The Urban Goods Delivery System Toolkit is designed to help transportation professionals and researchers gather key data needed to make the Final 50 Feet segment function as efficiently as possible, reducing both the time trucks park in load/unload spaces and the number of failed first delivery attempts. In addition, the toolkit can help transportation planners, traffic engineers, freight system managers, parking and operations strategists, and researchers build a fundamental knowledge base for planning; managing parking operations; managing emergency management and response; updating traffic, land use and building codes; and modeling future scenarios and needs. In short, the toolkit can be used to help cities meet the ever-increasing demand for truck and other load/unload activities.
All tools are open access and are free to read, download, copy, and distribute.
Curb Occupancy Toolkit
The Curb Occupancy Toolkit helps policymakers and transportation officials understand the load/unload network’s interconnected nature, how the city’s curbs are being used at street level, and how parking policies and built environment impact that use. This toolkit draws on a curb occupancy study by the Urban Freight Lab at the University of Washington Supply Chain Transportation & Logistics Center, tracking parking activity along the blocks surrounding five archetypal buildings in Seattle’s Greater Downtown. The toolkit details how to conduct a study that captures the parking behavior of commercial vehicles everywhere along the block face as well as the parking activities of all vehicles in commercial vehicle loading zones.
Alley Occupancy Toolkit
The Alley Occupancy Toolkit:Seattle is believed to be the first city in the U.S. and the E.U. to comprehensively map the Center City area’s commercial vehicle load/unload space network, including its alleys. The UFL occupancy study is linked to that inventory study, as alley design and functional features directly impact how commercial operators use alleys. This study documents commercial vehicle occupancy of representative alleys to better understand alleys’ current use and operational capacity, recording use-patterns such as how long vehicles were parked in alleys; how long and what times of day alleys were vacant; and what types of vehicles were parking in alleys.
Private Loading Infrastructure Inventory Toolkit
The data methods in this toolkit were designed and used to create both a GIS map and an inventory of key physical features of all private loading docks, bays and areas for commercial vehicles in Seattle’s First Hill and Capitol Hill neighborhoods. The physical, truck-related attributes collected—grouped into location, design and capacity features—directly impact private infrastructure operations.
Alley Infrastructure Inventory Toolkit
The data methods in this toolkit were designed and used to create a complete GIS database of the 417 alleys in Seattle’s Center City area, mapping the alley network’s geospatial location and documenting physical (truck-related) attributes measurements of alleys’ key. These attributes directly impact alley operations and functionality. Seattle Department of Transportation and Urban Freight Lab researchers purposefully chose which truck-related features to include in the alley inventory after consulting with both UFL members who deliver goods (such as UPS and USPS) and with other city agencies (such as law enforcement, fire, and public utilities) that regularly use alleys. For security purposes, law enforcement needs to know where alley entrances to buildings are located; the fire department must navigate large trucks through alleys; and utility infrastructure is frequently located in alleys.
Contact:
Kelly Rula
Director of Policy and Partnerships, Urban Freight Lab
krula@uw.edu
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About the Urban Freight Lab (UFL): An innovative public-private partnership housed at the Supply Chain Transportation & Logistics Center at the University of Washington, the Urban Freight Lab is a structured workgroup that brings together private industry with City transportation officials to design and test solutions around urban freight management.
About the Supply Chain Transportation & Logistics Center: The Supply Chain Transportation and Logistics Center at the University of Washington is the go-to place to analyze and solve urban goods delivery, sustainability, logistic hubs and ports, and freight system performance management problems that overlap private and public spaces and control. Our work integrates in-depth consultation with industry and the public sector, transformative research, and executive education, and serves the powerful nexus of industry, transportation infrastructure, and policymakers.