DELIVERY ZONE GRIDLOCK: FINDING BETTER WAYS TO DELIVER GOODS

Seattle traffic on Second Avenue. Photo: Oran Viriyincy/Flickr

With more and more Americans buying goods online, new challenges are emerging for the delivery industry. Trucks are competing for limited delivery zone space in urban areas, creating all kinds of headaches for cities that have limited curb and sidewalk space.

A new project at the University of Washington in Seattle is hoping to solve some of those problems. The Supply Chain Transportation and Logistics (SCTL) Center has created an Urban Freight Lab to study ways to improve the delivery process in cities.

Barbara Ivanov, director of the Urban Freight Lab, and Anne Goodchild, director of the SCTL Center, are heading up the research, which will include real-world testing on the streets of Seattle in the fall of 2017.

“If cities do not act quickly to revamp the way they manage increasing numbers of commercial vehicles unloading goods in streets and alleys and into buildings, they will drown in a sea of double-parked trucks,” according to an article authored by Ivanov and Goodchild in The Conversation.

First, the Urban Freight Lab will analyze current delivery processes and develop potential solutions. Their research will then be put to the test on what researchers call the ‘Final 50.’

“The final 50 feet of the urban delivery system begins at the city-owned curb, commercial vehicle load zone, or sidewalk, extends through privately-owned building freight bays, and may end in the common areas within a building such as the lobby,” says Ivanov.

The lab will initially focus on five buildings: the Four Seasons Hotel, the Seattle Municipal Tower, the Westlake Center, the Dexter Horton Building and a multifamily residential tower. The lab will then choose one of them for further research.

The project has two goals: reduce “dwell time,” the time a truck is parked in a load/unload space, and reduce failed deliveries, which can sometimes occur due to theft.

Researchers hope that improving the delivery process will not only ease congestion and improve efficiency, but also lower costs for delivery companies, which could lead to lower costs for customers.