Receiver willingness to participate in off-hour service trip programs

Abstract

Freight and service trips have significant impacts on parking and congestion in urban areas. Although service trips are less frequent than freight trips, they often take longer and thus have disproportionate negative impacts. Because of this, demand management programs that move service trips to off-hours have the potential to reduce congestion and pollution but have been understudied relative to similar programs for freight. This report analyses results from a survey of 189 business establishments in New York City and the New York Capital Region to examine receivers’ willingness to participate in off-hours service trip programs and the potential impact these programs could have. It finds that about 20% of establishments were willing to participate in these programs and that willingness is significantly associated with establishment characteristics including industry sector, employment, and the number and duration of service trips. Further, this model is applied to an inventory of establishments in certain ZIP Codes in NYC and the Albany area to predict the potential impact of adoption of off-hour service trips by willing establishments. The results show that implementing this type of program may relieve 1.1-6.4% of all daytime commercial trips and 2.6-13.9% of all daytime commercial parking needs in the highest-impact areas. These results have important implications to help policymakers design off-hour service trip programs to maximize their potential benefits.