The Urban Freight Lab (UFL) is partnering with ECONorthwest and Cityfi to develop a research product for the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) on the topic of revenue strategies for new mobility options. The team will analyze the public sector’s potential role in using revenue-related strategies to encourage or discourage new mobility options in personal mobility and goods delivery.
Transportation services often operate in publicly owned and publicly managed spaces, make use of public rights-of-way, and produce mobility benefits for a broad array of users. The public sector is responsible for managing and pricing those rights-of-way and delivering services in an equitable way. Recovering the public costs of management and provisioning from private transportation services and their users is essential for maintaining public benefit. And sometimes the public sector needs to help private services to thrive.
The research methodology for this project is designed to be iterative: activities and research will build on previous research and activities. We will begin with the development of a revenue framework informed by a broad review of the literature, a policy scan, and workshop sessions with transportation and other public agency representatives that regulate and collect revenue from new mobility services. The framework will include revenue-related strategies based on:
-
- (a) identifiable need
- (b) nexus to cost responsibility
- (c) policy outcome
- (d) other factors such as access to technology and ease of administration.
We will then take a deeper dive into each personal mobility mode and goods delivery market segment to apply the framework. We will also provide examples to illustrate the opportunities and challenges of a variety of revenue strategies. We will also conduct additional workshops with public agency representatives, industry representatives, and other transportation stakeholders. Finally, we will create a spreadsheet-based Revenue Calculator that allows interested individuals to estimate how much revenue could be generated using different assumptions and strategies. The work will culminate with the development of a Toolkit that will be submitted to NCHRP and made available for wider distribution.
Objectives
The objective of this research is to develop a toolkit for transportation agencies that addresses how revenue-related strategies (e.g., taxes, fees, and subsidies) support policy objectives and shape the deployment of new mobility options. The toolkit will assist agencies to develop, evaluate, implement, and administer revenue-related strategies for new mobility options that transport people and goods.
The research will include:
- New and evolving transportation options for people and goods that interact with the existing built environment and travel throughout an area
- Incentives and disincentives that result from revenue-related strategies
- Policy implications of revenue-related strategies for new mobility options including revenue potential, mobility, travel demand, safety, equity, environment, economic development, infrastructure design, operations, and maintenance
- Mechanisms for revenue collection and distribution for different mobility options in different scenarios
- The ease and difficulty of implementing and enforcing different revenue-related strategies for new mobility options
- Potential roles and responsibilities of governmental organizations and private entities
This research aims to develop innovative methods for managing curb lane function and curb access. The rapid rise of autonomous vehicles (AV), on-demand transportation, and e-commerce goods deliveries, as well as increased cycling rates and transit use, is increasing demand for curb space resulting in competition between modes, failed goods deliveries, roadway and curbside congestion, and illegal parking.
The research findings will improve mobility by increasing the understanding of existing curb usage and provide new solutions to city officials, planners, and engineers responsible for managing this scarce resource in the future.
The research team will work closely with several cities in the PacTrans region to ensure the study’s relevance to their needs, and that the results will be broadly applicable for other cities.
This research will allow for the development of innovative curb space designs and ensure that our urban street system may operate more efficiently, safely, and reliably for both goods and people.
The City of Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) engaged the Urban Freight Lab to conduct research on the impacts of a Freight and Transit-Only (FAT) Lane in place in January 2019. The research findings will be used to understand the FAT Lane’s performance towards achieving city goals and to guide the development of future FAT Lane projects.
The Seattle Freight Master Plan includes a FAT Lane strategy to reach the city’s economic goals:
- (2) Economy – Provide a freight network that supports a thriving and diverse economy for Seattle and the region.
- (2.4) Maintain and improve truck freight mobility and access between and within the city’s MICs and to the regional highway system
- (2.4.2) Explore and test the use of truck-only lanes to improve freight mobility on city streets with high truck volumes
SDOT’s key research interests in this project are to:
- Document whether the FAT Lane’s benefits to truck drivers were strong enough to attract heavy freight vehicles from using other downtown streets. This will be measured by comparing truck volume on the Lane during implementation to volume after it was closed.
- Determine whether passenger cars followed the posted FAT Lane restrictions. This will be measured by documenting the number of cars violating the rule.
- Document transit use during the implementation period.
Background:
The Alaskan Way Viaduct, a major freight thoroughfare in Seattle, was closed on January 11, 2019 significantly reducing capacity in the already congested road network in Greater Downtown Seattle. To improve freight and transit access to commercial and industrial areas in the city, the City of Seattle Department of Transportation, in partnership with the WSDOT, temporarily installed two blocks of a Freight and Transit Lane on Alaskan Way.
The FAT Lane was in the curb lane only, on southbound Alaskan Way (at street level, not on the Viaduct). The 2-block segment is north of Little H on Alaskan Way, which provides access to Colorado and Alaskan Way. The FAT Lane supported Port of Seattle operations.
Research Tasks:
The following tasks will be completed by the Urban Freight Lab:
Task 1 – Research Scan
Subtasks:
- Conduct a short research scan of published reports that provide data-based evidence of the results of FAT Lane projects.
- Write a 2-3 page summary of the results of other FAT Lane projects
Task 2 – Analysis of video data
Subtasks:
- SDOT will provide video of the FAT Lane segment taken when the Lane was open and after it closed, to the UFL. The UFL will categorize and count vehicles in the lane as follows:
- Transit/bus
- Passenger/car
- Truck/freight:
- Drayage with container
- Drayage without container
- All other trucks/freight vehicles. This category includes: delivery vans/trucks, construction and waste vehicles, and if readily apparent service commercial vehicles.
- Other vehicles, e.g. those lacking differentiating features to categorize.
- UFL will analyze the count data and include key findings in the final report. The analysis will include:
- A comparison of truck volume on the Lane during implementation to the volume after it was closed. This may include time of day, day of week, or other factors.
- The number of passenger cars in the Lane during implementation. e.g. the number of violators.
- The UFL researchers will also explore whether comparing data collected in the Greater Downtown Cordon study to data collected in this study yields valid findings.