Urban freight shifts: Analysis of current trends & uncertain future
The iMOVE project, Scenario developments for forecasting urban freight shifts has been run, and its final report are available below. Working with iMOVE on the project were the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts, QUT, and the University of Queensland’s Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety – Queensland (CARRS-Q).
Background
Over the past four decades, urban and inter-urban non-bulk freight has significantly increased in Australia. New investments may be needed to accommodate these shifts in urban freight and non-freight commercial vehicle movements.
Objectives
The overriding questions driving this project were these. Are there going to be significant shifts in the way urban freight is delivered (e.g. to smaller trucks, or lower emission trucks, or to vehicles smaller than trucks), or even to non-road transport)?
If yes, this would have implications for the regulation of urban freight movement and might open up opportunities for policy makers.
Literature review
The existing literature shows the following had an impact on urban freight:
- Socio-economic attributes, such as employment, population, and household income;
- Land-use features, i.e. urban area in the original or destination zone, and accessibility of freight facilities;
- Transport infrastructure, such as the motorway, highway or railway length in a region, distance to the primary network and truck routes;
- Built environment features, i.e. land market value, business numbers, facilities floor area; and
- Presence of key facilities, such as intermodal terminals, airports, and seaports.
Prior research showed that the commercial sectors’ mode choice is travel-specific, territory-dependent, cargo-sensitive, and varies by shipment companies. Additionally, other research has found the key issues in choosing a freight mode include punctuality, transport cost, damage risk, service frequency, and transit time.
The Boston Consulting Group predicts that by the end of this decade, electric vehicles will comprise 55% of light commercial vehicles, 35% of light rigid trucks and 5% of heavy rigid trucks. However, the literature review found technical, economic, market maturity, and regulatory challenges to electric vehicle (EV) adoption.
On EVs, stakeholders said the lack of interest, former Federal Government policy settings and the delay in orders of limited electric vans had led to reduced take-up. E-trucks are expensive, and there was not enough information to compare operating costs with diesel.
Stakeholder consultations and results
The research team consulted relevant stakeholders via interviews and an online survey to pinpoint existing and emerging trends in urban freight and non-freight commercial vehicles. The consultations found the issues differed depending on the focus of the stakeholder. For example, urban freight issues in city centres contrasted with those from the outer suburbs.
The key findings from this research were:
- Population increases and more housing construction including a growth in e-commerce and home deliveries boosted freight volumes, with drone deliveries expected to become more common;
- Higher urban densities have congested urban routes that serve local customers and ports. Inadequate investment in upgrading road and rail infrastructure has significantly contributed to this issue;
- Rising costs and limited land availability near urban centres for large distribution centres have added complexity to the supply chain. As a result, items are now delivered from distribution centres to fulfilment centres or micro freight hubs before the final delivery to customers;
- Types of freight vehicles had diversified with growth at the small and very end parts of the market;
- There was an increase in the number of electric light commercial and small rigid trucks;
- Larger fleets were more likely than smaller operators to adopt new fuel and safety technologies; and
- Curfews were relaxed, allowing more off-peak deliveries to businesses and high-end customers.
Stakeholders also pointed to climate-related disasters, which disrupted major long-distance rail lines, forcing freight off rail and onto road. They considered this decade-long trend would continue.
Understanding of current market trends
- Registered vehicle numbers using the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ Motor Vehicle Census from 2017 to 2021 showed utilities, then panel vans were most common; 40% of light commercial vehicles were petrol-powered in 2017, and this fell to 29% in 2021;
- Distances travelled showed light commercial vehicles accounted for three-quarters of travel in capital cities; and
- Vehicle operating costs were divided into:
- Invariant or fixed costs that don’t depend on the vehicle’s use (capital cost, insurance, registration, administration, driver salary), and
- Variable costs, which are determined by the vehicle’s annual usage, fuel prices and traffic conditions (as well as road-user charges, tyre, service, and maintenance costs).
Findings from modelling
The project used regression models to examine vehicle numbers, proportion by vehicle type, fuel type and mass. It found there were more urban freight and commercial service vehicles in Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia with NSW scoring high only for newer vehicles. There were fewer urban freight and commercial service vehicles in agricultural regions and where most of the road network were highways and motorways and further from airports.
As for new vehicles, Queensland had more light commercial vehicles than other parts of Australia, while Victoria had fewer new light rigid trucks than elsewhere. However, Victoria scored highest for new heavy rigid trucks, prime movers and semi-articulated trucks than other jurisdictions. Overall, industrial areas had higher proportions of all types of urban freight and commercial service vehicles (except for light commercial vehicles).
Regarding gross vehicle mass (GVM), this was an important influence to examine because it impacts road wear, fuel consumption, productivity and safety. Compared to NSW and the ACT, the proportions of vehicles of higher mass were lower in South Australia and Queensland and higher in Victoria. Higher GVM was associated with more commercial areas and fewer residential areas. GVM decreased with distance from airports and CBDs but increased with the number of EV charging points.
Report findings and conclusions
The project team developed a data collection and verification framework and set up a future trends’ dataset for urban freight and commercial service vehicles. It also created an integrated geospatial tool by integrating vehicle registration data and explanatory variables. Both stakeholder feedback and quantitative data highlighted the varied composition of UF and CS vehicle fleets across jurisdictions, with differing vehicle types and usage patterns.
The analysis found that in the four years to 2021, freight volumes (implicitly vehicle numbers) had increased. Over the same period, the proportion of diesel-powered light commercial vehicles increased by 100,000 or 19%. Yet less than one per cent of urban freight and commercial service vehicles were EV, hybrid or other alternative fuel types. The age of the current vehicle fleet is a significant barrier to alternative fuel adoption, with just one in eight existing vehicle types aged five years or less.
Over the four years to 2021, the most prominent vehicle type – utilities – grew by four percent annually. Panel vans were the next most popular vehicle type. Meanwhile, there was annual growth in light-rigid trucks (6.1%), semi (articulated) trailers (4.1%), prime movers (between two and four per cent), and heavy rigid trucks (one to four per cent per year).
The stakeholder comments and the quantitative analyses both underlined the diversity of UF and CS vehicle fleets, with different mixes of vehicle types among jurisdictions and different trends for different vehicle types.
The quantitative analyses based on newer vehicles appeared to be somewhat more aligned to the stakeholder comments. There were, however, some stakeholder comments which were not able to be tested or were not supported by the quantitative findings.
Download the final reports
There are two reports available for download:
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