Student Thesis and Dissertations

Enhancing Performance Measurement: Implementing Computable General Equilibrium Models in Truck-Freight Network Investment Prioritization

URL: http://ses.wsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/FPTI-16.pdf

Publication: Freight Policy Transportation Institute

Publication Date: 2013

Summary:

The adoption of defensible performance measures and establishment of proven results has become a necessity of many state Transportation Departments. A major factor in demonstrating results is the impact a transportation infrastructure improvement project has on the region’s economic climate. Though often previously underrepresented in policy and planning of transportation systems, freight movement plays a critical role in the transference of infrastructure improvement benefits into regional economic impacts. The degree of impact influenced by freight movement improvements is dependent upon location and geographic scale of evaluation. This paper assesses the geographic scale considerations in selecting the modeling framework to evaluate economic impacts. Specifically, we consider the results of regional input-output (I-O) models as compared to those of computable general equilibrium (CGE) models in response to reduced travel time and operating costs in the freight highway network. Though widely used for policy and planning purposes, I-O models have come under criticism for their inability to realistically model the behaviors of a regional economy. Despite their increased flexibility in real-world modeling, CGE models have been resisted due to their complexity of use. We consider the implications of selecting between ease of use and model flexibility at scales ranging from a single county to statewide.

Authors: Dr. Anne Goodchild, Jeremy Sage, John Maxwell, Zun Wang, Ken Casavant

Recommended Citation:
Sage, Jeremy. John Maxwell, Zun Wang, Ken Casavant, and Anne Goodchild. "Enhancing Performance Measurement: Implementing Computable General Equilibrium Models in Truck-Freight Network Investment Prioritization." University of Washington Master's degree thesis.

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

Student Thesis and Dissertations

Developing a Robust Survey Methodology for Collecting Information on the Port Truck Drayage Industry

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URL: https://urbanfreightlab.com/Pacific%20Northwest%20Transportation%20Consortium

Publication: Pacific Northwest Transportation Consortium (PacTrans)

Publication Date: 2014

Summary:

This paper describes the population characteristics in the drayage trucking population of the Port of Seattle as determined by the 2013 Truck Driver Survey. The 2013 Truck Driver Survey was created to give the Port of Seattle more information on the trip destinations, working conditions, equipment, and economics of truck drivers serving the Port of Seattle, so that policymakers creating regulations affecting trucking at the port could be better informed about the trucking population.

The survey was a 44 question mail-back survey that was distributed at the Port of Seattle. The survey was distributed for eight days at all container terminals at the Port of Seattle, and got a 29% response rate.

The majority of the trips to and from the Port of Seattle are for the local Seattle area (33%) and the Kent Valley (20%). Other trips are distributed to service areas throughout the State of Washington. Owner-operators were found to make more of the short trips, with employee drivers making more of the long trips.

62% of trucks at the Port of Seattle are more than 12 years old. These trucks will have to be replaced before 2015 to comply with the Port of Seattle Clean Trucks Program.

The Port of Seattle has a diverse population, with 53% of drivers indicating that they did not speak English as a first language. Among drivers who indicated that they didn’t speak English, about 50% were from Africa, with South/Central America and Asia/Pacific Islands also having significant populations.

Authors: Dr. Anne Goodchild, Jerome Drescher

Recommended Citation:
Goodchild, Anne, and Jerome Drescher. Developing a Robust Survey Methodology for Collecting Information on the Port Truck Drayage Industry. No. 2012-S-US-0017. Pacific Northwest Transportation Consortium, 2014. University of Washington Master's degree thesis.

Student Thesis and Dissertations

A Different Kind of Gentrification: Seattle and its Relationship with Industrial Land

URL: https://digital.lib.washington.edu/researchworks/handle/1773/44471

Publication Date: 2019

Summary:

Industry in Seattle often talks about how they are facing their own kind of gentrification. Rising property values, encroaching pressure for different land uses, and choking transportation all loom as reasons for industrial businesses to relocate out of the city. This research explores this phenomenon of industrial gentrification through a case study of Seattle’s most prominent industrial area: the SODO (“South Of Downtown”) neighborhood. My primary research question asks what the perception and reality of the state of industrial land designation and industrial land use gentrification in Seattle is. Secondary research questions involve asking how industrial land designation and industrial land use can be defined in Seattle, what percentage of land is zoned industrial in the SODO neighborhood, and what percentage of the land use is considered industrial in the SODO neighborhood. Finally, subsequent effects on freight transportation and goods movement will be considered. By surveying actual industrial land use compared to industrially-zoned land, one can conclude whether industry’s complaints are accurate and whether attempts to protect industrial land uses are working. Literature details cases that encapsulate the industrial gentrification debate and Seattle has undertaken many studies of its industrial land. Methods involve a case study approach coupled with a field survey. The survey area chosen is the SODO neighborhood, which is part of the locally and regionally-designated Duwamish Manufacturing/Industrial Center. Industrial designation is defined as any of the four types of industrial zoning in the City of Seattle. Industrial land use is defined with the help of the Land Based Classification Standards’ Function dimension, with the following subcategories considered industrial: manufacturing, warehouse, storage yard, marine terminal, railroad, and utility. Results show that over 99% of the study area is designated industrial. After classification of each parcel in the study area, 62% of the study area’s parcels, or 85% of the land area, contain actual industrial land use. When land intensive uses such as marine terminals and railroads are removed from consideration, the percent of industrial land area is only 42%. The conclusion of this study shows that 1) the narrative of industrial gentrification in Seattle is not as universal as initially perceived, 2) being designated as industrial land by zoning is not a surefire way to achieve what some would consider actual industrial land use, 3) actions undertaken by the City in the 2000s—namely increasing the size limits on non-industrial land uses in industrial zoning—have been effective at keeping SODO industrial, and 4) the question of whether Seattle is losing industry and industrial land rests on how one defines and perceives those terms. While much of SODO’s land area is still industrial, market forces and trends are drawing more non-traditional land uses to SODO, such as boutique manufacturing, breweries and distilleries, event venues, and commercial offices and retail stores. Examples are prominent and give the perception of industrial loss even if, technically, much of SODO is still designated industrial.

Authors: David Tomporowski

Recommended Citation:
Tomporowski, David (2019). A Different Kind of Gentrification: Seattle and its Relationship with Industrial Land. University of Washington Master's Degree Thesis.

Thesis: Array

Student Thesis and Dissertations

Observing Goods Delivery Activities and Identifying Opportunities to Improve the Design of Commercial Vehicle Load Zones in Seattle

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URL: http://hdl.handle.net/1773/42557

Publication Date: 2018

Summary:

The growth of freight activity is one of the results of urban population growth. The growth of freight means that more commercial vehicles must share finite infrastructure like alleys, loading docks, and yellow curb space. In this research project, curb space is studied in order to better understand the needs of commercial vehicles at the curb. Cities in the United States like Seattle have recognized that there are opportunities to better manage curb space, and have implemented programs such as the Flex Zone Program 2016 in order to do so. In this research paper, I have focused on just one aspect of the curb, which is the yellow curb space reserved for Commercial Vehicle Load Zones (CVLZ). The purpose of this thesis is to observe the needs and activities of courier drivers during deliveries/pickups in Seattle, and incorporate observations into a new design of freight curb space that may better respond to their needs. The new design suggests a system in which curb space is designed for different vehicle dimensions and activities. This is done by including paint, texture/pattern, and signage on the pavement and sidewalk that comfortably accommodate the vehicle and activities around the vehicle. By providing a better designed freight curb space that accounts for the needs and activities observed, the hope is that courier drivers will be less likely to partake in high-risk behavior such as double parking, and spilling over into adjacent transit lanes/pedestrian areas/bikes lanes, by providing better infrastructure for them.

Authors: Manali Sheth

Recommended Citation:
Sheth, Manali (2018). Observing Goods Delivery Activities and Identifying Opportunities to Improve the Design of Commercial Vehicle Load Zones in Seattle. University of Washington Master's Degree Thesis.

Student Thesis and Dissertations

Optimization Modeling Approaches to Evacuations of Isolated Communities

URL: http://hdl.handle.net/1773/49047

Publication Date: 2022

Summary:

Isolated communities are particularly vulnerable to disasters caused by natural hazards. In many cases, evacuation is the only option to ensure the population’s safety. Isolated communities are becoming increasingly aware of this threat and demand solutions to this problem. However, the large body of existing research on evacuation modeling usually considers environments where populations can evacuate via private vehicles and by using an existing road infrastructure. These models are often not applicable to remote valleys and islands, where road connections can be disrupted or do not exist at all. The use of external resources is therefore essential to evacuate the population. How to systematically evacuate an isolated community through a coordinated fleet of resources has not yet been researched. This dissertation thesis addresses this knowledge gap by designing a new routing problem called the Isolated Community Evacuation Problem (ICEP) that optimally routes recovery resources between evacuation pick-up points and shelter locations to minimize the total evacuation time. The research presents derivations of the initial model for (a) emergency planning and (b) response purposes to give emergency planners and researchers tools to prepare for and react to an evacuation of an isolated community. For (a), a scenario-based two-stage stochastic program with recourse considers different emergency scenarios to select the optimal set of recovery resources to hold available for any evacuation emergency. Furthermore, the dissertation explores efficient structure-based heuristics to solve the problem quickly. For (b), the assumption of certainty over the size of the affected population at the time of evacuation is relaxed. Approaches from robust and rolling-horizon optimization are presented to solve this problem. Moreover, meta-heuristics are explored to solve the problem to optimality while overcoming the complexity of the problem formulation. Finally, an in-depth, real-world case study that was conducted in collaboration with first responders and emergency authorities on Bowen Island in Canada is presented to test and evaluate the applicability of the proposed models. This case study further informed the official evacuation plan of the island. This collaboration demonstrates the potential of full integration of the research approach with local emergency expertise from the affected area and highlights the data requirements that need to be met to maximize the use of the model.

Authors: Fiete Krutein

Student Thesis and Dissertations

An Evaluation of Engineering Treatments and Pedestrian and Motorist Behavior on Major Arterials in Washington State

URL: https://www.wsdot.wa.gov/research/reports/fullreports/707.1.pdf

Publication: Washington State Transportation Center (TRAC)

Publication Date: 2008

Summary:

This report examines pedestrian and motorist behavior on arterials in Washington State and determines how, if at all, these behaviors change when various engineering treatments are applied. The treatments that were examined included crosswalk markings, raised medians, in-pavement flashers, signage, stop bars, overhead lighting, and sidewalks. The relationships between pedestrian travel and transit use, origin-destination patterns, traffic signals, and schools were also explored.

The study examined seven locations in the state of Washington. These were State Route (SR) 7 at South 180th Street in Spanaway, SR 99 at South 152nd Street in Shoreline, SR 99 at South 240th Street in Kent, SR 2 between South Lundstrom and King Streets in Airway Heights, SR 2 at Lacrosse Street in Spokane, SR 2 at Rowan Avenue in Spokane, and SR 2 at Wellesley Avenue in Spokane.

Because pedestrian-vehicle collisions are rare when specific locations are studied, other criteria were used to evaluate the conditions and behaviors that were present. These included “conflicts” such as running behavior, motorists having to brake unexpectedly to avoid a pedestrian, pedestrians waiting in the center lane to cross, and more. These unreported, but very common, occurrences enabled the researchers to gain a better understanding of both pedestrian and motorist concerns and behaviors and the effects that improvements might have.

The study concludes that the causes of conflicts are highly varied: ignorance of or noncompliance with the law (by the motorist or the pedestrian), inattention, vehicles following too closely, impatience, anxiety in attempting to catch a bus, use or non-use of pedestrian facilities, placement of features in the built environment, and more. While pedestrian/motorist interaction improves with improved visibility (something which can be obtained through better engineering design and the removal of visual clutter) better education and/or enforcement will also be needed to achieve significant safety benefits.

Authors: Katherine D. Davis, Mark E. Hallenbeck

Recommended Citation:
Katherine D. Davis, Mark E. Hallenbeck. An Evaluation of Engineering Treatments and Pedestrian and Motorist Behavior on Major Arterials in Washington State. Washington State Transportation Center (TRAC), 2008.

Thesis: Array

Student Thesis and Dissertations

Survey on the Bike Commute Environment among Seattle Area Bike Planners and Advocates

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.28619.31529

Publication Date: 2020

Summary:

Bike facilities like bike lanes, bike trails, and neighborhood greenways have been the backbone of Seattle’s bike planning policy with the goal of promoting active transportation, reducing car dependence, improving social equity, and eliminating bike accidents. While the equitable implementation of all of these facilities are still a priority for the Seattle’s Office of Planning and Community Development to increase viable commute mobility options, bike planning investments may not reflect the priorities shared by those in the bike community. Other factors in the bike commute environment were not present in Seattle’s Bike Master Plan, such as bike storage and shower facilities. There is also a lack of knowledge on whether there were priorities that people of color might have that are different. To better understand those priorities, this study sent out an online survey to 14 bike facility planning groups and bike community organizations around Seattle on the importance of nineteen different factors in the bike commute environment. For each factor, there were a range of values gauging the degree of importance of a bike commute factor to the bike commute environment, as well as a free response to allow respondents to elaborate on their answers. In total, 71 survey responses were received. The factor that placed the highest importance on the bike commute environment was bike racks and storage, higher than even bike facilities such as bike lanes. There were also not many differences in the priorities expressed by people of color, with the only significant difference being the weighting of sharrows, which had received significantly more support from people of color. Using the results of the survey, we recommend that the City of Seattle develop a bike commute environment index with a weighting scheme that is reflective of the priorities expressed in the survey, in addition to informing the City what are the community priorities in the bike commute environment.

Authors: Dr. Ed McCormack, Theodore Cheung, Katie Sheehy, Christine Bae

Recommended Citation:
Cheung, Theodore & Sheehy, Katie & Bae, Christine & McCormack, Edward. (2020). Survey on the Bike Commute Environment among Seattle Area Bike Planners and Advocates. 10.13140/RG.2.2.28619.31529.

Student Thesis and Dissertations

Life Cycle Assessment of American Wheat: Analysis of Regional Variations in Production and Transportation

Publication Date: 2009

Summary:

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a model-based approach to quantify where, and in what form, energy and materials are used in industrial production. The “life cycle” refers to the production of raw materials for fuels, infrastructure and energy conversion equipment, use, maintenance, after life options, and relevant health and social factors. This is sometimes referred to as a “cradle to grave” approach when assessing environmental impacts. Current interest in carbon footprint and environmental impacts of products derived from crops, primarily food and bio-fuels, first requires a detailed life cycle assessment of the agricultural production. American wheat is selected to study the variation in life cycle impacts of an agricultural product that has been aggregated in previous LCAs. All previous studies contain an LCA case study of one species of wheat grown in a specific location. Such a narrow approach is not an accurate representation of the system. This LCA of American wheat differs in the fact that it investigates multiple locations, species, variation in farming practices, fuel use, fertilizer application, and transportation throughout the country in an attempt to be inclusive of the spatial and species variability of wheat production on greenhouse gas emissions. Due to the decentralized nature of American agriculture, an understanding of transportation decisions and resulting impacts are especially important. Results indicate a 101% intra-species and 62% inter-species variation in greenhouse gas emissions of wheat grown in the U.S. However, due to a range of 1440 kg CO2 eq/ha to -1404 kg CO2 eq/ha, sequestration of carbon during cultivation is the most sensitive and variable contribution to life cycle greenhouse gas emissions.

Authors: Brendan O'Donnell

Recommended Citation:
O'Donnell, Brendan. (2009). Life cycle assessment of American wheat: Analysis of regional variations in production and transportation. University of Washington Master's Degree Thesis.

Thesis: Array

Student Thesis and Dissertations

Micro-Consolidation Practices in Urban Delivery Systems: Comparative Evaluation of Last Mile Deliveries Using e-Cargo Bikes and Microhubs

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URL: https://www.proquest.com/docview/2595035025

Publication Date: 2021

Summary:

The demand for home deliveries has seen a drastic increase, especially in cities, putting urban freight systems under pressure. As more people move to urban areas and change consumer behaviors to shop online, busy delivery operations cause externalities such as congestion and air pollution.

Micro-consolidation implementations and their possible pairing with soft transportation modes offer practical, economic, environmental, and cultural benefits. Early implementations of micro-consolidation practices were tested but cities need to understand their implications in terms of efficiency and sustainability.

This study includes a research scan and proposes a typology of micro-consolidation practices. It focuses on assessing the performance of microhubs that act as additional transshipment points where the packages are transported by trucks and transferred onto e-bikes to complete the last mile.

The purpose of the study is to assess the performance of delivery operations using a network of microhubs with cargo logistics and identify the conditions under which these solutions can be successfully implemented to improve urban freight efficiencies and reduce emissions. The performance is evaluated in terms of vehicle miles traveled, tailpipe CO2 emissions, and average operating cost per package using simulation tools. Three different delivery scenarios were tested that represents 1) the baseline scenario, where only vans and cars make deliveries; 2) the mixed scenario, where in addition to vans and cars, a portion of packages are delivered by e-bikes; and 3) the e-bike only scenario, where all package demand is satisfied using microhubs and e-bikes.

The results showed that e-bike delivery operations perform the best in service areas with high customer density. At the highest customer demand level, e-bikes traveled 7.7% less to deliver a package and emitted 91% less tailpipe CO2 with no significant cost benefits or losses when compared with the baseline scenario where only traditional delivery vehicles were used. Cargo logistics, when implemented in areas where the demand is densified, can reduce emissions and congestion without significant cost implications.

Authors: Şeyma Güneş

Recommended Citation:
Gunes, S. (2021). Micro-Consolidation Practices in Urban Delivery Systems: Comparative Evaluation of Last Mile Deliveries Using e-Cargo Bikes and Microhubs, University of Washington Master's Thesis.