Urban Goods Movement and Local Climate Action Plans: Assessing Strategies to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Urban Freight Transportation
This report examines how freight transport/goods movement has been addressed in U.S. city climate action planning. Transportation generally is a major contributor of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and freight transport represents a growing component of transportation’s share. Almost all climate action plans (CAPs) address transportation generally, but the authors wished to focus on efforts to reduce GHG emissions from freight transport specifically. The authors analyzed 27 advanced local CAPs to determine the degree to which freight transport was targeted in goals and strategies to reduce GHG emissions. The authors found only six CAPs that included direct measures or programs to reduce freight emissions. Many of the CAPs mentioned general transportation objectives such as lowering vehicle miles traveled or reducing emissions from city-owned vehicle fleets, but most did not include strategies or actions that explicitly targeted freight transport. The authors identified the specific strategies and actions that cities are taking to address GHG emissions from freight transport, such as working with the freight community to promote anti-idling and encourage transitions to electric and alternative fuel delivery vehicles. The authors also analyzed freight transport plans relevant for the same cities, and found that most do not explicitly mention reducing GHG emissions. Most of the freight plans are focused on improving reliability and efficiency of freight movement, which would likely have the ancillary benefit of reducing GHG emissions, but that goal was not explicitly targeted in most of these plans. Based on the author's findings, the authors recommend that cities specifically target freight transport goals and strategies in their CAPs and better coordinate with planners developing freight transport plans to identify GHG emission reduction approaches
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Supplemental Notes:
- This document was sponsored by the U.S Department of Transportation, University Transportation Centers Program.
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Corporate Authors:
Mineta Transportation Institute
San Jose State University Research Center
210 N. 4th Street, 4th Floor
San Jose, CA United States 95112Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology
University Transportation Centers Program
Department of Transportation
Washington, DC United States 20590 -
Authors:
- Goetz, Andrew R
- Alexander, Serena
- Publication Date: 2019-4
Language
- English
Media Info
- Media Type: Digital/other
- Edition: Final Report
- Features: Bibliography; Tables;
- Pagination: 28p
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Climate change; Exhaust gases; Freight traffic; Freight transportation; Greenhouse gases; Transportation planning; Urban transportation
- Uncontrolled Terms: Freight plans
- Subject Areas: Environment; Freight Transportation; Highways; Motor Carriers; Planning and Forecasting;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 01706614
- Record Type: Publication
- Report/Paper Numbers: WP 19-04, CA-MTI-1796
- Contract Numbers: 69A3551747127
- Files: BTRIS, UTC, NTL, TRIS, ATRI, USDOT
- Created Date: May 29 2019 9:21AM