Research Projects

Summary:
The Urban Freight Lab leads the technical research and policy work for the City Climate Innovation Challenge, developing tools and strategies to help U.S. cities implement and scale zero-emissions delivery solutions.

Summary:
This project will test an innovative set of incentives and regulations to better understand what technology and strategies municipalities can use to support and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the freight sector.

Summary:
The Urban Freight Lab is a key technical and research partner on the Miami-Dade County SMART Curbs Program, part of a multi-city effort funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation to improve curb management, bike lane safety, and zero-emission last-mile delivery.

Summary:
The Urban Freight Lab partnered with Net Zero Logistics, the City of Boston, and the Boston Transportation Department on an e-cargo bike delivery program with the goal of supporting local businesses, reducing pollution, easing traffic congestion, and improving street safety.

Summary:
This project studies delivery drivers’ walking and parking behavior in urban logistics, where much of last-mile delivery happens outside the vehicle. A collaboration between the Urban Freight Lab and KTH Royal Institute of Technology, the goal is to model these behaviors and evaluate solutions like e-carts and improved parking strategies to support more efficient and sustainable urban delivery.

Summary:
Seattle is part of C40’s Zero Emission Area Programme, which aims to restrict fossil fuel vehicles in designated zones to reduce emissions and test zero-emission policies. This project examines the impacts on urban freight and logistics, including EV adoption challenges and emerging strategies such as e-cargo bikes, curb management, and consolidation approaches.

Summary:
This collaborative effort will analyze the consequences of misloaded packages incidents in order to optimize delivery efficiency, minimize environmental impacts, and contribute to more efficient and environmentally sustainable urban freight practices.

Summary:
Food security, defined as access at all times to nutritious food, is a necessary condition for human beings to thrive and have an active and healthy life. In Seattle, about 13 percent of adults experienced food insecurity. Moreover, food security is not equitably distributed across the population. Food insecurity is more common in households with young children, with single parents, with incomes below 185 percent of the poverty threshold, in Black and Hispanic populations, and in principal metropolitan areas.

Summary:
With the rise in demand for home deliveries and the boom of the e-bike market in the U.S., cargo cycles are becoming the alternative mode of transporting goods in urban areas. However, many U.S. cities are struggling to decide how to safely integrate this new mode of transportation into the pre-existing urban environment. In response, the Urban Freight Lab is authoring a white paper on how cities can prepare for and promote large-scale adoption of cargo cycle transportation. Sponsors include freight logistics providers, bicycle industry leaders, and agencies Bosch eBike Systems, Fleet Cycles, Gazelle USA, Michelin North America, Inc., Net Zero Logistics, the Seattle Department of Transportation, and Urban Arrow.

Summary:
The Urban Freight in 2030 project explores emerging trends shaping urban freight and their implications for sustainable development. Drawing on the expertise of Urban Freight Lab members, partners, researchers, and subject matter experts, the project develops a shared vision for the future of urban delivery. The resulting vision documents outline key opportunities, challenges, and strategic priorities for urban freight systems through 2030.

Summary:
This project seeks to examine how microfreight hubs can increase equity to services, benefit historically marginalized communities, and be joined to share micromobility options, social service agencies and minority businesses in North Fort Smith, Arkansas. The Urban Freight Lab will assist Frontier MPO and the City of Fort Smith in this work create a cohesive strategy to develop a sound planning process, to grow collaborative relationships, to produce a sustainable business model, and to implement a microfreight hub pilot project that leverages community resources.

Summary:
(This project is being conducted under the Urban Freight Lab's (UFL) 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.) This project focuses on conducting targeted freight industry market research to identify strategies that can support charting a pathway to zero-emission freight strategies for New York City by 2050 and identify the associated roadblocks and barriers to entry. 

Summary:
Through synthesis of existing literature and interviews conducted with private and public stakeholders, this project aims to provide an overview of the barriers to achieving sustainable urban freight. The research will highlight key strategies that can enable sustainable last mile delivery in the urban environment and, importantly, outline the specific roadblocks to carrying out those strategies. This will help companies and public entities form sustainability plans and understand where collaboration between the two sectors in needed.

Summary:
The Urban Freight Lab's Common Microhub project provides an opportunity for members to test and evaluate urban logistics strategies on the ground in Seattle's Uptown neighborhood. As third-party logistics companies enter the last-mile space and more cities commit to environmental focus and zero emission vision, the interest around creating logistics places in urban proximity is growing. The outcomes of this research can guide the development of future microhub implementations in other cities.

Summary:
The City of Seattle granted a permit to United Parcel Service, Inc. (UPS) in fall 2018 to pilot test a new e-bike parcel delivery system in the Pioneer Square/Belltown area for one year. The Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) commissioned the Urban Freight Lab (UFL) to quantify and document the public impacts of this multimodal delivery system change in the final 50 feet of supply chains, to provide data and evidence for development of future urban freight policies. The UFL will conduct analyses into the several research questions.