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Urban Freight Lab

Publication Type: Technical Report

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. 
Technical Report

Characterizing Washington State’s Supply Chains

URL: https://trid.trb.org/view/1213868
Publication: Transportation Northwest Regional Center X (TransNow)
Publication Date: 2012
Summary:

The University of Washington (UW), Washington State University (WSU), and Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) recently developed a multi-modal statewide geographic information system (GIS) model that can help the state prioritize strategies that protect industries most vulnerable to disruptions, supporting economic activity in the state and increasing economic resilience. The proposed research was identified after that project as an important step in improving the model’s ability to measure the impact of disruptions. In addition to developing the model, the researchers developed two case studies showing the model’s capabilities: the potato growing and processing industry was chosen as a representative agricultural sector and diesel fuel distribution for its importance to all industry sectors. As origin-destination data for other freight-dependent sectors is added to the model, WSDOT will be able to evaluate the impact of freight system disruptions on each of them. Moving forward, it is not cost-effective to develop case studies in the manner used for these case studies, therefore, the state is currently supporting activities at the national level that will provide methods for collecting statewide commodity flow data. However, this commodity flow data will still lack important operational detail necessary to understand the impacts of transportation changes. This research will begin to fill that gap by developing a transportation-based categorization of logistics chains. The goal is not to capture all of the complexity of supply chain logistics but to identify approximately 15-20 categories within which supply chains behave similarly from a transportation perspective, for example, in their level of scheduling and methods for route selection. Researchers will use existing publicly available data, conduct an operational survey, and analyze GPS data collected for WSDOT’s freight performance measures project to identify the categorization.

Authors: Dr. Anne Goodchild, Andrea Gagliano, Maura Rowell
Recommended Citation:
Goodchild, A., Gagliano, A., & Rowell, M. (2012). Characterizing Washington State’s Supply Chains (No. TNW2012-13).
Technical Report

Freight and Transit Lane Case Study

 
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Publication Date: 2020
Summary:

The Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) engaged the Urban Freight Lab at the Supply Chain Transportation and Logistics Center at the University of Washington to conduct research on the impacts of a freight and transit (FAT) lane that was implemented in January 2019 in Seattle. To improve freight mobility in the City of Seattle and realize the objectives included in the city’s Freight Master Plan (FMP), the FAT lane was opened upon the closing of the Alaskan Way Viaduct.

The objective of this study was therefore to evaluate the performance and utilization of the FAT lane. Street camera video recordings from two separate intersection locations were used for this research.

Vehicles were categorized into ten different groups, including drayage with container and drayage without container, to capture their different behavior. Drayage vehicles are vehicles transporting cargo to a warehouse or to another port. Human data reducers used street camera videos to count vehicles in those ten designated groups.

The results of the traffic volume analysis showed that transit vehicles chose the FAT lane over the general purpose lane at ratios of higher than 90 percent. By the time of day, transit vehicle volumes in the FAT lane followed a different pattern than freight vehicles. Transit vehicle volumes peaked around afternoon rush hours, but freight activity decreased during that same time. Some freight vehicles used the FAT lane, but their ratio in the FAT lane decreased when bus volumes increased. The ratio of unauthorized vehicles in the FAT lane increased during congestion.

Further analysis described in this report included a multinomial logistic regression model to estimate the factors influencing the choice of FAT lane over the regular lane. The results showed that lane choice was dependent on the day of week, time of day, vehicle type, and location features. Density, as a measure of congestion, was found to be statistically insignificant for the model.

Authors: Urban Freight Lab
Recommended Citation:
Urban Freight Lab (2020). Freight and Transit Lane Case Study. 
Technical Report

Characterizing Oregon’s Supply Chains

 
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URL: https://www.oregon.gov/ODOT/Programs/ResearchDocuments/CharacterizingOregonsSupply_SPR739.pdf
Publication: Oregon Dept. of Transportation, Research Section
Publication Date: 2013
Summary:

In many regions throughout the world, freight models are used to aid infrastructure investment and policy decisions. Since freight is such an integral part of efficient supply chains, more realistic transportation models can be of greater assistance. Transportation models in general have been moving away from the traditional four-step model into activity-based and supply chain-based models. Personal transportation models take into consideration household demographics and why families travel. Freight research has yet to fully identify the relationships between truck movements and company characteristics, so most freight models use the methodology of personal transportation models, despite situational differences.

In an effort to classify freight companies into groupings with differentiated travel movements, a survey of licensed motor carriers was designed and conducted in Oregon. The survey consisted of 33 questions. Respondents were asked about their vehicle fleets, locations served, times traveled, types of deliveries, and commodities. An analysis of the data revealed clusters of company types that can be distinguished by determining characteristics such as their role in a supply chain, facilities operated, commodity type, and vehicle types. An assessment of how the relationships found can be integrated into state models is also presented.

Authors: Dr. Anne Goodchild, Andrea Gagliano, Maura Rowell
Recommended Citation:
Goodchild, Anne. A. Gagiliano and M. Rowell. 2013. "Characterizing Oregon's Supply Chains." Final Report SPR 739. Oregon Department of Transportation: Research Section and Federal Highway Administration, Salem, OR.
Technical Report

Common MicroHub Research Project: Research Scan

 
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Publication Date: 2020
Summary:

This research scan revealed a lack of an established and widely accepted definition for the concept of consolidation centers or microhubs. Many recent implementations of urban freight consolidation have focused on bundling goods close to the delivery point by creating logistical platforms in the heart of urban areas. These have shared a key purpose: to avoid freight vehicles traveling into urban centers with partial loads.

To establish definitions of micro-consolidation and its typologies, it is important to review previous efforts in the literature that have explained and evaluated urban consolidation centers and lessons that have led to the search for new alternatives. Starting in 1970s, the urban consolidation center (UCC) concept was implemented in several European cities and urban regions. These were mostly led by commercial enterprises with temporary or even structural support from the government to compensate for additional transshipment costs. Allen et. al. defined the UCC as a “logistic base located in the vicinity of the place of performing services (e.g., city centers, whole cities, or specific locations like shopping malls) where numerous enterprisers deliver goods destined for the serviced area from which consolidated deliveries as well as additional logistic and retailed services are realized”.

Many of these implementations failed to operate in the long term because of low throughput volumes, the inability to operate without financial support from government, and dissatisfaction with service levels. The cost of having an additional transshipment point often prevented the facilities from being cost-effective, and they could not operate when governmental subsidies were removed (4). From a commercial perspective, experiences with publicly operated UCCs were mostly negative, and centers that have operated since 2000 are often run single-handedly by major logistics operators.

Although it appears that many UCCs were not successful, that does not mean that the idea of an additional transshipment point should be sidelined completely (4). Several studies have mentioned the micro-consolidation concept as a transition from the classic UCC. Learning from previous experiences, Janjevic et. al. defined micro-consolidation centers as facilities that are located closer to the delivery area and have a more limited spatial range for delivery than classic UCCs. Similarly, Verlinde et. al., referred to micro-consolidation centers as “alternative” additional transshipment points that downscale the scope of the consolidation initiative further than a UCC.

In this project, a delivery microhub (or simply a microhub) was defined as a special case of UCC with closer proximity to the delivery point and serving a smaller range of service area. A microhub is a logistics facility where goods are bundled inside the urban area boundaries, that serves a limited spatial range, and that allows a mode shift to low-emission vehicles or soft transportation modes (e.g., walking or cargo bikes) for last-mile deliveries.

Authors: Urban Freight Lab
Recommended Citation:
Urban Freight Lab (2020). Common MicroHub Research Project: Research Scan.
Technical Report

Requirements for a Washington State Freight Simulation Model

 
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URL: https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/17431
Publication: Transportation Northwest (TransNow)
Publication Date: 2009
Summary:

In the face of many risks of disruptions to our transportation system, including natural disasters, inclement weather, terrorist acts, work stoppages, and other potential transportation disruptions, it is imperative for freight transportation system partners to plan a transportation system that can recover quickly from disruption and to prevent long-term negative economic consequences to state and regional economies. In this report we specify the requirements of a statewide freight resiliency model. We recommend a geographic information system (GIS)-based, multi-modal Washington state freight transportation network that can be augmented with complete state-wide commodity flow data. With this, the state will be able to improve freight planning and infrastructure investment prioritization. We provide recommendations regarding the scope of and methodology for a statewide freight model that will be developed from the GIS network. This model can be used to estimate the vulnerability of different economic industry sectors to disruptions in the transportation system and the economic impacts of those disruptions with in the State of Washington. The team interviewed public sector users to understand what applications are of value in a statewide freight model and applied the lessons learned through building the GIS and conducting two case studies to make recommendations for future work.

Over the last ten years, the U.S. transportation infrastructure has suffered from significant disruptions: for example, the terrorist events of September 11, 2001, the West Coast lockout of dock labor union members, and roadway failures following Hurricane Katrina. There is certainly an impression that these events are more common than in the past and that they come with an increasing economic impact. At the same time, supply chain and transportation management techniques have created lean supply chains, and lack of infrastructure development has created more reliance on individual pieces or segments of the transportation network, such as the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and Washington States’ ports of Seattle and Tacoma. Disruptions, when they occur to essential pieces of the network, cause significant impacts. In particular, they cause significant damage to the economic system.

The relationship between infrastructure and economic activity, however, is not well understood. The development of a statewide freight model will allow WSDOT to better understand this relationship, and improve transportation system resilience.

Authors: Dr. Anne GoodchildDr. Ed McCormack, Eric Jessup
Recommended Citation:
Goodchild, A. , Jessup, E. , and McCormack, E. Requirements for a Washington State Freight Simulation Model. TNW2009-11. Transportation Northwest, University of Washington, 2009.
Technical Report

Developing Design Guidelines for Commercial Vehicle Envelopes on Urban Streets (Technical Report)

 
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URL: https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/55776
Publication Date: 2020
Summary:

This report presents research to improve the understanding of curb space and delivery needs in urban areas. Observations of delivery operations to determine vehicle type, loading actions, door locations, and accessories used were conducted. Once common practices had been identified, then simulated loading activities were measured to quantify different types of loading space requirements around commercial vehicles. This resulted in a robust measurement of the operating envelope required to reduce conflicts between truck loading and unloading activities with adjacent pedestrian, bicycle, and motor vehicle activities.

A bicycling simulator experiment examined bicycle and truck interactions in a variety of CVLZ designs. The experiment was completed by 50 participants. The bicycling simulator collected data regarding a participant’s velocity, lane position, and acceleration. Three independent variables were included in this experiment: pavement marking (No, Minimum, or Recommended CVLZ), Courier Position (none, behind vehicle, on driver’s side), and Accessory (none or hand truck). The results support the development of commercial loading zone design recommendations that will allow our urban street system to operate more efficiently, safely, and reliably for all users.

As urban populations and freight activities grow, there is continued pressure for multiple modes to share urban streets and compete for curb space. Cities are recognizing curb space as valuable public real estate that must be better understood and designed in order to improve the quality of life for residents and the transportation systems of cities.

Current commercial vehicle load zones are not well designed to accommodate safe, efficient, and reliable deliveries. Commercial vehicles using urban curbside loading zones are not typically provided with a consistent envelope, or a space allocation adjacent to the vehicle for deliveries. While completing loading and unloading activities, drivers are required to walk around the vehicle, extend ramps and handling equipment, and maneuver goods; these activities require space around the vehicle. But these unique space needs of delivery trucks are not commonly acknowledged by or incorporated in current urban design practices. Due to this lack of a truck envelope, drivers of commercial vehicles are observed using pedestrian pathways and bicycling infrastructure for unloading activities as well as walking in traffic lanes. These actions put themselves, and other road users in direct conflict and potentially in harm’s way.

This project improves our understanding of curb space requirements and delivery needs in urban areas. The research approach involved the observation of delivery activities operations to measure the envelope required for different vehicle types, loading actions, door locations, and accessories. Once the envelope was determined the (simulator was used).

Common loading and unloading practices and where freight activities occurred in relationship to trucks (sides, back, or front) were initially identified by observing twenty-five curbside deliveries in urban Seattle. The research team next collaborated with three delivery companies with active operations in urban areas. These companies proved access to their facilities, nine different urban delivery vehicles, and a variety of loading accessories. The research team initially recorded the commercial vehicle’s closed vehicle footprint without any possible extensions engaged. Next the open vehicle footprint was measured when all vehicle parts such as doors, lift gates, and ramps were extended for delivery operations. Finally, the active vehicle footprint was recorded as the companies’ drivers simulated deliveries which allowed the research team to observe and precisely measure driver and accessory paths around the vehicle.

This process resulted in robust measurements, tailored to different types of truck configurations, loading equipment and accessories, of the operating envelope around a commercial vehicle. These measurements, added to the foot print of a user-selected delivery truck sizes, provides the envelope needed to reduce conflicts between truck loading and unloading activities and adjacent pedestrian, bicycle, and motor vehicle activities.

A bicycling simulator experiment examined bicycle and truck interactions in a variety of CVLZ designs. The experiment was successfully completed by 50 participants. The bicycling simulator collected data regarding a participant’s velocity, lane position, and acceleration.

Three independent variables were included in this experiment: pavement marking (No, Minimum, or Recommended CVLZ), Courier Position (none, behind vehicle, on driver’s side), and Accessory (none or hand truck). Several summary observations resulted from the bicycling simulator experiment:

  • A bicyclist passing by no loading zone (truck is obstructing bike lane) or minimum loading zone (truck next to the bike lane without a buffer) had a significantly lower speed than a bicyclist passing a preferred loading zone (truck has an extra buffer). A smaller loading zone had a ix decreasing effect on mean speed, with a courier exiting on the driver side of the truck causing the lowest mean speed.
  • A courier on the driver’s side of the truck had an increasing effect on mean lateral position, with a no CVLZ causing the highest divergence from the right edge of the bike lane. Consequently, bicyclists shifted their position toward the left edge of bike lane and into the adjacent travel lane. Moreover, some bicyclists used the crosswalk to avoid the delivery truck and the travel lane.
  • In the presence of a courier on the driver’s side of the truck, the minimum CVLZ tended to be the most disruptive for bicyclists since they tended to depart from the bike lane toward the adjacent vehicular travel lane.
  • When the bicyclist approached a delivery vehicle parked in the bicycle lane, they had to choose between using the travel lane or the sidewalk. About one third of participants decided to use the sidewalk.

From our results, commercial loading zone best practice envelope recommendations can be developed that will allow our urban street system to operate more efficiently, safely, and reliably for all users

Authors: Dr. Ed McCormackDr. Anne GoodchildManali Sheth, David S. Hurwitz, Hisham Jashami, Douglas P. Cobb
Recommended Citation:
McCormack, Ed. Anne Goodchild, Manali Sheth, et.al. (2020). Developing Design Guidelines for Commercial Vehicle Envelopes on Urban Streets.
Technical Report

Multimodal Freight Project Prioritization

 
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URL: https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/27326
Publication: Oregon Department of Transportation, Research Section
Volume: FHWA-OR-RD-14-11
Publication Date: 2014
Summary:

As available data has increased and as the national transportation funding bills have moved toward objective evaluation, departments of transportation (DOTs) throughout the country have begun to develop tools to measure the impacts of different projects. Increasingly, DOTs recognize the freight transportation system is necessarily multimodal. However, few DOTs have clearly stated objective tools to make multimodal freight project comparisons. This report informs that gap by summarizing the existing academic literature on the state of the science for freight project impact estimation and reviewing methods currently used by select DOTs nationwide. These methods are analyzed to identify common themes and determine potential avenues for multimodal project evaluation. Most methods either take the form of benefit-cost analysis or a scorecard approach. Examples of each were reviewed in-depth and patterns evaluated. While most tools use similar measures, the supporting metrics vary widely and are not applicable to all modes.

Authors: Dr. Anne Goodchild, Erica Wygonik, B. Starr McMullen, Daniel Holder
Recommended Citation:
Goodchild, Anne, Erica Wygonik, B. Starr McMullen, and Daniel Holder. Multimodal freight project prioritization. No. FHWA-OR-RD-14-11. Oregon Dept. of Transportation, Research Section, 2014. 
Technical Report

Route Machine: UW Medicine Department of Medicine Courier Services

 
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Publication Date: 2019
Summary:

The goal of this report is to survey the current state of practice of UW Medicine Department of Laboratory Medicine Courier Services in order to evaluate potential software(s) that can be implemented to fill information gaps needed to effectively and efficiently make informed decisions. The report describes the high-level goals and decision scope of the route machine, observations of the current state, evaluation criteria and ‘route machine’ options.

The information in this report can be used to inform:

  • What data insights (indicators) might be helpful for strategizing courier routing decisions and communicating information to leadership
  • Potential improvement strategies and what they might look like in implementation
  • Suitability of various data collection, visualization, and analytical tools, and off-the-shelf packages

This information provides the UW Department of Laboratory Medicine Courier Services the information needed to select tools(s), and general data insights the ‘route machine’ for implementation.

The rest of this document is organized as follows:

  • Objectives and decision scope of the ‘route machine’
  • Observations of the current routes
  • A list of key-performance indicators
  • Potential strategies for improving routes
  • Recommendations
  • Screenshots of Dashboard Prototypes and WorkWaze
Authors: Chelsea GreeneDr. Anne Goodchild
Recommended Citation:
Greene, Chelsea and Anne Goodchild (2019). Route Machine: UW Medicine Department of Medicine Courier Services.
Technical Report

Improved Freight Modeling of Containerized Cargo Shipments between Ocean Port, Handling Facility, and Final Market for Regional Policy and Planning

 
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URL: http://www.lib.washington.edu/msd/norestriction/b60958108.pdf
Publication: Transportation Northwest (TransNow)
Publication Date: 2008
Summary:
The proposed research will address an emerging need by local, state and regional transportation planners and policymakers to better understand the transportation characteristics, functions and dynamics of ocean port-to-handling facility and handling facility-to-final market freight movements. The research will also address a gap in the academic literature for freight transportation models that capture underlying economic forces. This research effort will focus on the development and refinement of a regional freight model of urban container movements from the port to a handling facility and beyond. Existing regional transportation planning models and analytical tools have evolved from passenger travel demand models that are ill-suited to fully capture the business decisions and economic influences driving urban freight flows and have been further constrained by access to appropriate freight data. This research activity proposes a modeling approach which will capture the fundamental economic choices individual shippers consider when trading-off the marginal benefits/costs associated with warehouse inventory management/control relative to transportation access and flow while incorporating the primary freight generation activity centers (warehouse/distribution centers) in the Puget Sound region. This work will identify, evaluate and incorporate data for the Puget Sound region recently available from a variety of existing sources. Some data collection may also be necessary. The final product of this research study will be an improved tool to understand current and future freight movements through the Puget Sound region, and a methodology which will expand the current state of knowledge, and may be applied in other regions, both domestic and international. It will allow more in-depth and timely evaluation and analysis of different local/regional transportation policy initiatives such as the impact of migration of the main warehousing region, and development of inland inter-modal port facilities.

 

 

Authors: Dr. Anne Goodchild, Kaori Fugisawa, Eric Jessup
Recommended Citation:
Goodchild, Anne V., Eric L. Jessup, and Kaori Fugisawa. Improved Freight Modeling of Containerized Cargo Shipments between Ocean Port, Handling Facility, and Final Market for Regional Policy and Planning. No. TNW2008-08. 2008.