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Understanding urban freight activity – key issues for freight planning

Understanding urban freight activity – key issues for freight planning
Understanding urban freight activity – key issues for freight planning
Using information gathered from some 30 UK surveys undertaken over the last decade, this paper provides planners with an understanding of road-based urban retail freight transport activity. The findings suggest that the average High Street business could expect up to 10 core goods and 7.6 service visits per week, in non-peak trading periods.with 25% additional activity during the build up to Christmas. Vans (‘light goods vehicles’) were the dominant mode, responsible for 42% of delivery activity with a mean dwell time of 10 minutes. Where possible, load consolidation should be encouraged by methods such as Delivery and Servicing Plans and using out-of-town freight consolidation centres to bring in goods over the last mile in shared vehicles. Where this is not possible, loading bay monitoring and control, and preferred lorry routes can help manage the movement of vehicles in and out of dense urban areas.

Service vehicle activity is a significant contributor to urban freight movements and often requires vehicles to be parked close to the premises being served. Centrally coordinating elements of service provision (e.g. for cleaning, equipment maintenance, recyclate collection), or providing improved, more flexible parking provision for service vehicles could be as or more beneficial in reducing overall freight impacts than focusing on core goods deliveries. In the case of the latter, ‘pay-as-you-leave’ car park charging systems could encourage short-stay service vehicles to park off-street.
0966-6923
22-32
Cherrett, Tom
e5929951-e97c-4720-96a8-3e586f2d5f95
Allen, Julian
5a70d3a9-57ab-4f92-bd40-682e51aebfec
McLeod, F.N.
93da13ec-7f81-470f-8a01-9339e80abe98
Maynard, S.
a6cb202f-0090-4095-9c62-a5abe1469c26
Hickford, Adrian
55d34672-b7bb-47d4-97a6-095304c429de
Browne, Mike
05ba9fd6-efd7-4c9b-a013-73d0c3e9838d
Cherrett, Tom
e5929951-e97c-4720-96a8-3e586f2d5f95
Allen, Julian
5a70d3a9-57ab-4f92-bd40-682e51aebfec
McLeod, F.N.
93da13ec-7f81-470f-8a01-9339e80abe98
Maynard, S.
a6cb202f-0090-4095-9c62-a5abe1469c26
Hickford, Adrian
55d34672-b7bb-47d4-97a6-095304c429de
Browne, Mike
05ba9fd6-efd7-4c9b-a013-73d0c3e9838d

Cherrett, Tom, Allen, Julian, McLeod, F.N., Maynard, S., Hickford, Adrian and Browne, Mike (2012) Understanding urban freight activity – key issues for freight planning. Journal of Transport Geography, 24, 22-32. (doi:10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2012.05.008).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Using information gathered from some 30 UK surveys undertaken over the last decade, this paper provides planners with an understanding of road-based urban retail freight transport activity. The findings suggest that the average High Street business could expect up to 10 core goods and 7.6 service visits per week, in non-peak trading periods.with 25% additional activity during the build up to Christmas. Vans (‘light goods vehicles’) were the dominant mode, responsible for 42% of delivery activity with a mean dwell time of 10 minutes. Where possible, load consolidation should be encouraged by methods such as Delivery and Servicing Plans and using out-of-town freight consolidation centres to bring in goods over the last mile in shared vehicles. Where this is not possible, loading bay monitoring and control, and preferred lorry routes can help manage the movement of vehicles in and out of dense urban areas.

Service vehicle activity is a significant contributor to urban freight movements and often requires vehicles to be parked close to the premises being served. Centrally coordinating elements of service provision (e.g. for cleaning, equipment maintenance, recyclate collection), or providing improved, more flexible parking provision for service vehicles could be as or more beneficial in reducing overall freight impacts than focusing on core goods deliveries. In the case of the latter, ‘pay-as-you-leave’ car park charging systems could encourage short-stay service vehicles to park off-street.

Text
Understanding urban freight activity - A review of UK freight studies - FINAL 24-5-12.pdf - Accepted Manuscript
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Published date: September 2012
Organisations: Transportation Group

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 348293
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/348293
ISSN: 0966-6923
PURE UUID: 07a4d063-473d-4d11-999c-c85a74ffb6d1
ORCID for Tom Cherrett: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-0394-5459
ORCID for F.N. McLeod: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-5784-9342
ORCID for Adrian Hickford: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-6414-9064

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Date deposited: 12 Feb 2013 10:32
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 02:48

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Contributors

Author: Tom Cherrett ORCID iD
Author: Julian Allen
Author: F.N. McLeod ORCID iD
Author: S. Maynard
Author: Adrian Hickford ORCID iD
Author: Mike Browne

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