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Blog
Published: 2022
Authors: Travis Fried
Journal/Book: Goods Movement 2030: An Urban Freight Blog
Summary:
What does an equitable and just freight system actually look like? We asked UFL members this question at the summer 2022 quarterly meeting. Their responses, shown in the graphic below, cover a wide range of ideas and topics. Some define equity in terms of equal access to the numerous benefits a freight system brings; others call for a reduction in freight costs — like pollution, noise, and traffic — to historically marginalized people. Members differ on who the appropriate stakeholders...
Related Research Project:
Urban Freight in 2030
Paper
Published: 2022
Authors: Dr. Anne GoodchildFiete Krutein, Linda Ng Boyle (University of Washington Dept. of Industrial & Systems Engineering)
Journal/Book: IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)
Summary:
This paper provides an approximation method for the optimization of isolated evacuation operations, modeled through the recently introduced Isolated Community Evacuation Problem (ICEP). This routing model optimizes the planning for evacuations of isolated areas, such as islands, mountain valleys, or locations cut off through hostile military action or other hazards that are not accessible by road and require evacuation by a coordinated set of special equipment.
Presentation
Published: 2022
Journal/Book: 9th International Urban Freight Conference, Long Beach, May 2022
Summary:
While several stakeholders in the private and public sectors are taking actions and drafting roadmaps to achieve sustainable urban freight goals, the urban freight ecosystem is a complex network of stakeholders, achieving such sustainability goals requires the collaboration and coordination between multiple agents. Researchers collected and synthesized views from both the private and public sectors on what is needed to sustainably deliver the last mile and identify roadblocks towards this goal.
Paper
Published: 2022
Journal/Book: Proceedings of American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Transportation and Development Conference 2022: Transportation Planning and Workforce Development
Summary:
(This project is part of the Urban Freight Lab’s Technical Assistance Program, where UFL contributes to the project by providing 1:1 match funds in terms of staff and/or research assistants to complete project tasks.) Green Loading Zones (GLZs) are curb spaces dedicated to the use of electric or alternative fuel (“green”) delivery vehicles. Some U.S. cities have begun piloting GLZs to incentivize companies to purchase and operate more green vehicles.
Article, Special Issue
Published: 2022
Authors: Dr. Anne Goodchild, Michael Browne (University of Gothenburg)
Journal/Book: Research in Transportation Business & Management (RTBM)
Summary:
To address the accessibility and sustainability challenges of urban logistics it is important to consider urban logistics from a number of perspectives. This includes considering: spatial context i.e. not focusing solely on the urban center or core but also in terms of actions taken in broader logistics and supply chain management. stakeholders i.e. including all key decision makers and constituents.
Presentation
Published: 2022
Journal/Book: 9th International Urban Freight Conference, Long Beach, May 2022
Summary:
Common-carrier parcel lockers have emerged as a secure, automated, self-service means of delivery consolidation in congested urban areas, which are believed to mitigate last-mile delivery challenges by reducing out-of-vehicle delivery times and consequently vehicle dwell times at the curb. However, little research exists to empirically demonstrate the environmental and efficiency gains from this technology.
Report
Published: 2022
Summary:
In an effort to reduce emissions from last-mile deliveries and incentivize green vehicle adoption, The New York City Department of Transportation (NYC DOT) is seeking to implement a Green Loading Zone (GLZ) pilot program. A Green Loading Zone is curb space designated for the sole use of “green” vehicles, which could include electric and alternative fuel vehicles as well as other zero-emission delivery modes like electric-assist cargo bikes.
Presentation
Published: 2022
Journal/Book: 9th International Urban Freight Conference, Long Beach, May 2022
Summary:
Cities need new load/unload space concepts to efficiently move freight, particularly as autonomous vehicles (both passenger and freight) become feasible. This research aims to: understand the importance of off-street commercial parking, understand how off-street facilities are managed, and determine whether off-street commercial parking is an underutilized resource for urban goods delivery.
Report
Published: 2022
Summary:
Just as there has been a push for more climate-friendly passenger travel in recent years, that same push is building for freight travel. At the same time ecommerce is booming and goods delivery in cities is rising, sustainability has become a policy focus for city governments and a corporate priority for companies. Why? Cities report being motivated to be responsive to residents, businesses, and the goals of elected leaders.
Article
Published: 2022
Journal/Book: The Conversation
Summary:
How many Amazon packages get delivered each year? – Aya K., age 9, Illinois It’s incredibly convenient to buy something online, right from your computer or phone. Whether it’s a high-end telescope or a resupply of toothpaste, the goods appear right at your doorstep. This kind of shopping is called “e-commerce” and it’s becoming more popular each year. In the U.S., it has grown from a mere 7% of retail purchases in 2012 to 19.6% of retail and $791.7 billion...
Presentation
Published: 2022
Journal/Book: 9th International Urban Freight Conference, Long Beach, May 2022
Summary:
Micro-consolidation implementations and 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.
Paper
Published: 2022
Journal/Book: Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board
Summary:
Common-carrier parcel lockers present a solution for decreasing delivery times, traffic congestion, and emissions in dense urban areas through consolidation of deliveries. Multi-story residential buildings with large numbers of residents, and thus a high volume of online package orders, are one of the best venues for installing parcel lockers. But what is the right size for a residential building locker that would suit the residents’ and building managers’ needs?
Paper
Published: 2022
Authors: Dr. Giacomo Dalla Chiara, Andre Alho, Simon Oh, Ravi Seshadri, Wen Han Chong, Takanori Sakai, Lynette Cheah, Moshe Ben-Akiva
Journal/Book: Research in Transportation Business & Management
Summary:
A growing body of research looks specifically at freight vehicle parking choices for purposes of deliveries to street retail, and choice impacts on travel time/uncertainty, congestion, and emissions. However, little attention was given to large urban freight traffic generators, e.g., shopping malls and commercial buildings with offices and retail. These pose different challenges to manage freight vehicle parking demand, due to the limited parking options.
Presentation
Published: 2022
Authors: Travis Fried
Journal/Book: Laboratoire Ville Mobilite Transport (City Transportation Mobility Laboratory), Paris
Summary:
The central research question for this project explores the distributional impacts of ecommerce and its implications for equity and justice. The research aims to investigate how commercial land use affects people and communities. In 2018, U.S. warehouses surpassed office buildings as the primary form of commercial and industrial land use, now accounting for 18 billion square feet of floor space.
Article
Published: 2022
Authors: Amelia Regan, Udayan Mandal, Julian Yarkony
Journal/Book:  arXiv e-prints (2022): arXiv-2209
Summary:
In this research we consider an approach for improving the efficiency and tightness of column generation (CG) methods for solving vehicle routing problems. This work builds upon recent work on Local Area (LA) routes. LA routes rely on pre-computing (prior to any call to pricing during CG) the lowest cost elementary sub-route (called an LA arc) for each tuple consisting of the following: (1) a customer to begin the LA arc, (2) a customer to end the LA arc, which...