The New York city off-hour delivery program: A business and community-friendly sustainability program
Journal article, 2018

The New York City Off-Hour Delivery (NYC OHD) program is the work of a private-public-academic partnership - A collaborative effort of leading private-sector groups and companies, public-sector agencies led by the New York City Department of Transportation, and research partners led by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The efforts of this partnership have induced more than 400 commercial establishments in NYC to accept OHD without supervision. The economic benefits are considerable: The carriers have reduced operational costs and parking fines by 45 percent; the receivers enjoy more reliable deliveries, enabling them to reduce inventory levels; the truck drivers have less stress, shorter work hours, and easier deliveries and parking; the delivery trucks produce 55-67 percent less emissions than they would during regular-hour deliveries, for a net reduction of 2.5 million tons of CO2 per year; and citizens' quality of life increases as a result of reduced conflicts between delivery trucks, cars, bicycles, and pedestrians, and through the use of low-noise delivery practices and technologies that minimize the impacts of noise. The total economic benefits exceed $20 million per year. The success of the OHD program is due largely to the policy design at its core, made possible with the behavioral microsimulation. This unique optimization-simulation system incorporates the research conducted into an operations research/management science tool that assesses the effectiveness of alternative policy designs. This enabled the successful implementation of the project within the most complex urban environment in the United States.

Author

J. Holguín-Veras

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Stacey Hodge

New York City Department of Transportation

Jeffrey Wojtowicz

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

C. Singh

United States Department of Transportation

Cara Wang

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Miguel Jaller

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Felipe Aros-Vera

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

K. Osbay

New York University

A. Weeks

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

M. Repogle

New York City Department of Transportation

C. Ukegbu

New York City Department of Transportation

Xuegang (Jeff) Ban

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

M. Brom

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

S. Campbell

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Ivan Sanchez-Diaz

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Carlos Gonzalez-Calderon

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

A. Kornhauser

Princeton University

M. Simon

New York City Department of Transportation

S. McSherry

New York City Department of Transportation

A. Rahman

New York City Department of Transportation

T. Encarnación

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

X. Yang

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

D. Ramírez-Ríos

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

L. Kalahashti

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Johanna Amaya-Leal

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Michael Silas

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

B. Allen

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

B. Cruz

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Interfaces

0092-2102 (ISSN) 1526-551X (eISSN)

Vol. 48 1 70-86

Gothenburg Urban Freight Platform

VREF, 2014-02-01 -- 2019-12-31.

VREF, 2022-06-01 -- 2024-12-31.

Areas of Advance

Transport

Subject Categories

Transport Systems and Logistics

DOI

10.1287/inte.2017.0929

More information

Latest update

12/20/2019