Technical Report

Characterization of Seattle’s Commercial Traffic Patterns: A Greater Downtown Area and Ballard/Interbay Vehicle Count and Evaluation

Publication Date: 2021

Summary:

Seattle now ranks as the nation’s sixth-fastest growing city and is among the nation’s densest. As the city grows, so do truck volumes — volumes tied to economic growth for Seattle and the region as a whole. But many streets are already at capacity during peak hours and bottleneck conditions are worsening. This project is designed to deliver critical granular baseline data on commercial vehicle movement in two key areas of the city to help the city effectively and efficiently plan for growing freight demand.

This timely research from the Urban Freight Lab (UFL) on behalf of the Seattle Department of Transportation produces Seattle’s first complete estimate of Greater Downtown area traffic volumes. And it offers a detailed analysis of commercial vehicle traffic in and around one of the city’s two major industrial centers, the Ballard-Interbay Northern Manufacturing Industrial Center.

These efforts are significant because the city has lacked a comprehensive estimate of commercial vehicle volumes until now. In the Greater Downtown area, the cordon counts (tracking traffic in and out of 39 entry/exit points) alongside traffic volume estimates will provide a powerful tool for local government to model, evaluate, develop, and refine transportation planning policies. This study lays the groundwork for the first commercial vehicle traffic model that will enable the evaluation of different freight planning and traffic management strategies, economic growth scenarios, and application of new freight vehicle technologies. Ballard-Interbay is slated for major infrastructure projects in the coming years, including new Sound Transit stations and critical bridge replacements. This analysis will help inform these projects, which are critical to an efficient, reliable transportation system for goods and people.

One overall finding merits attention as it suggests the need to update some of the freight network element categories defined in the current Seattle Freight Master Plan. The SCTL research team finds that the volume of smaller commercial vehicles (such as pick-ups, vans, and step vans) is significant in both the Greater Downtown area and Ballard-Interbay, representing more than half of all commercial vehicles observed (54% in the Greater Downtown area and 60% in Ballard-Interbay.) Among those smaller commercial vehicles, it is service vehicles that constitute a significant share of commercial traffic (representing 30% in the Greater Downtown area and 40% in Ballard-Interbay.) Among the myriad possible ramifications of this finding is parking planning. An earlier SCTL research paper (1) found service vehicles tend to have longer dwell times, with 44% of all observed service vehicles parked for more than 30 minutes and 27% parked for an hour or more. Given this study’s finding of service vehicles representing a significant share of commercial traffic volume, these vehicles may have a disproportionate impact on parking space rates at the curb.

Comprehensive planning requires comprehensive data. Yet cities like Seattle often lack the detailed data needed for effective freight planning, from peak hours and fleet composition to activity type and gateways of entry/exit. And if cities do have data, they are often too highly aggregated to be useful for management or planning or suffer from lack of comparability or data confidentiality problems.

Currently, urban traffic volume estimates by Puget Sound agencies are limited in spatial and vehicular detail. For example:

Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) is responsible for recording traffic counts through the year on selected arterial streets in Seattle, providing a seasonally adjusted average weekday total vehicle traffic for all lanes at all count locations.
Washington Department of Transportation (WSDOT) provides annual average daily traffic volumes in select locations of their jurisdiction, including the major interstates and state highways in the Seattle area. This data includes truck volume separated into three types: single, double, and triple units.
Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC) regional truck model has three levels of vehicle classification: light commercial, medium trucks, and heavy trucks. This is based on WSDOT Annual Traffic Flow’s count locations and additional manual counts for model validation through the Puget Sound Region.

But none of these existing efforts produce enough detail to understand Seattle’s vehicle movements or connect them with economic activity. To fill the gap, Seattle could consider adopting a standard freight-data reporting system that would emphasize collecting and distributing richer and better data for time-series analysis and other freight forecasting, similar to systems used in cities like Toronto and London. Seattle is a national leader when it comes to freight master plans. This study offers a critical snapshot of the detailed data needed for effective policy and planning, potentially informing everything from road maintenance and traffic signals to electric vehicle charging station sites and possible proposals for congestion pricing. That said, Seattle could benefit greatly from sustained, ongoing detailed data reporting.

Authors: Gabriela Girón-ValderramaDr. Anne Goodchild

Recommended Citation:
Urban Freight Lab (2021). Characterization of Seattle's Commercial Traffic Patterns: A Greater Downtown Area and Ballard/Interbay Vehicle Count and Evaluation.

Technical Report

Defining Washington State Truck Intermodal Network

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URL: https://www.wsdot.wa.gov/research/reports/fullreports/783.1.pdf

Publication: Washington State Transportation Center (TRAC)

Publication Date: 2011

Summary:

In order to support WSDOT in development of the Washington State Freight Mobility Plan, this document presents recommendations for criteria to be used in defining the Washington state truck intermodal network.

The state does not have an existing definition of the freight truck-intermodal system. To establish the criteria, this project reviewed methods used by other states, identified the facilities in Washington specified by the National Highway System, and compared these facilities to those identified by regional planning organizations. Finally, recommendations are made for criteria to use in identifying the truck intermodal network for Washington.

Authors: Dr. Anne GoodchildBarbara Ivanov

Recommended Citation:
Goodchild, A. V., & Ivanov, B. (2011). Defining the Washington State Truck Intermodal Network (No. WA-RD 783.1). Washington State Department of Transportation, Office of Research & Library Services.

Technical Report

Multimodal Intersections: Resolving Conflicts between Trains, Motor Vehicles, Bicyclists and Pedestrians

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URL: https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/35068

Publication: Oregon State Department of Transportation

Publication Date: 2017

Summary:

This research report investigates the relationship between pedestrians and bicyclists on paths parallel to railroad tracks and with a road perpendicular to the path. The possible conflicts at intersections within these design parameters are of concern to ODOT, and therefore, has been recognized as an opportunity to conduct research that improves this type of intersection. The goal of this research project is to create a Guidebook that suggests appropriate path or road treatments for crossings, while also acknowledging and complimenting the unique site conditions present at the intersection. The report contains an extensive literature review, including existing railroad treatment options, and a description of the conducted field surveys and pedestrian, bicycle, vehicle, and train counts from the video. The report could help future work, such as developing more design solutions for paths parallel to tracks and the road perpendicular to the path. A preliminary guidebook is exemplified in the conducted case studies. It is intended to be a user friendly tool for city planners and engineers to assess a crossing and identify appropriate treatment options to improve the path and road user environment, and overall safety for all users.

Authors: Anna Bovbjerg AlligoodDr. Ed McCormackDr. Anne GoodchildManali Sheth

Recommended Citation:
Goodchild, Anne V., Edward McCormack, Anna Bovbjerg, and Manali Sheth. Multimodal Intersections: Resolving Conflicts Between Trains, Motor Vehicles, Bicyclists and Pedestrians. No. FHWA-OR-18-04. Oregon. Dept. of Transportation, 2017.

Technical Report

Urban Goods Delivery Toolkit

URL: https://depts.washington.edu/toolkit/

Publication Date: 2020

Summary:

This Toolkit is designed to help transportation professionals and researchers gather key data needed to make the Final 50 Feet segment function as efficiently as possible, reducing both the time trucks park in load/unload spaces and the number of failed first delivery attempts.

In addition, the toolkit can help transportation planners, traffic engineers, freight system managers, parking and operations strategists, and researchers build a fundamental knowledge base for planning; managing parking operations; managing emergency management and response; updating traffic, land use and building codes; and modeling future scenarios and needs.

In short, the toolkit can be used to help cities meet the ever-increasing demand for trucks and other load/unload activities.

Authors: Urban Freight Lab

Recommended Citation:
Urban Freight Lab. (2020) Urban Goods Delivery Toolkit. https://depts.washington.edu/toolkit

Technical Report

Cross Border Transportation Patterns at the Western Cascade Gateway and Trade Corridor: Implications for Mitigating the Impact of Delay on Regional Supply Chains

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URL: https://cedar.wwu.edu/bpri_publications/83/

Publication: Western Washington University Border Policy Research Institute

Publication Date: 2008

Summary:

This report presents a commercial vehicle profile of transportation patterns and a commodity profile of the primary border crossing along the Western Cascade border region of southwest British Columbia, Canada, and northwest Washington, United States, in particular the corridor between the urban areas of Vancouver, British Columbia, and Seattle, Washington.

Because of the larger trade volumes along the eastern portion of the U.S.-Canadian border between Michigan, New York, and Ontario, trade research on the northern U.S. border has typically focused on trade along the eastern portion of the border between Michigan, New York, and Ontario, as well as on immigration and customs issues along the southern border with Mexico. As a result, less attention has been given to the western portion of the U.S./Canada border.

This research begins to fill that gap with both a description of regional trade and a description of current delay patterns, consequences of delay, and causes of delay. Using four data sources for comparison—a Global Positioning System (GPS) freight carrier border delay data set, a commercial volume data set (BC MoT), a detailed border operations survey data set, and manifest sampling (WCOG)—the authors consider the linkages among volume, delay, border operations, commercial vehicle origin/destination, and commodities carried to create a commercial vehicle profile at the Cascade Gateway. The data also allow the authors to demonstrate transportation patterns at this gateway and along the trade corridor, and to show that they are very regional in nature.

This research will benefit both public and private stakeholders who are interested in understanding cross-border commercial vehicle commodity flows and transportation patterns in the Cascade gateway and trade corridor, as well as the profile of delay experienced at the Pacific Highway commercial border crossing. Such an understanding can aid in the development of solutions to mitigate border delay and its impacts.

Authors: Dr. Anne Goodchild, Li Leung, Susan Albrecht

Recommended Citation:
Goodchild, A., Albrecht, S., & Leung, L. (2008). Cross Border Transportation Patterns at the Western Cascade Gateway and Trade Corridor: Implications for Mitigating the Impact of Delay on Regional Supply Chains (Research Report No. 6).

Technical Report

Changing Retail Business Models and the Impact on CO2 Emissions from Transport: E-commerce Deliveries in Urban and Rural Areas

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URL: https://trid.trb.org/view.aspx?id=1334572

Publication: Pacific Northwest Transportation Consortium (PacTrans)

Volume: 2013-S-UW-0023

Publication Date: 2014

Summary:

While researchers have found relationships between passenger vehicle travel and smart growth development patterns, similar relationships have not been extensively studied between urban form and goods movement trip-making patterns. In rural areas, where shopping choice is more limited, goods movement delivery has the potential to be relatively more important than in more urban areas. As such, this work examines the relationships between certain development pattern characteristics including density and distance from warehousing. This work models the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), and Particle Matter (PM10) generated by personal travel and delivery vehicles in several different scenarios, including various warehouse locations. Linear models were estimated via regression modeling for each dependent variable for each goods movement strategy. Parsimonious models maintained nearly all of the explanatory power of more complex models and relied on one or two variables – a measure of road density and a measure of distance to the warehouse. Increasing road density or decreasing the distance to the warehouse reduces the impacts as measured in the dependent variables (vehicle miles traveled (VMT), CO2, NOx, and PM10). The authors find that delivery services offer relatively more CO2 reduction benefit in rural areas when compared to CO2 urban areas, and that in all cases delivery services offer significant VMT reductions. Delivery services in both urban and rural areas, however, increase NOX and PM10 emissions.

Authors: Dr. Anne Goodchild, Erica Wygonik

Recommended Citation:
Goodchild, Anne, and Erica Wygonik. Changing retail business models and the impact on CO2 emissions from transport: e-commerce deliveries in urban and rural areas. No. 2013-S-UW-0023. Pacific Northwest Transportation Consortium, 2014.

Technical Report

Improving Food Rescue in Seattle: What Can Be Learned from a Supply Chain View?

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Publication Date: 2020

Summary:

Seattle is one of the nation’s fastest-growing cities, presenting both opportunities and challenges for food waste. An estimated 94,500 tons of food from Seattle businesses end up in compost bins or landfills each year—some of it edible food that simply never got sold at restaurants, grocery stores, hospitals, schools or dining facilities. Meantime, members of our community remain food insecure. It makes sense for food to feed people rather than become waste.

This is why Seattle Public Utilities continues to support efforts toward food rescue, where edible food that would otherwise enter the waste stream is gleaned from local businesses and re-distributed to local food programs. SPU has joined other cities, states, and regional coalitions in committing to cutting food waste by 50 percent from 2015 by 2030, leading with prevention and rescue.

Since 2018, SPU has engaged more than 80 stakeholders from 50-plus organizations in a Food Rescue Innovation Initiative—a collaborative effort to better understand food rescue challenges and explore potential solutions. The initiative surfaced transportation and logistics as one of the key challenges.

To that end, SPU asked the University of Washington Supply Chain Transportation and Logistics Center (SCTL) to conduct foundational research into the logistics of food rescue in Seattle. This research forms part of SPU’s broader work to identify barriers to making food rescue operations in Seattle as effective and efficient as possible—and work toward solutions to overcome those barriers with both the private and public sector. The SCTL research includes interviews with a representative cross-section of food suppliers, food bank agencies, meal program providers and nonprofit partners.

With this document, SPU seeks to inform the myriad businesses that donate food (and by doing so, reduce their waste costs); the wide range of nonprofit hunger relief partners who collect and redistribute donated food to community members in need; local government; and locally based companies with supply chain logistics expertise that could contribute solutions to this complex puzzle.

Authors: Urban Freight Lab

Recommended Citation:
Urban Freight Lab (2020). Improving Food Rescue in Seattle: What Can Be Learned from a Supply Chain View?

Technical Report

Cost, Emissions, and Customer Service Trade-Off Analysis In Pickup and Delivery Systems

URL: https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/24904

Publication: Oregon Department of Transportation, Research Section

Publication Date: 2011

Summary:

This research offers a novel formulation for including emissions into fleet assignment and vehicle routing and for the trade-offs faced by fleet operators between cost, emissions, and service quality. This approach enables evaluation of the impact of a variety of internal changes (e.g. time window schemes) and external policies (e.g. spatial restrictions), and enables comparisons of the relative impacts on fleet emissions. To apply the above approach to real fleets, three different case studies were developed. Each of these cases has significant differences in their fleet composition, customers’ requirements, and operational features that provide this research with the opportunity to explore different scenarios.

The research includes estimations of the impact on cost and CO2 and NOX emissions from fleet upgrades, the impact on cost, emissions, and customer wait time when demand density or location changes, and the impact on cost, emissions, and customer wait time from congestion and time window flexibility. Additionally, it shows that any infrastructure use restriction increases cost and emissions. A discussion of the implications for policymakers and fleet operators in a variety of physical and transportation environments is also presented.

Authors: Dr. Anne Goodchild, Felipe Sandoval

Recommended Citation:
Goodchild, A., & Sandoval, F. (2011). Cost, Emissions, and Customer Service Trade-Off Analysis In Pickup and Delivery Systems (No. OR-RD 11-13). Oregon Department of Transportation Research Section.

Technical Report

Food Distribution Supply Chain Data Collection: Supply Chain Firm Interviews and Truck Counts

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URL: http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/research/reports/fullreports/850.1.pdf

Publication: WSDOT Research Report: Food Distribution Supply Chain Data Collection: Supply Chain Firm Interviews and Truck Counts

Publication Date: 2016

Summary:

This report summarizes the work completed under the SHRP2 (Strategic Highway Research Program 2) Local Freight Data program. Supply chain firm interviews and truck counts were conducted to better understand the Food Distribution System in the Puget Sound. Interviews explored key business challenges, operations, and potential responses to natural gas incentives. Truck counts were conducted at grocery stores, and observations included truck type, time of day, stop duration, and parking behavior. The report includes a description of truck activity at grocery stores, and a summary of industry responses to natural gas incentives. The research contributes to the design of future freight data collection, and the development of policy responsive freight models.

Washington state’s robust food distribution industry must transport goods from farms to processing plants, to warehouses, and finally to stores for consumption. Although this freight system helps sustain economic growth in the state, it also has significant impacts on traffic congestion and carbon emissions.

Under the SHRP2 Local Freight Data program for the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT), researchers looked at urban, suburban, and rural locations, as well as grocery stores, food distributors, and food processors to shed light on the state’s food distribution system and its transportation, logistics, and fleet characteristics, as well as the industry’s experience and expectations with natural gas vehicles and natural gas policies and programs.

Interviews and truck counts revealed that large grocery store firms use larger trucks, travel longer distances, and travel more highway miles than local street miles. Large food distributors travel a larger variety of routes, with a more diverse truck fleet. In contrast, smaller food distributors use smaller trucks, travel shorter routes, and travel mostly in urban areas, with less highway driving.

Smaller firms with smaller trucks deliver goods through the front door of the store and use the customer parking lot. Larger firms, with larger trucks, unload goods through the loading dock in the back of the store. Smaller, local firms also make more frequent deliveries, delivering goods every weekday, whereas large firms make deliveries three to four times per week.

For urban stores, there is often a lack of a dedicated store parking lot. These urban stores often have covered garages, with loading docks inside the garage. Many drivers, particularly from smaller firms and those with smaller trucks, still prefer to use the front door for deliveries. However, they have to park their trucks in a parallel spot, left turn lane, or the travel lane. Deliveries at urban stores occur earlier in the morning than at suburban and rural stores in order to avoid traffic on urban streets.

The researchers found that three of the five large food distributors had implemented a natural gas pilot program, while none of the smaller food distributors (fleets of fewer than 40 trucks) had implemented or considered natural gas truck engines. The companies that had begun a natural gas pilot program reported that the trucks lacked power and range, lack of a refueling infrastructure posed problems, and the trucks were costly.

Small food distribution firms place importance on reducing fuel use and emissions. However, they do not have the resources to procure natural gas technology. Unfortunately, the government grant and tax credit process is cumbersome to navigate for smaller enterprises. These issues, together with the lack of refueling stations, means that alternative fuel vehicles are not currently a viable option for smaller firms. However, these smaller firms operate trucks and service routes that would be most conducive to reducing fuel use and emissions if they switched to natural gas trucks, without any detriment to performance. Therefore, policy makers should take care in devising new alternative fuel incentives so that they reach smaller firms that have been left out of the alternative fuel marketplace.

Authors: Dr. Anne Goodchild, Luka Ukrainczyk

Recommended Citation:
Goodchild, Anne V., and Luka Ukrainczyk. Food Distribution Supply Chain Data Collection: Supply Chain Firm Interviews and Truck Counts. No. WA-RD 850.1. Washington (State). Dept. of Transportation. Office of Research and Library Services, 2016.

Technical Report

Impacts of COVID-19 on Supply Chains

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Publication Date: 2020

Summary:

As of June 2020, the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has infected more than eight million people worldwide. In response to the global pandemic, cities have been put under lockdown, closing non-essential businesses and banning group gatherings, limiting urban mobility, and issuing stay-at-home orders, while nations closed their borders.

During these times, logistics became more important than ever in guaranteeing the uninterrupted flow of goods to city residents. At the same time, the same supply chain providing the goods experienced profound disruptions. Documenting the impacts the COVID-19 outbreak had on individual organizations and their responses is an important research effort to better understand the resiliency of the supply chain.

The Urban Freight Lab, a structured workgroup of senior executives from major supply chains, supply chain related companies, and academic researchers from the University of Washington, carried out a survey to address two main questions:

What are the most common and significant impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak?
What short-term actions and long-terms plans are supply chains taking in response to the pandemic?

Authors: Urban Freight Lab

Recommended Citation:
Urban Freight Lab (2020). Impacts of COVID-19 on Supply Chains.