Signal 2 — Off-Hour Deliveries Program in NYC
For some of the residents living at the fringe of New York City, late-night traffic jam is the most obvious, specifically when you are at the George Washington Bridge, one of the most congested bridges in the world, with around 280,000 cars commuting per day. Surprisingly, the majority of the traffic during midnight until 6 am in the truck and the reason behind is “Off-Hour Deliveries Policy”, funded by the US Department of Transportation.
Based on the data from US DOT Truck Delivery Pilot program, 97,000 trucks travel in & out of the New York City per day, with 25,000 of those travel in & out Manhattan, serving numerous goods for restaurants, offices and other commercial supply. The Off-Hour Deliveries Program for New York City is deemed as a successful urban solution for multilateral parties. It provides cheaper and faster delivery speed for the residents. Also, the city will be beneficial for less noise pollution, and clearer curb during the peak hour. For the truck driver, they spend less time on delivering, less double parking and fewer violation tickets.
In my opinion, The Off-Hour Deliveries Program should establish a dynamic truck schedule, rather than just the 7 pm to 6 am, clustering particular truck traffic movement and pattern with the different type of urban freights. A recent study by VICS, Voluntary Interindustry Commerce Solution Association, found out that more than a quarter of the trucks on the road in US drive empty and they are trying to advocate to reduce these Empty Mile, in order to provide a shared, monitored trucking and shipping network for large companies like Macy’s and other Retailers.
Learning from the pattern of truck traffic could potentially alleviate the disparity of traffic congestion between the border of New York City, but most Importantly, I believe a holistic shared shipping network is needed and should be expanded to New York Metropolitan Area.
Reference
1. Belson, K. (2010, April 21). Keeping Delivery Trucks Full, Coming and Going. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/22/business/energy-environment/22SHIP.html
2. Vock, D. C. (2013, December 16). Nighttime delivery may help truckers in NYC — and elsewhere. Retrieved from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/12/16/stateline-nighttime-truck-delivery/4039569/
Image Credit
http://fleetnewsdaily.com/top-10-truck-congestion-locations-u-s-revealed/
