Direct impacts of off-hour deliveries on urban freight emissions

Abstract

The most significant negative environmental impacts of urban trucking result largely from travel in congested traffic. To illustrate the potential of innovative solutions to this problem, this paper presents new research on the emission reductions associated with off-hour freight deliveries (OHD). The paper uses finelevel GPS data of delivery operations during regular-hours (6 AM to 7 PM), and offhours (7 PM to 6 AM), to quantify emissions in three major cities in the Americas. Using second-by-second emissions modeling, the paper compares emissions under both delivery schedules for: reactive organic gases, total organic gases, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, and particulate matter. The results show that the magnitude of the emission reductions depends on the extent of the change of delivery time. In the case of the "Full" OHD programs of New York City and São Paulo-where the deliveries were made during the late night and early morning periods (7 PM to 6 AM)-the emission reductions are in the range of 45-67%. In the case of the "Partial" OHD used in Bogotá (where OHD took place between 6 PM and 10 PM), the reductions were about 13%. The emission reductions per kilometer are used to estimate the total reductions for the cities studied, and for all metropolitan areas in the world with more than two million residents. The results indicate the considerable potential of OHD as an effectivebusiness friendly-sustainability tool to improve the environmental performance of urban deliveries. The chief implication is that public policy should foster off-hour deliveries, and all forms of Freight Demand Management, where practicable.

Assessing Nighttime Deliveries in Stockholm, Sweden

“…In all cases, participants from industry expressed their satisfaction and the costeffectiveness in their opera tions. Companies in Stockholm managed to reduce their operational costs to about 25%, which is similar to the 30% to 35% cost savings in cities in the United States (19). In another similarity, before imple mentation of the project, stakeholders were skeptical about the appli cability and the effectiveness of the concept, an attitude that changed after the first outcomes.…”

“…These incentives in the case of Stockholm should focus on the productivity and efficiency of the companies themselves, whereas in the case of New York, subsidies are a key point. The cases of Bogota and Sao Paolo proved that offpeak deliveries could be beneficial even when there are no incentives but there are the same limitations (19).…”

Towards Road Freight Decarbonisation

“…It would result in more efficient operations and less fuel consumption hence reduced emissions. These can be quite significant ranging from 45% to 67% less emissions (Holguín-Veras et al, 2016).One of the key obstacles is local regulations that restrict off-hour deliveries (OHD) in residential areas, which is often associated with noise concerns. These can be overcome with incentives to adopt low noise technologies and vehicles.…”

A Two-Echelon Green Supply Chain for Urban Delivery

“…The concentration of material flows without adapting the supply chain to the processes above can cause an increase in the goods final cost [2,3], traffic flow deterioration [4] and, as a result, have a negative environmental impact on the urban territory [5,6]. Removing the negative impact of freight transportation is possible with the efforts to change the delivery time, to make the off hours deliveries [7] or to create the two-echelon structures of urban material supply systems [8,9].…”