Urban traffic congestion is a growing problem in many major metropolitan areas. Congestion alleviation through the addition of infrastructure is costly, difficult, and does not provide a long run solution as the increase in capacity will induce traffic that, sooner or later, will bring back congestion. One potential solution to reducing urban congestion is to encourage businesses to shift deliveries from the daytime hours to the off-hours,which the authors define as the hours between 7 PM and 6 AM. This paper uses data for the New York City metropolitan area to determine which marketsegments will provide the greatest payout regarding a shift of deliveriesto the off-hours. The analyses involved three steps. Trip generation models were obtained to estimate the number of deliveries generated by the various industry segments considered. Secondly, discrete choice models were estimated to determine the receptivity of various industry segments to implementing off-hour deliveries under various scenarios involving incentives to receivers and/or carriers. Finally, a behavioral micro-simulation was used to determine the shift in market shares for the segments under consideration. These analyses revealed that the wholesale trade and food segmentsgenerate a significant portion of daily deliveries, and among these two the food segment is more inclined to perform off-hour deliveries when presented with a tax deduction as an incentive to do so. It was thus determinedthat the food segment would be the best target for policies designed to increase off-hour deliveries.
Abstract