Publication Features
Millions of people who live and work in cities purchase goods online. As ecommerce and urban deliveries spike, there is an increasing demand for curbside loading and unloading space. To better manage city curb spaces for urban freight, city planners and decision makers need to understand commercial vehicle driver behaviors and the factors they consider when parking at the curb.
While electric cargo bikes can be viable and environmentally sustainable for urban goods delivery, they are not yet widely used in the U.S. In this study, researchers studied the behaviors of a group of bike delivery drivers to gain an understanding of the challenges they face, how they make decisions about where to park, what factors influence whether they use the travel lane, bicycle lane, or the sidewalk, and the effectiveness of these decisions.
Freight load and unload facilities located off the public right-of-way are typically not documented in publicly available databases. Without detailed knowledge of these facilities, i.e. private freight load and unload infrastructure, cities are limited in their ability to complete system-wide freight planning and to comprehensively evaluate the total supply of load and unload spaces in the city.
Common-carrier parcel lockers have emerged as a secure, automated, self-service means of delivery consolidation in congested urban areas, which are believed to mitigate last-mile delivery challenges through reducing out-of-vehicle delivery times and consequently vehicle dwell times at the curb. However, little research exists to empirically demonstrate the environmental and efficiency gains from this technology.
The purpose of this research is to explore consumers’ online shopping and in-person shopping travel behaviors and the factors affecting these behaviors within the geographical context of the study area of West Seattle.
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, people’s online and in-store shopping behaviors changed significantly. As the pandemic subsides, key questions are why those changes happened, whether they are expected to stay, and, if so, to what extent. We answered those questions by analyzing a quasi-longitudinal survey dataset of the Puget Sound residents (Washington, U.S.).
With the dramatic and recent growth in demand for curbside pick-up and drop-off by ride-hailing services, as well as online shopping and associated deliveries, balancing the needs of roadway users is increasingly critical. Local governments lack tools to evaluate the impacts of curb management strategies that prioritize different users’ needs.
In an effort to reduce emissions from last-mile deliveries and incentivize green vehicle adoption, The New York City Department of Transportation (NYC DOT) is seeking to implement a Green Loading Zone (GLZ) pilot program. A Green Loading Zone is curb space designated for the sole use of “green” vehicles, which could include electric and alternative fuel vehicles as well as other zero-emission delivery modes like electric-assist cargo bikes.