Deliveries to customers located in congested city centre streets causes congestion and nuisance when this is done by conventional commercial vehicles. The down-town “platform” or “pack station” concept has been demonstrated successfully as a practical way for managing the local distribution of mail and small parcels within designated areas where the density of customers is found to be sufficiently high.
A platform minimises the need for kerb-side deliveries to premises by commercial vehicles because “last mile” calls are made instead by walking or cycling couriers. Modern ICT applications make it possible to alert customers to come to collect their consignments from the platform. Bulk deliveries of mail and parcels can also be made to the platform in the off peak, thereby easing congestion.
We found that a platform for mail deliveries is currently operated by DHL in Sandwith St. to serve their customers in the main city centre business district. Last mile deliveries amounting to 1,000 per day, are made by a team of 20 walking couriers. This has the benefit of taking 12 LGVs out of the congested city centre during the working day.
DHL are satisfied that the introduction of an additional step into their supply chain and the employment of a team of walking couriers and operatives is justified by the overall logistical efficiencies achieved and by the enhanced customer service and reliability enjoyed by up to 800 of their important business clients.
We found that other courier companies, namely SDS and FasTrack consolidate and optimise their deliveries for local distribution at centres which have easy access to the city centre. This was done (up to recently) by SDS at their regional parcels depot at Newlands Cross. At FasTrack all consignments coming by rail from the regions are sorted for local delivery at Heuston station. The FasTrack operation is an interesting example of an inter-modal (mainline rail to road) transport hub in action in Ireland.
For the distribution of morning papers, the “Irish Times” has developed an innovative logistical arrangement whereby the final deliveries of newspapers to dedicated lock- ups attached to newsagents shops, are made by light vans operating from four consolidation hubs which service different parts of the city. These hubs, located near the city centre at Inchicore and other sites, are in turn serviced by large HGVs combinations that deliver the newsprint from their main printing works. This arrangement avoids the need for the large HGVs to access the city centre in the early morning.
The possibility of establishing an Interception Platform to control and manage deliveries within the TCD campus was examined in detail. This scenario was prompted by the heavy volumes of goods that the college generates and by an analysis of the comprehensive data that was gathered from the pilot gate survey conducted during College Green Week of February of 2003.
The project proposes to divert all non-urgent deliveries to the platform and to deny carriers free access to the campus in order to reduce the severe congestion and nuisance that is caused by the current fee for all.
The data was examined to determine what proportion of deliveries could be diverted to the platform and following sorting and consolidation, the categories of goods that might be distributed by in-house personnel.
The potential benefits of this arrangement were found to be considerable, in terms of reducing congestion on campus and in discouraging the practice of some suppliers to make excessive multiple deliveries.
We estimate that access by commercial vehicles to the campus could be reduced by 67% or by 244 vehicles per week. In addition there is the potential to reduce multiple deliveries to the college by at least 16 vehicle trips per week. The resulting reduction in delivery trips to the college, and from the outlying supply depots to the city centre, could amount to 66 trips per week.
By combining these possibilities, it is estimated that the reduction in the total time in which the limited road spaces on campus is occupied by commercial vehicles making non-essential deliveries, would amount to 4.2 “van-days” per week.
The potential benefit of the platform to the college campus would include reduced emissions and noise (valued at €3,600 - €5,500 per annum), greater security and safety, less danger to pedestrians and less risk of collision damage to the fragile fabric of the buildings. Fuel savings would also accrue to the suppliers servicing the college.
There would be additional off-setting costs to the college for operating the platform, even if it was treated as an integral part of the new development plan for the north east corner of the campus at Pearse St. (€40,000 per annum). Nevertheless in terms of greater security, sustainability and better customer service (better reliability and the availability of buffer stocks and tighter control of hazardous materials), the proposal has significant merits.
It was found that the platform solution has the potential to be replicated at the Department of Education & Science complex in Marlborough St., This is on the basis of an analysis of the comprehensive data supplied by the Department which tracked deliveries for a period of one week. It is likely that a sufficiently high density of customers may also be found in other parts of the city to justify the platform solution, for example in new and developing commercial districts, at other government offices, at hospitals and colleges.
An alternative to the manned platform is the unmanned “Pack Station” concept that is being successfully developed by Deutsche Post/DHL in German cities. The pack stations are replenished by Deutsche Post at night and customers in designated areas or large buildings have shared and secure access.. The availability of advanced ICT alerting, tracking and surveillance systems has helped to make the pack station a viable option and DHL may propose to explore this innovative solution in Dublin.
9.3.3 The Adoption of Eco-Friendly Technologies for Deliveries to the City Centre
Night deliveries is seen by municipal traffic engineers and by logistics service providers as a way of achieving peak separation by taking commercial traffic out of peak times, thereby reducing congestion and helping to deploy delivery vehicles and drivers more efficiently.
The difficulty with night deliveries is the noise nuisance it causes for city centre residents. The technologies and procedures currently under development for ameliorating the noise disturbance associated with out of time loading and unloading activities have been evaluated.
Operationally feasible solutions have been identified for introducing more sustainable clean and low noise delivery practices into Dublin. It proposed to do this initially on a pilot basis.
Because air quality in cities is also causing increasing concerns, the technologies that offer clean and low emission transport in pollution hotspots are favoured in a growing number of cities. We have therefore evaluated the suitability and likely costs of the different clean and eco-friendly vehicles and related ancillaries that are currently under development.
We have evaluated the availability and suitability of different clean and low noise vehicles, fuels and ancillary equipment options. These have included vehicles fuelled by gas (LPG and CNG), by electricity (EVs and HEVs) and modified conventional diesel engined HGVs and LGVs. For night-time deliveries, the availability of low noise ancillaries and acoustic materials was examined.
We have concluded that a combination of modified diesel vehicles is likely to offer the most realistic and cost effective low noise solutions in a medium sized city like Dublin.
We have concluded that the Dutch PEAK programme offers a realistic approach for managing night deliveries and that elements of experience this could be followed in Dublin. The Dutch experience indicates that a limit of 65 dB(A) can be fairly easily achieved for night-time delivery operations. There would however be major expenses involved in trying to achieve a lower limit of 60 dB(A), particularly for large HGV combinations. A proposal for a demonstration project involving MSVC and the incorporation of silent vehicles in their operations is included in Appendix A. This is put forward as a suggestion for further research in the area and has the added advantage of involving industry in future research.
Apart from “silencing” the commercial vehicles, managing the loading and unloading operations in the city centre to minimise noise is equally important. While it may be possible to control this activity at dedicated and modified off-street sites, kerb-side deliveries are more problematic. This can be tackled by having the delivery vehicles carry acoustic materials on board and to ensure appropriate training for the drivers and the other operatives involved.
It is estimated that the additional costs of modifying standard DAF truck and the related ancillaries for the proposed pilot project would cost between €8000 to €16,000. These costs would need to be substantially reduced over time in order to encourage the market. The Dutch authorities suggest that a period of 5 years may be needed for carriers and for receivers to adopt the modified vehicles and to encourage the equipment suppliers to reduce the costs of the ancillaries.
CNG is favoured in the UK, in Italy and in India as an eco-friendly low polluting and low noise alternative to diesel. While CNG is attractive as a relatively clean and silent fuel, we have concluded that (a) the additional costs of setting up a parallel re-fuelling infrastructure (b) the performance penalties suffered by the fleet operators and (c) the current uncertainty about pricing policies for natural gas as an automotive fuel in Ireland, does not make CNG an attractive or realistic option at this time.
Practical demonstrations of a CNG fuelled bus (No.3 to Sandymount) organised by Dublin Bus and of a fleet of car-van service utility vehicles deployed by Bord Gas were not continued.
It was found that the situation regarding the availability and the costs of operating electric vehicles to be disappointing in view of the major international R&D in this mode of transport. While EVs and HEVs may offer an elegant and eco-friendly solution for niche applications (parcels deliveries and as service vehicles) this option cannot be recommended for economic reasons at the present time. An underdeveloped market, diminished enthusiasm by the major auto suppliers, low residuals and the cost of replacing the traction batteries are major disincentives for commercial fleet operators.
The vehicle suppliers whom we contacted need long-term government incentives before they commit to volume production. Last year the French PSA group ceased production of their technically highly developed Citroen Berlingo car-van of which 14,000 were supplied to various municipalities, utilities and postal authorities.
LPG is favoured in many EU countries for the smaller LGVs and car-vans because it offers a clean and practical solution for accessing “urban pollution hot spots” during the day-time and therefore fit our definition of an eco-friendly fuel. However there are no noise reduction benefits gained by using LPG in spark ignition engines compared with burning petrol.
Incentives to promote LPG is a practical measure that is readily available for minimising traffic-generated emissions in the pollution hot spots that the authorities are required to designate under EU rules. Dublin City Council, in consultation with the Department of the Environment, are currently preparing proposals to comply with the new EU air quality directives and standards to come into force from 2005 onwards.
The auto-gas industry has addressed the safety concerns associated with LPG by developing better gas monitoring systems and a special Irish NSAI standard for LPG in cars is now in force.
We have found that the current Irish price differential between petrol and auto-gas is too narrow to encourage fuel switching and this explains why the market has collapsed. Tax incentives as proposed to government by the ILPG Association, will be needed to revive the market.
We found that the carriage of chilled and frozen goods causes significant nuisance because of the noise generated by the conventional diesel driven refrigeration units as fitted to LGVs and HGV trailers. Electrically driven refrigeration units have been developed by suppliers in the UK and cryogenic units have been demonstrated in the Netherlands. The electrically driven units would be suitable for night deliveries in the city centre.
Low noise vehicle bodies and ancillaries such as cages, trolleys, pallet trucks and acoustic materials for unloading sites have been developed as part of the PEAK programme. It would be possible to acquire these ancillaries for evaluation in fleet operation in Dublin.
The availability of low noise vehicles and ancillaries at an acceptable cost would facilitate the re-scheduling of day-time deliveries to the night-time and help to take
commercial traffic out of peak. During the day clean LPG vehicles would be welcomed in the congested pollution hot spots in the city centre.