In the Media

Dr. Anne Goodchild formed the Urban Freight Lab, a working group of academics, cities and industry leaders, in part to study "the final 50 feet," a term that describes the last leg of a package's journey from a delivery truck to the customer. Package theft and failed deliveries are two major concerns, she says.

Bowen Island Municipality (BIM) worked with University of Washington researcher Fiete Krutein to investigate scenarios that could result in an evacuations and the locally available vessels that could help. 

Cities have seen a dramatic increase in the volume of freight and deliveries moving on their streets. As residents stay home, often by medical necessity, safe and efficient goods movement is critical to ensuring everyone has access to essential items like food and paper goods. Consequently, more people are ordering online goods – online retailers and delivery companies have seen nearly a 50 percent jump in orders over the past two months.

With all of those trucks heading out into suburbia to deliver your latest gadget, fashion find, or book, is online shopping terrible for the environment?

Research by Urban Freight Lab of Supply Chain Transportation & Logistics Center (University of Washington) revealed a lack of an established and widely accepted definition for the concept of consolidation centers or microhubs. 

Anne Goodchild, a professor at the University of Washington, has found that consolidating deliveries in one area produces fewer climate-harming emissions than the same people driving back and forth to multiple stores.

The shift to grocery delivery should be good news for sustainability because having a truck drop off multiple orders is more efficient than everyone driving their vehicle to the store. But "some delivery services are not on the consolidation model," says our Anne Goodchild.

Jeff Bezos says ordering groceries online is better for the planet. Is he right? Our Anne Goodchild comments.

The idea of a grocery store as a terminal — instead of a consumer shopping center — is likely to gain traction as a result of the pandemic, said Anne Goodchild, director of the Urban Freight Lab.

Anne Goodchild is featured expert in Convoy's new video series on COVID-19 and its impact on the freight market.

“Buying online or not doesn’t account for the main variable,” Anne Goodchild says. “The main variable is how far away did something come from. And then how quickly did you demand that it get to you.

Seattle’s Urban Freight Lab continues to churn out innovative research projects connected to the last 50 feet of delivery. The latest initiative is a “common microhub."

Anne Goodchild said, “as we move towards faster delivery, it gets harder to consolidate. When we’re not paying some sort of personal cost for the trip, I think it’s easy to overlook how much travel we’re adding.”

The University of Washington’s Urban Freight Lab is testing common lockers in commercial buildings and near transit stops in Seattle. An initial pilot at the Seattle Municipal Tower found that the system reduced the number of failed deliveries to zero and reduced the overall delivery time by 78 percent when compared to door-to-door delivery.

Anne Goodchild questions some of the conclusions of the World Economic Forum's "The Future of the Last-Mile Ecosystem" report, saying its figures are based on many assumptions.