Delivering the Goods
Human-powered cargo cycles could keep the wheels of urban commerce turning.
By Rosemarie Wesson with Alison Conway
While freight transportation is the lifeblood of much of our economy, it comes with significant disadvantages, including traffic congestion, air-pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions, noise, and fatal collisions. Crowded cities create tremendous demand for goods to arrive when and where customers require. The private sector is quick to respond, stretching existing transportation networks to meet customer demand and maximize profits. With limited knowledge of local freight operations, public sector infrastructure managers often fail to develop the kind of regulations and systems that would allow goods to move efficiently and safely without damaging the environment.
Over the past 15 years, a new multidisciplinary field of study, city logistics, has emerged to meet this challenge. It draws on civil engineers, economists, geographers, supply chain managers, and urban planners to develop, test, implement, and share solutions that meet both public and private sector aims. City logistics researchers have in recent years developed new data collection, analysis, and operations management tools; innovative logistics models; effective stakeholder education and communications strategies; vehicle, communications, and enforcement technology advances; and local policy improvements to improve freight operations.
International collaboration is a key component, since cities throughout the world face much the same problems with the movement of freight. Over the past five years, Sweden’s Volvo Research and Educational Foundations (VREF) have played an important role in establishing a network of global city logistics experts by funding two multinational Centers of Excellence. One is MetroFreight Center, a consortium housed at the University of Southern California, with members ranging from the French Institute of Science and Technology for Transport Development and Networks (IFFSTAR) at the University of Paris-Est in Paris to the Korea Transport Institute (KOTI) in Seoul. The other is the Center of Excellence for Sustainable Urban Freight Systems (SUFS) led by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. VREF also supports the Sweden-based Urban Freight Platform.
No region of the United States needs city logistics more than New York. As the most densely populated major city in the United States and a primary gateway for international trade, New York receives a huge and growing volume of freight. The city’s congested streets have in recent years become harder for carriers to navigate as a result of dedicated bus lanes, on-street bicycle infrastructure, and attempts to make intersections safer for pedestrians. Since 2009, researchers at the University Transportation Research Center (UTRC), based at the City College of New York (CCNY), have worked on solutions relevant to the New York region.
One promising change would be to replace trucks with human-powered cargo cycles for small-scale local deliveries. With support from the New York State Energy Research Development Authority and the New York State Department of Transportation, Alison Conway and Camille Kamga, CCNY assistant professors of civil engineering, conducted a study to evaluate the traffic performance of cargo cycles compared with motorized vehicles. Equipping vehicles from two local operators with GPS devices, researchers estimated moving speeds, travel time reliability, and parking durations for both cargo cycles and trucks. They concluded that in Manhattan, at least, cargo cycles would be more reliable than trucks, more flexible when it comes to routes and parking, and just about as fast.
The experience of other cities offers additional insights. Conway and economist Martin Koning of IFSTTAR, a MetroFreight partner institution, found that Paris has realized a decline in both air pollution and congestion with increased use of cargo cycles. Taken together, the growing body of cargo cycle research in Europe and North America is providing a comprehensive picture of cost considerations, traffic performance, and external impacts that will enable carriers to make informed choices in their vehicle selections and will allow public agencies to become more effective in regulating the movement of urban goods.
Rosemarie D. Wesson, Ph.D., is associate dean for research and professor of chemical engineering at the Grove School of Engineering, City College of New York. Alison Conway is an assistant professor of civil engineering at CCNY.