Citywide impacts of E-commerce: Does parcel delivery travel outweigh household shopping travel reductions?

  • Monique Stinson
  • , Annesha Enam
  • , Amy Moore
  • , Joshua Auld

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

22 Scopus citations

Abstract

E-commerce has facilitated online ordering of goods by households in recent years. This technological advancement has disrupted shopping related transportation. While the National Household Travel Survey (NHTS [1]) finds that household shopping frequency has declined in the last 10-20 years, deliveries by parcel delivery trucks and vans [2] have increased. However, the net effect of these phenomena on overall trip making, vehicle-miles traveled (VMT) and fuel consumption has not been quantified. From a regional planning perspective, understanding the net effect is important for informing city policies-for example, in regards to land use and transportation planning. The objective of this research is to address this gap. In this study, the net regional impact of e-commerce on transportation and fuel consumption is evaluated. The approach relies on a powerful, agent-based modeling framework (POLARIS [3]) that models decisions made by individual household and commercial agents. E-commerce demand is modeled for each household using a bilevel multinomial probit structure that evaluates e-commerce participation and ordering frequency. Last-mile delivery tours were constructed using GIS-based tools and information from a major parcel delivery company [4]. After integrating the resulting supply and demand models with all other passenger and commercial traffic within POLARIS, a traffic simulation was performed and subsequently VMT and energy consumption were analyzed. The study finds that while e-commerce has generated an increase in parcel truck delivery trips, the net effect of e-commerce is a reduction in VMT and fuel consumption due major reductions in these quantities via shopping trip reductions.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 2nd ACM/EIGSCC Symposium on Smart Cities and Communities, SCC 2019
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery, Inc
ISBN (Electronic)9781450369787
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 10 2019
Event2nd ACM/EIGSCC Symposium on Smart Cities and Communities, SCC 2019 - Portland, United States
Duration: Sep 10 2019Sep 12 2019

Publication series

NameProceedings of the 2nd ACM/EIGSCC Symposium on Smart Cities and Communities, SCC 2019

Conference

Conference2nd ACM/EIGSCC Symposium on Smart Cities and Communities, SCC 2019
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityPortland
Period09/10/1909/12/19

Funding

The submission has been created by UChicago Argonne, LLC, Operator of Argonne National Laboratory (“Argonne") and UT-Battelle, LLC, Operator of Oak Ridge National Laboratory (“ORNL”). Argonne, a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science laboratory, is funded and operated under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357. ORNL, a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science laboratory, is funded and operated under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725. The following Department of Energy project managers played a role in guiding this work: David Anderson and Prasad Gupte. The U.S. Government retains for itself, and others acting on its behalf, a paid-up, nonexclusive, irrevocable worldwide license in said article to reproduce, prepare derivative works, distribute copies to the public, and perform publicly and display publicly, by or on behalf of the Government. The submission has been created by UChicago Argonne, LLC, Operator of Argonne National Laboratory ("Argonne") and UT-Battelle, LLC, Operator of Oak Ridge National Laboratory ("ORNL"). Argonne, a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science laboratory, is funded and operated under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357. ORNL, a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science laboratory, is funded and operated under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725. The following Department of Energy project managers played a role in guiding this work: David Anderson and Prasad Gupte. The U.S. Government retains for itself, and others acting on its behalf, a paid-up, nonexclusive, irrevocable worldwide license in said article to reproduce, prepare derivative works, distribute copies to the public, and perform publicly and display publicly, by or on behalf of the Government.

Keywords

  • City
  • Delivery
  • E-commerce
  • Energy
  • NHTS
  • Net effect
  • POLARIS
  • Region
  • Shopping
  • Truck
  • VMT
  • Vehicle miles traveled

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