An interesting group at University of Washington

Just heard about this group - they are studying a very important subject. Check out The Urban Freight Lab:

Urban Freight Lab
The Urban Freight Lab (UFL) is a living laboratory comprised of:

• • Retailers;
  • Urban truck freight carriers;
  • Technology companies supporting transportation and logistics;
  • Multifamily residential and retail/commercial building developers and operators; and
  • The City of Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT).

Lab members act to improve the management of both public and private operations of urban goods delivery systems by engaging in strategic applied research and identifying priority problems for future research projects.

A bit more:

Final-50-Feet Research Project & Goals
The UFL’s first task is pilot testing promising low-cost and high-value actions to optimize operations of the Final-50-Feet of the urban goods delivery system. The Final 50 Feet is shorthand for the supply chain segment that begins when trucks pull into a parking space and stop moving—in public load/unload spaces at the curb or in an alley, or in a building’s loading dock or internal freight bay. It tracks the delivery process inside buildings, and ends where the customer takes receipt of their goods.

Interesting. Urban planners like to "nudge" people into living in smaller apartments and condos and drive smaller cars. They take away road space and hand it over to bicycle riders and "traffic calming" devices - roundabouts, serpentine streets and extending the sidewalk out into the roadway.

This has the immediate effect of reducing traffic but they overlook the fact that big trucks need to have access so that they can deliver food and materials to the people living there. This lab looks interesting.