In 2023, Portland was awarded a U.S. Department of Transportation SMART grant to pilot a Zero-Emission Delivery Zone (ZEDZ). Funding for this Stage One SMART grant will allow PBOT to trial changing three to five truck loading zones into “Zero-Emission Delivery” loading zones in downtown Portland. The Urban Freight Lab (UFL) was approached by PBOT to assist in their SMART grant implementation by providing subject matter expertise on the topics of urban freight, curb management, and freight decarbonization. The UFL team created a questionnaire and interview guide to inquire about current carrier operations, current and future fleet composition, and loading activities of carriers operating in the City of Portland.
The selected organizations were identified as carriers or organizations that make deliveries into the proposed Zero-Emission Delivery Zone (ZEDZ) in downtown Portland. The UFL reached out to over 20 different organizations spanning different business sectors and company sizes, from large national parcel carriers to regional wholesale distributors to small delivery companies. Ultimately, only four organizations responded to requests for interviews. Between June and August 2024, the UFL conducted these interviews. Table 1 provides an overview of the companies interviewed and their main business activities. Company and organization names are omitted from this report to anonymize the respondents.
The goal of the interviews was to understand the parking behaviors and fleets of individual companies. In particular, the interviewers focused on understanding the current delivery operations in the Portland area, the related parking and routing behaviors of their delivery drivers, fleet composition, and the challenges they face in performing deliveries in the study area.
Each interview was 1-hour long and was guided on a questionnaire reported in the appendix. The questionnaire was developed into three sections:
- Organization – Describe their main business activities, logistics network and fleet composition.
- Routing, parking, and payment behaviors – Description of typical drivers’ operations in the City of Portland and specifically downtown, including routing and parking behaviors, as well as use of paid parking and citations.
- Future scenarios – Companies were asked about zero-emission vehicles and implications of the ZEDZ on operations.
This report contains the main results of the interviews, including a description of the logistics network infrastructure, delivery operations, and curb use behaviors. The final section provides the key lessons learned.