Freight Transportation Planning for Urban Areas

Institute of Transportation Engineers. ITE Journal, Dec 2004 by Chatterjee, Arun

PROBLEMS AND OPPORTUNITIES

Planners and engineers need to have a good understanding of common problems and opportunities involving freight movement in urban areas. The identification and assessment of problems and opportunities should be done through the long-range and short-range planning programs and special purpose studies that were discussed earlier. More detailed information on these common problems and opportunities can be found in articles by Chatterjee et al. and a report by Christiansen.5-8

Some opportunities that deserve immediate attention fall under city planning and some fall under traffic engineering. Both city planners and traffic engineers can apply a variety of strategies to reduce some of the problems that freight carriers face in serving their customers in urban areas.

Planning Oriented Opportunities

Two examples of opportunities that a local governments planning department can pursue to improve the freight transportation system in an urban area are discussed in this section.

Off-Street Loading Space/Docks. A major problem for trucking companies engaged in goods PUD in urban areas is the lack of convenient space to park to serve their customers. This problem is most acute in downtown areas. A good solution is for each building to provide off-street loading/unloading space for trucks. Although it may be too late to make any changes to existing buildings, new and renovated buildings can be designed to provide space for trucks.

To accomplish this goal, every city should incorporate specific requirements in their zoning ordinances for off-street loading docks or space to be provided at buildings in proportion to the floor area. A few urban areas have developed these requirements based on sound research, and these may be good examples to follow.9,10

It should be noted that, in some cases, even when off-street loading docks are provided, it may nor help freight delivery vehicles because these spaces often are occupied by automobiles and dumpsters, or access to the docks is blocked or poorly designed for accommodating trucks.

Transportation Parks or Freight Villages. Another planning oriented opportunity applicable to locations outside a central business district involves the development of transportation parks, or freight villages. In most urban areas, freight terminals are scattered around, and some of them cause conflicts with surrounding developments. If instead, the terminals are concentrated at a few locations along with businesses that serve them, special strategies can be used to create buffer areas and/or provide special access facilities.

The concept of transportation parks has been discussed by Chatterjee, Staley and Whaley.11 Freight villages represent a similar concept and include more freight related activities. Transportation parks would not only help the freight community, but also would reduce the negative impact of freight terminals on residential and other sensitive land uses. The implementation of this concept needs proactive land use planning.