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Title:

Travel Efficiency of Fulfillment Centers

Accession Number:

01763854

Record Type:

Component

Abstract:

Fulfillment centers have redefined the intermodal freight landscape of the 21st century, but little is known about their travel efficiency with respect to vehicle miles traveled (VMT) per thousand square feet. This study explores this gap in knowledge by evaluating time series trip activity of eight fulfillment centers using location-based services (LBS) data. The results show that fulfillment centers located in urbanized versus rural areas do not necessarily result in more VMT efficient operations. Perhaps even more surprising is the role that the size of the center plays, which is not as substantial as previously thought. Online shopping, or E-commerce, in the United States has grown substantially in recent years. For the first time ever, it surpassed the 10% mark of the total share of US retail sales in 2019. This is also evident in the growing number of fulfillment centers from retailers such as Amazon and Walmart. The implications of these findings can help guide municipalities and agencies as they consider policies, such as infill, and impact analysis criteria for these emerging land use types. For example, an amendment to California’s Senate Bill 743 mandate, which replaces level of service (LOS) with VMT as the required California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) metric for determining a development’s potential transportation impact. Lastly, the authors evaluated the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the changes in travel activity of the analyzed centers; which could provide useful insights for the spectrum of stakeholders that are adjusting to the new normal.

Supplemental Notes:

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AT025 Standing Committee on Urban Freight Transportation.

Report/Paper Numbers:

TRBAM-21-01771

Language:

English

Corporate Authors:

Transportation Research Board

Authors:

Contreras, Seth D
Zeng, Shangyou
Ranaiefar, Fatemeh

Pagination:

17p

Publication Date:

2021

Conference:

Transportation Research Board 100th Annual Meeting

Location: Washington DC, United States
Date: 2021-1-5 to 2021-1-29
Sponsors: Transportation Research Board; Transportation Research Board

Media Type:

Digital/other

Features:

Figures; Maps; References; Tables

Subject Areas:

Freight Transportation; Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting

Source Data:

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2021 Paper #TRBAM-21-01771

Files:

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Created Date:

Dec 23 2020 11:13AM