Article, Special Issue

Urban Logistics: From Research to Implementation

URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rtbm.2022.100913

Publication: Research in Transportation Business & Management (RTBM)

Volume: 45 (A)

Publication Date: 2022

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.
complexity and heterogeneity of activities (range of vehicles used, the products carried, location of distribution centers, and the variety found in city size, form, and governance).

This diversity of perspectives, and their influence on the urban freight system, makes it challenging to identify simple solutions to problems.

A number of forces are also at work impacting change in the urban logistics system. Technological innovation affecting urban logistics includes digitalization, e.g. the Internet of Things (important in terms of connected objects) and big data. These developments are already established and beginning to have an impact or at least implications in the field of urban logistics and freight transport. However, problems will not be solved by technology alone and it is essential to understand how behavior (at the individual and corporate level) influences outcomes and needs to change. Research needs to address interactions between stakeholders and the role of city authorities in promoting innovation and change.

Cities are complex environments and urban logistics has to adapt to these demands. The complexity of cities also gives rise to a debate about the extent to which problems (and their possible solutions) may be considered context-specific. This leads to questions relating to how initiatives should be scaled up to gain greater traction in dealing with challenges now and in the future. It is important to learn as much as possible from the high number of projects and new services that have been implemented in cities over the past ten years. These range from initiatives related to electric vehicles, through locker box systems and the role of the receiver in making change happen. How to learn and then apply the lessons from projects is an important question. In many cases it has been argued that the underlying business model has not been addressed successfully leading to the problem of projects lasting only as long as some form of project funding is available.

Authors: Dr. Anne Goodchild, Michael Browne (University of Gothenburg)

Recommended Citation:
Michael Browne, Anne Goodchild. Urban Logistics: From Research to Implementation, Research in Transportation Business & Management, Volume 45 (A) 2022, 100913, ISSN 2210-5395, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rtbm.2022.100913.

Presentation

Ecommerce and Environmental Justice in Metro Seattle U.S.

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URL: https://www.lvmt.fr/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/TRAVIS-FINAL_PRESENTATION_08092022.pdf

Publication: Laboratoire Ville Mobilite Transport (City Transportation Mobility Laboratory), Paris

Publication Date: 2022

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. Warehouses have experienced significant growth in both number and square footage, becoming the predominant land use in the U.S. Warehouse expansion has strategically sprawled from port areas to suburbs in order to get closer to populations and transportation access.

The research findings reveal a correlation between warehouse locations and lower-income communities, resulting in increased exposure to air pollution and triple the traffic associated with ecommerce. Conversely, higher-income populations experience the least exposure, despite making more than half of their purchases online compared to their lower-income counterparts.

Factors such as race and proximity to highways and warehouse locations emerge as stronger predictors of the volume of freight activity through ecommerce than individuals’ income levels or the number of orders placed. Going forward, there is an opportunity for retailers and distributors to take into account the health implications of warehouse placement, and governments can provide best practices to facilitate municipal coordination, particularly where local authorities may be unaware of the impacts.

Authors: Travis Fried

Technical Report

Washington State Freight System Resiliency

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URL: https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/17237

Publication: Transportation Northwest (TransNow)

Publication Date: 2009

Summary:

The economic viability and well-being of Washington State is significantly influenced by the freight transportation system serving the region. An increased understanding of the vulnerability of this freight system to natural disasters, weather, terrorist acts, work stoppages and other potential freight transportation disruptions will provide the State with the information necessary to assess the resiliency of the transportation system, and provide policy makers with the information required to improve it. This research project: a) Identifies a set of threats or categories of threats to be analyzed. b) Assesses the likelihood of each event occurring within certain time horizons. c) With the threats and their probabilities, analyzes the resiliency of the Washington transportation system.

Authors: Dr. Anne GoodchildDr. Ed McCormack, Eric Jessup, Derek Andreoli, Kelly Pitera, Chilan Ta

Recommended Citation:
Goodchild, A., Jessup, E., McCormack, E., Ta, C., Pitera, K., & Andreoli, D. (2009). Washington state freight system resiliency (No. TNW2009-01). Transportation Northwest (Organization).

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.