In the Media

Created in 2016, the Urban Freight Lab is looking into “high-impact, low-cost solutions for businesses delivering goods in urban settings and cities trying to manage limited curb and parking space where delivery trucks, bicycles, pedestrians and cars all need to coexist.” They’ll be testing solutions like centralized drop-off lockers, and improved management of alleys and curb space, both in simulations and the real world.

The City of Seattle's Freight Master Plan and the SCTL Urban Freight Lab's research are identified as potential policy solutions for urban freight congestion.

It begins with boxes. For most people who order goods from Amazon interactions with the Seattle e-commerce giant start with a search and a click, and end with a delivery. SCTL Center Founding Director Anne Goodchild discusses the Urban Freight Lab and the importance of factoring in freight delivery congestion in city planning.

It’s the flip-side to the “retail apocalypse:” A siege of delivery trucks is threatening to choke cities with traffic. But not everyone agrees on what to do about it. SCTL Center Founding Director Anne Goodchild describes how the Urban Freight Lab is working to collect data on goods movement in cities to improve urban deliveries. 

If you’ve ever shopped online and come home to find a note on your mailbox that said “Package could not be delivered,” you understand the frustration of multiple delivery attempts. What you may not know is those delivery attempts can impact the environment and livability in your city. Nordstrom's Transportation team is trying to address those problems through a partnership with Costco, UPS, USPS, Charlie’s Produce, the City of Seattle and the University of Washington.

The City of Seattle has promised $285,000 over the next three years to support the University of Washington’s new Urban Freight Lab, which brings together freight carriers and public planning agencies to consider issues and innovative strategies related to urban delivery. 

As online shopping continues to grow, delivery trucks need to adapt to traffic conditions.

As Seattle commute times grow, Sound Transit looks for solutions.

Today, the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) named the University of Washington one of 18 “Beyond Traffic Innovation Centers” across the country that will help tackle transportation challenges over the next 30 years.

That's where the newly created Urban Freight Lab at the University of Washington comes in. The lab's director, Barbara Ivanov, said cities still manage loading zones with an old technology: a stripe of yellow paint.

Two converging trends – the rise of e-commerce and urban population growth – are creating big challenges for cities. Online shoppers are learning to expect the urban freight delivery system to bring them whatever they want, wherever they want it, within one to two hours. That’s especially true during the holidays, as shipping companies hustle to deliver gift orders on time.

If cities do not act quickly to revamp the way they manage increasing numbers of commercial vehicles unloading goods in streets and alleys and into buildings, they will drown in a sea of double-parked trucks.

Seattle businesses have already put eBike delivery to the test and are currently using them to deliver packages. Freewheel, for example, uses their own eBikes to deliver around Seattle. The city has also pledged $285,000 to UW’s Urban Freight Lab, The Seattle Times reports. The money will be used to test out new methods of delivery, such as eBike systems. Costco, UPS and Nordstrom are contributing to the lab as well.

SCTL Center Director Anne Goodchild discusses the Urban Freight Lab in this podcast with the American Society for Engineering Education (ASMEE).

In a city such as Seattle, where the population is also rapidly growing and streets and sidewalks are increasingly crowded, freight delivery becomes a complex and expensive proposition for companies and a potential source of conflict for other road users. Those issues of efficiency and safety are at the heart of the University of Washington’s new Urban Freight Lab.