In New York City (NYC), drivers face extreme parking challenges while performing urban deliveries at the curbside. In some areas of the city, freight demand for curb space exceeds the available supply. In recent years, already lacking curb space has become even more scarce with increasing allocation of space to non-motorized modes. Often curb regulation and space allocation decisions are made with limited regard for the freight-related activities needed to support local businesses and residences. The aim of this project is to clearly identify the curb accessibility needs and specific challenges for urban freight delivery in New York City; to identify advanced curb management approaches from international best practices appropriate for implementation; and to evaluate the effectiveness of improved curb management strategies to reduce unnecessary costs for deliveries in NYC.

Specifically, the objectives of this project are to: 1) Characterize existing conditions for urban freight delivery in NYC through direct outreach to stakeholders and analysis of existing datasets; 2) Identify state-of-the-art curb management strategies appropriate for implementation in NYC conditions; 3) Understand driver decision making under current and proposed future curb management conditions; 4) Develop a transferable modeling approach integrating freight trip generation and choice modeling approaches to estimate area-wide impacts of advanced curb management; and 5) Develop policy recommendations to improve curb management for freight deliveries in New York City.

These objectives will be achieved through completion of eight primary project tasks: 1) Comprehensive review of literature regarding urban delivery costs and advanced curb management approaches; 2) Stakeholder outreach, through formation of a Technical Advisory Board and additional outreach to local stakeholders; 3) Identification and evaluation of a case study area through evaluation of a number of existing traffic and parking datasets and through implementation of a freight trip generation model; 4) Evaluation of potential curb management strategies for implementation in case study area; 5) Development and implementation of a stated-preference survey; 6) Development of a parking choice model; 7) Comparison of existing parking conditions and conditions expected under an advanced curb management strategy; and 8) Production of a final report detailing study results.

This study will be conducted by researchers at the City College of New York (PI Alison Conway) and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Co-PIs Cara Wang and Miguel Jaller), with support from the New York City Department of Transportation’s Office of Freight Mobility, and an industry Technical Advisory Board chaired by NYCDOT’s Stacey Hodge.