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1 Introduction In the quest to design cities that support a good quality of life, a lively discussion has devel- oped regarding the role of transportation in urban environments and the approach that might create vibrant, livable spaces. Much of this discussion has focused on passenger travel, land use, and the importance of non-motorized transport. However, the role of goods movement has often been ignored. In developed economies, every business and person relies on the trade of goods and services. Moving the people and products required for this trade is essential to a thriving economy and can have important consequences for a community. Urban goods movement refers to the movement of products throughout the urban area (including waste removal and package delivery). In most urban regions, space is a scarce resource, with heavy competition for roadway space and parking. Many urban regions were established before motorized transport, and their infrastructures are not well designed for the large vehicles associated with goods movement. These areas are typically densely populated with pedestrian and residential activity. In addition, many metropolitan regions today are challenged to address concerns about air quality, noise, and the competition among various interests for roadway space. Unfortunately, the state of knowledge about urban-goods-movement activities and effective methods for managing these movements is lacking. Freight planning has developed significantly over the past decade, beginning with the freight- planning requirements in the federal Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act-A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU), which are still relevant within the context of the current Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21) legislation. State and regional planning organizations have begun to invest in the personnel, data, and analysis neces- sary to develop transportation plans that consider freight activities and their economic, social, and environmental impacts (BRMPO 2007; NCHRP 2007; Waldo 2010). Unfortunately, most truck models currently in use are limited because of their short time in development (compared with advanced passenger models) and the lack of sufficient data and knowledge, particularly in the urban context. Early transportation models were concerned with high-capacity freeway networks and were focused on automobile use and monocentric city design, which minimized the predictive power of these models to incorporate transit use, measure vehicle emissions, and consider freight mobil- ity and polycentric development form (Garrett and Wachs 1996). Spurred by the federal Clean Air Act Amendments and the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act, models have become increasingly more complex, with greater capabilities to consider emissions and traveler behavior. Twenty years after the passage of these acts, the need to better understand energy use and emissions in relation to transportation has garnered additional support for these models. Unfortunately, impressive advancements in activity-based models for passenger vehicles have yet to translate into practical models for freightâand specifically for truckâmovements. C H A P T E R 1
2 Smart Growth and Urban Goods Movement At the same time, the urban planning and transportation literature has targeted smart growth, growth management, and urban center concepts as potentially beneficial urban strategies (see, for example, Braun and Scott 2008; Cervero 1996; Ewing and Cervero 2001; Frank 2000; Hess et al. 2001; Giuliano and Small 1999; Redfearn 2007; and Song 2005). However, incorporating the impacts of these strategies on goods movement has not been a priority. Instead of land use as an analysis consideration, analysis of goods movement has explored reducing the number of vehicles required to move goods (van Rooijen et al., 2008), cost reduction (in terms of monetary, environmental, or time costs) (Quak and de Koster 2007), and the organizational structure of goods-movement systems. For example, HolguÃn-Veras et al. (2006) considered the motivations of key stakeholders in choosing delivery times, and Vleugel and Janic (2004) considered vehicle choice, trip planning, route planning, and the choices of other actors as key decisions in the urban-goods-movement system. The general knowledge gap regarding the land use and freight connection is further exacer- bated by this lack of appropriate modeling tools. Comprehensive regional modeling tools that can capture land-use and transportation interactions for passenger travel are still in their infancy and do not adequately capture freight activity, even though addressing goods movements along with passenger movement is necessary to have truly effective smart growth. This report summarizes the literature relevant to the impacts of smart growth on goods move- ment and identifies areas in which research is needed. It begins by defining smart growth and then identifies the relationships between smart growth and goods movement. The state of the literature in these fields is summarized, and emerging research agendas are established to pro- vide better understanding of the interactions between smart-growth development patterns and urban goods movement. The report then describes a series of targeted interviews conducted in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Seattle, Washington, with truck drivers, logistics manag- ers, planners, architects, and developers, to gain insight from those most directly involved with goods movement. These finding are used to identify and define the attributes of smart growth that might impact freight. This information, in turn, is developed into smart-growth scenarios that are input into a demand-forecasting model for the Puget Sound region. By comparing smart-growth scenarios with different baseline and transportation network alternatives, the rela- tionship between freight and smart growth is analyzed, and the ability of the model to capture this relationship is evaluated. The report concludes by describing the implications of the smart- growth and goods-movement interaction on transportation modeling and freight planning.
