Reducing Impacts of One-Day Delivery on Cities
Date Posted: January 3, 2020
Posted In: Discussion, Ideas,
From Fast Company: In New York City, 1.5 million packages are delivered daily to people’s doorsteps—three times as many as in the beginning of the decade, according to the Center of Excellence for Sustainable Urban Freight Systems. This has worsened traffic in a city already beset by gridlock. As the New York Times points out, the George Washington Bridge, the main thoroughfare for delivery trucks, has become the most congested route in the country.
New York is hardly alone. Delivery trucks are disrupting cities all over the United States, as for-profit companies use public roads to bring packages to customers’ doorsteps, clogging up the streets and polluting the air. Amazon Prime pioneered the practice of fast, free shipping, forcing competitors to do the same. As a result, consumers now expect their packages to appear in a matter of days—and sometimes hours—placing tremendous pressure on local logistics systems and infrastructure. Delivery companies often turn public sidewalks and streets into temporary warehouses to organize, distribute, and deliver packages. They park illegally (and wrack up hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines as a result). Direct-to-consumer shipping isn’t likely to ease up anytime soon. So how can we alleviate the stress on cities? Here are four ideas:
Redistribute Packages for the Good of the Cities
In smaller European cities like Amsterdam, large logistics companies aren’t allowed to ship directly to people’s front doors. Tightened emission regulation prevents large trucks from entering the city center. Instead, packages are redistributed outside the urban center to specialized teams that are allowed to enter the city center.
This mean that the most challenging part of the delivery journey—getting goods to their final destination, which is commonly called the last mile—is left in the most capable hands. It also means that various logistics companies aggregate their packages, reducing the need for multiple trucks to drive down the same streets.
If New York adopted a similar system, for instance, just one truck would deliver packages to all the apartment buildings on a street, compared with three or more trucks (one for UPS, one for FedEx, one for DHL, etc.). This would cut down on traffic and pollution.