March 10, 2021 — Urban Freight Lab Research Assistant and Student Research Group Manager Haena Kim (Ph.D. Transportation Engineering ’21) defended her dissertation today, completing her graduate studies and earning her doctorate degree.
Kim now joins Nike’s commercial analytics team as a Data Scientist.
Kim’s dissertation, Modeling of Urban Freight Deliveries: Operational Performance at the Final 50 Feet, provides insights and data-driven approaches to support urban freight planning by creating value stream maps, building regression models, and predicting total time spent at the final 50 feet of delivery, including dwell times and parking-related times through discrete event simulations for various “what if” scenarios. The research aims to better understand how increased deliveries in cities can impact the cost distribution between urban planners, building managers, and delivery workers, and identifies areas for improvement in terms of infrastructure and resources to better prepare for future delivery demands based on various scenarios.
Anne Goodchild served as committee chair; additional committee members were Linda Ng Boyle, Don MacKenzie, and Anne Vernez Moudon.
During her time as a research assistant, Kim was selected for a fully-funded trip to Norway to study and improve seafood export (and won first place in the challenge), completed an internship at Nike, led data collection and designed an app for the 62-story Seattle Municipal Tower common carrier parcel locker study, and was part of the inaugural Final 50 Feet research.
“The Urban Freight Lab exposed me to real-world data which allowed me to expand my knowledge in supply chain operations and develop my technical skills in every facet of data collection, analysis, and project management,” said Kim. “The UFL offers unique opportunities for students to interact with representatives from both public and private sectors to learn about different perspectives in supply chain operations and how data-driven approaches can help the decision-making process.”
Read more:
- Haena Kim’s research publications
- Haena Kim’s dissertation: Modeling of Urban Freight Deliveries: Operational Performance at the Final 50 Feet
- Haena Kim alumni profile
- Haena Kim to intern at Nike
- Unpacking traffic congestion
- Research Update: A Common Carrier Smart Locker Pilot Test at Seattle Municipal Tower
- Could parcel lockers in transit stations reduce traffic congestion in Seattle?
- New Research: Lockers Could Significantly Reduce Delivery Time and Failed Delivery Rates
- Fresh perspectives on salmon transport
About the Urban Freight Lab (UFL): An innovative public-private partnership housed at the Supply Chain Transportation & Logistics Center at the University of Washington, the Urban Freight Lab is a structured workgroup that brings together private industry with City transportation officials to design and test solutions around urban freight management. Since launching in December 2016, the UFL has completed an innovative suite of research projects on the Final 50 Feet of delivery, providing foundational data and proven strategies to help cities reduce truck dwell times in load/unload spaces, and failed first delivery attempts by carriers, which lowers congestion, emissions, and costs.