pacific nw transportation consortium region 10 Pactrans

Developing Better Curb Management Strategies through Understanding Commercial Vehicle Driver Parking Behavior in a Simulated Environment

PI: Anne Goodchild (UW), annegood@uw.edu, ORCID: 0000-0003-1595-0570

Co PIs: Ed McCormack (UW), David Hurwitz (OSU), and Andisheh Ranjbari (UW)

AMOUNT & MATCH: $180,000 from PacTrans; $180,000 Match

PERFORMANCE PERIOD: 3/16/2021 – 3/15/2022

STATUS: Completed

CATEGORIES: Curbspace Management, Commercial Delivery Vehicles

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DESCRIPTION: This research will use a quarter-cab truck simulator to design a human-in-the-loop simulation experiment to investigate the behavior of commercial vehicle drivers under various parking and delivery situations. The research findings will improve our understanding of the commercial vehicle driver parking behavior and interactions between commercial vehicles and other road users in an urban environment.

This study will focus on an 8-block study area in Seattle, Washington, the city with the largest population density in the PacTrans region. The rapid expansion of e-commerce, accelerated even more by the impacts of COVID-19, has flooded many American cities with delivery trucks.

The latest travel survey from the Puget Sound region in Washington State reported that 15-34% of people do some level of online shopping activity, and yet according to a 2018 travel activity report for Washington, trucks already constitute 34-44% of all vehicular traffic in urban areas.

As e-commerce and urban deliveries spike, there is an increasing demand for curbside loading/unloading space.