Dissertations and Theses
Date of Award
2023
Document Type
Dissertation
Department
Civil Engineering
First Advisor
Dr. Alison Conway
Keywords
Urban Freight, Logistics, Ecommerce, Demand Planning, Social Sustainability
Abstract
The movement of freight in urban areas is a key factor in the sustainable development of cities. If managed correctly, it can potentiate economic growth and support urban lifestyles. Nevertheless, the movement of goods in cities is usually in conflict with other urban flows and is generally perceived as having more negative externalities, above all for environmental and social sustainability. While the first focuses on measuring the impact on the environment, the latter focuses on measuring the impacts of business decisions on people. The main goal of this dissertation is to study the relationship that urban goods movements, mainly residential deliveries, have with existing city infrastructure and current policies. Along the investigation, a special focus is given to the quality of available data as well as to the identification of new data sources that enable the effective study of this topic.
To approach this topic, this dissertation first provides a definition of residential deliveries and their scope. Then, three studies are discussed that analyze the relationship between urban freight and existing city policies from different angles. Chapter 2 uses public datasets from New York City related to online ordering preferences to create a detailed demand model at the citywide level. With further inputs related to the built environment and access to shopping opportunities, an online ordering profile was created and applied to each zip code of the city, permitting the identification of areas where demand for online shopping is more likely to happen. These results are analyzed and discussed from the perspective of an existing policy that is not necessarily oriented to improve operations for goods delivery in urban residential areas.
Chapter 3 presents an exploratory analysis of the end-to-end e-commerce activity linked to residential deliveries in urban areas, in particular the upstream of the last mile. For this, a novel type of data was used: tracking location records from packages destined for residential addresses. This research shows the network impacts of upstream logistics and proves that, beyond the local urban area, residential deliveries impact other urban areas as well across most touch points. The results detail the strengths, weaknesses, and challenges expected in using tracking record data, as well as provide insights for future data collection efforts. Overall, the results indicate that package tracking records do provide information that is potentially useful to inform transportation planning but that further efforts are needed to establish appropriate technical and institutional frameworks to support large-scale analysis.
Finally, chapter 4 presents a threefold analysis of the impacts of logistics facility development linked to residential deliveries in urban areas. This is linked to the study of proximity logistics, which is an opposite trend to logistics sprawl that is observed in logistics facilities supporting e-commerce activity and residential deliveries. The first part of this analysis is centered on using U.S. Census data to develop a Social Vulnerability Index that permits the mapping of vulnerability nearby logistics facilities. Then, jobs within the sector are analyzed using a social justice approach, which identified several trends for existing jobs in the area. Finally, we present an approach to identify whether or not the jobs created by logistics facilities remain within surrounding areas. Results show that, in general, logistics facilities are located in vulnerable areas. However, there are new trends - i.e., dark stores - that, in their quest to be closer to consumers, place their distribution centers near less vulnerable areas. In terms of jobs, it was concluded that these logistics facilities do provide jobs to surrounding communities, but these jobs provide moderate pay compared to other sectors.
Recommended Citation
Tejada, Carla A., "Urban Freight Transportation: The Interaction of Home Deliveries in Cities" (2023). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cc_etds_theses/1137