Solving the Urban Freight Puzzle

Today, with demand for more and faster deliveries, there has been a corresponding rise in the movement of goods, notably within cities. This trend combined with a changing mobility landscape and limited available space add to the complexity already embedded in the freight and logistics process.

In the following Q&A, Jason Smallwood, Technical Director, Freight and Logistics, United Kingdom, discusses the issues pertaining to freight and how to address them.

Why is it important to focus on freight?

Jason Smallwood: Every organization and individual has freight needs to varying degrees. These needs create multiple movements—related to raw materials, manufacturing and delivery—along a supply chain into global, national and local distribution networks.

Freight is susceptible to changes in the operational environment that are driven by a wide range of factors, which can lead to risk of supply for critical products and services, as exhibited during the COVID-19 pandemic. Freight also supports business activity and local prosperity whilst also being a key driver of employment.

Today, there are increasing challenges to maintaining the efficient movement of goods.

What are the greatest challenges to the efficient movement of goods today?

Jason Smallwood: One of the key questions is how to use space to support local needs with the shift away from vehicle-centric cities. This is an issue particularly relevant to the last mile where goods are brought to the final destination, a customer’s door or collection point.

Logistics companies are already focused on high utilization and efficiency, operating with low margins, even more so in dense urban centres. This situation is often intensified by measures implemented by authorities to reduce congestion at the local level and to support decarbonization, through, for example, the transition to zero-emission vehicles; the growing competition for curbside space with other public realm schemes intensifies the problem.

Planning and policy decisions are often made without a complete understanding of the factors affecting the local context and without the proper data; this situation exists alongside competition for funding and spatial land use.

All of these factors are at work against a backdrop of consumer demand that has created more and newer channels to order and receive products and services, increasing complexity and the cost to serve.

How can these challenges be addressed?

Jason Smallwood:  Since the issue has many moving parts, it is important to start with a good set of urban freight data, recognized by all stakeholders, that establishes a baseline of current activity. From there, it is possible to understand the related challenges. This primary need became clear as we delved deeper into this issue at WSP.

Who at WSP examined this issue?

Jason Smallwood: Freight specialists alongside other WSP colleagues from multiple disciplines who support clients from the various stakeholder groups and who shape supply chain activities.

In addition to the need for the right data, we also see the need for all stakeholders to have a common appreciation and understanding of the influential factors and how they interplay in the freight process. These stakeholder groups need to collaborate on developing measures and enablers that influence the nature of freight movements. The groups include those who can influence the way freight activity is generated, those who service that need and those who regulate and develop the urban centre.

What are some of the opportunities that exist today for consideration by stakeholders?

Jason Smallwood:  Certainly, there is opportunity to reduce the demand for freight, shift freight to lower-carbon modes and vehicle types and optimize vehicle loading and unloading activities.  Opportunities should be explored through collaboration in each community context to develop an area-wide plan.

Can you elaborate on reducing the demand for freight—how that would impact day-to-day operations and how that would happen?

Jason Smallwood: Reducing the demand for freight is a significant challenge and is ultimately driven by the buying behaviours of consumers and businesses who are demanding faster and more frequent deliveries from suppliers, which puts pressure on freight operators. Whilst the majority of freight operators run highly efficient operations with well-utilized vehicles, their opportunity to optimize would be enhanced if demand was more consolidated and with longer lead-times. Given the nature of demand and operating challenges in ultra urban centres, many freight operators are operating a larger number of smaller van fleets.

We therefore need to consider how we can encourage and enable a change in behaviour for those who drive freight demand and also help operators to meet public realm objectives, as well as their own, to reduce the impact of operations.

The former can be driven through initiatives that influence the behaviours and actions of residential and commercial tenants, such as green leases that, for example, limit the number of delivery vehicles per day or stipulate a single waste-collection operator. In addition, online resources play a role as they can educate on the impact of existing and changing behaviours and help provide access to current initiatives such as collaborative procurement or consolidation platforms.

To meet the latter objective, it is important to enable operators to remode deliveries to micromobility, e-cargo bikes, for example, from cars, vans and trucks for last-mile movement. Remoding makes sense where there are dense city centres, with micromobility presenting a positive alternative—to reduce congestion and lower emissions and to facilitate quicker delivery times, often achieving a similar level of productivity as achieved in an operator shift.

Earlier, you cited the importance of the right data. Can you explore that point and provide an example of relevant data?

Jason Smallwood:  Part of our work within WSP has been to gather and develop quantitative and qualitative data to show the flows through regions and the nature of trip generators by residents and businesses, by market segment. Through this process, we can help transport authorities understand what freight and logistics looks like in their area.

We bring this data to life by adding photographic and video evidence to highlight issues, challenges and conflicts for the operators themselves and other road and curbside users. The point of this approach is not only to baseline activity but also to help our clients understand freight and the multiple challenges faced by their businesses and operators.

We also encourage early and ongoing public-sector engagement with freight and logistics operators to consider how to scale up projects relative to the key markets they serve—to make the most of dedicated resources. With a focus on the key market segments, we come to understand the enablers that will help meet client objectives, usually around the reduction and decarbonization of freight activity. 

Road freight accounts for about 30 percent of global transport CO2 emissions.¹  With the focus now very much on clear and detailed carbon-emissions reduction plans, freight can no longer be ignored; when considering the greater and more direct demand for freight and logistics driven by home delivery, a trend accelerated by COVID-19, the volume and complexity of activity increases.

What would you say is the biggest obstacle to implementing sustainable measures for public authorities?

Jason Smallwood: Without a common language and understanding of freight and logistics and the data to clearly define the current levels, issues and benefits of activity, many public-sector clients limit themselves to the implementation of trending one-size-fits-all measures and responding to operators who approach them for space. Traditional investment in logistics infrastructure is backed by volume and/or long-term contract commitments to stimulate investment. Today, organizations need to collaborate to create scale to support area-wide long-term solutions that embrace carbon reduction. Measures that are defined and implemented using grant funding almost always end when funding stops, with no business case defined to attract long-term commercial investment. Compounding the issue, projects are currently too small and fragmented to support the commitment needed to develop solutions over the longer term.

Our approach at WSP is to sit among the various stakeholder groups—including public-sector clients, property developers and owners, and logistics operators—to co-create measures that meet shared objectives. We develop working concepts tailored to the key market segments generating the freight activity. These working concepts allow us the facilitate practical discussions across the groups about the key issues such as cost, service levels, land use and public realm impact, iterating the solution and developing a business and investment case based on reliable data and insights.

There are multiple factors that enable the development of vibrant cities. Freight is essential to local economies and societal services, but many communities have not yet addressed the impacts of freight in a broader context. With the right data and guidance, freight and logistics decisions can be made to benefit the communities served and the stakeholders who are tasked with facilitating the movement of goods.

1 _{Hannah Ritchie, “Cars, planes, trains: where do CO2 emissions from transport come from?” Our World In Data, October 6, 2020.}