cities towards sustainable urban freight, including infrastructure investments and transport demand management;
  2. understanding what the obstacles are to achieve sustainability goals.

Task 4: Synthesizing research and identifying roadblocks (May-June 2021)

Synthesizing the work of the previous 3 tasks, and applying the research team’s own expertise, this task will identify the key obstacles to sustainable urban freight. Through a review of existing writings, discussions with experts, and their own domain expertise, the research team will identify the obstacles in the areas of transportation technology, infrastructure, and policy. This review will consider the obstacles in public sector, barriers to private business decision making, and where the two sectors need to take a collaborative approach. The results obtained in the study will be made available publicly as a white paper or submitted for scientific journal publication.
Presentation

Growth of Ecommerce and Ride-Hailing Services is Reshaping Cities: The Urban Freight Lab’s Innovative Solutions

 
Download Slides PDF  (3.69 MB)
URL: https://catc.ca.gov/-/media/ctc-media/documents/tab-10-3-a11y.pdf
Publication: California Transportation Commission (August 15, 2018)
Publication Date: 2018
Summary:

A 20% e-commerce compound annual growth rate (CAGR) would more than double goods deliveries in 5 years. If nothing changes, this could double delivery trips in cities; thereby doubling the demand for load/unload spaces.

Innovation is needed to manage scarce curbs, alleys, and private loading bay space in the new world of on-demand transportation, 1-hour e-commerce deliveries, and coming autonomous vehicle technologies.

The Urban Freight Lab at the University of Washington (UW), in partnership with the City of Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT), is using a systems engineering approach to solve delivery problems that overlap cities’ and businesses’ spheres of control.

The Urban Freight Lab is a living laboratory where potential solutions are generated, evaluated, and pilot-tested inside urban towers and on city streets.

Authors: Dr. Anne Goodchild
Recommended Citation:
Goodchild, Anne. Growth of Ecommerce and Ride-Hailing Services is Reshaping Cities: The Urban Freight Lab’s Innovative Solutions. California Transportation Commission (August 15, 2018)
Presentation

Growth of Ecommerce and Ride-Hailing Services is Reshaping Cities Connecting State and City DOTs, and Transit Agencies for Innovative Solutions

 
Download Slides PDF  (5.26 MB)
URL: https://policy.transportation.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/09/Growth-of-E-Commerce-and-Ride-Hailing-Services-Urban-Freight-Lab.pdf
Publication: AASHTO 2018 Joint Policy Conference: Connecting the DOTs
Volume: 19-Jul-18
Publication Date: 2018
Summary:

There is not enough curb capacity, now.

A recent curb parking utilization study in the City of Seattle indicated 90% or higher occupancy rates in Commercial Vehicle Load Zones (CVLZs) for some areas for much of the workday.

The Final Fifty Feet is a new research field.

The Final 50 Feet project is the first time that researchers have analyzed both the street network and cities’ vertical space as one unified goods delivery system. It focuses on:

  • The use of scarce curb, buildings’ internal loading bays, and alley space
  • How delivery people move with handcarts through intersections and sidewalks; and
  • On the delivery processes inside urban towers.
Authors: Barbara Ivanov
Paper

Do Parcel Lockers Reduce Delivery Times? Evidence from the Field

 
Download PDF  (1.61 MB)
URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tre.2023.103070
Publication: Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review
Volume: 172 (2023)
Publication Date: 2023
Summary:

Common carrier parcel lockers have emerged as a secure, automated, self-service means of delivery consolidation in congested urban areas, which are believed to mitigate last-mile delivery challenges by reducing out-of-vehicle delivery times and consequently vehicle dwell times at the curb. However, little research exists to empirically demonstrate the environmental and efficiency gains from this technology. In this study, we designed a nonequivalent group pre-test/post-test control experiment to estimate the causal effects of a parcel locker on delivery times in a residential building in downtown Seattle. The causal effects are measured in terms of vehicle dwell time and the time delivery couriers spend inside the building, through the difference-in-difference method and using a similar nearby residential building as a control. The results showed a statistically significant decrease in time spent inside the building and a small yet insignificant reduction in delivery vehicle dwell time at the curb. The locker was also well received by the building managers and residents.

Authors: Dr. Andisheh RanjbariCaleb DiehlDr. Giacomo Dalla ChiaraDr. Anne Goodchild
Recommended Citation:
Ranjbari, A., Diehl, C., Dalla Chiara, G., & Goodchild, A. (2023). Do Commercial Vehicles Cruise for Parking? Empirical Evidence from Seattle. Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, 172, 103070. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tre.2023.103070