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In some businesses like supermarkets and restaurants, local restrictions on nighttime deliveries leave distributors no choice but to dispatch trucks during morning rush hours. But lifting these rules could reduce peak traffic volumes and increase transport efficiency, according to a recent study involving researchers from KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.
Some communities prohibit heavy trucks from operating during the night. Stockholm is one of them, but the city wanted to test if lifting its ban might yield some benefits in transportation efficiency. Anna Pernestål Brenden, a researcher at KTH's Integrated Transport Research Laboratory, and acoustic, transport efficiency, and policy researchers from the KTH, joined with other partners in a pilot study with the City of Stockholm to see if lifting the 10 to 6 a.m. ban on truck deliveries made sense.
They worked with a national supermarket chain and its suburban Stockholm central warehouse, as well as with a company that supplied food to restaurants and hotels, Pernestål Brenden says.
Ordinarily the supermarket warehouse, which is some 30km north of Stockholm, would deploy several fully-loaded trucks to make deliveries during peak morning rush hours from 6 to 8, because there is no way for one truck to make them all in that short a time span.
But in the study, a single truck delivered goods to three stores in central Stockholm between the prohibited hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. It would return to the warehouse three times in the night to be reloaded, and then make its subsequent delivery, she says. "That's one truck doing the work of three, or in other words – morning commuters are spared having to share the road with three heavy duty trucks."
Though it was a small scale study, Pernestål Brenden says there are strong indications that scaling up off-peak deliveries could increase business efficiency for suppliers and retailers, reduce fuel consumption and CO2 emissions and perhaps make a positive impact on traffic volume during peak morning hours.
Fewer drivers will clock fewer hours.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday May 25 2017, @05:06AM (2 children)
In the name of almighty productivity, store employees should be stocking shelves on Sunday morning at 4AM, as trucks should move much more efficiently then, cutting costs.
It will both protect produce from the sun, and boost coffee sales around the neighbourhood.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday May 25 2017, @02:13PM
That borders on silliness, Bob_super. Not for one, but for two reasons.
First, Wally World DOES have people stocking shelves at 4AM. Don't believe me? Just set your alarm early enough to visit your local WalMart SuperCenter, and wander the aisles. Your neighbors kids will be there, pulling pallets of groceries and whatever else around, putting stuff on the shelves.
But, secondly, it isn't necessary for people to stock the shelves in the middle of the night, to take advantage of empty highways. One person need be on hand, to accept the delivery. A night watchman can count off sixteen or twenty two pallets, and sign for them. The truck driver or the night watchman can use a forklift or a pallet jack to move those pallets off of the truck, onto the dock. The dayshift people can start breaking down pallets, and stocking shelves when they arrive.
No one is asking that all the country change their lives to accomodate truck drivers. All that is asked here, is that the ban on night deliveries be shitcanned. It would save a lot of people money, time, and aggravation.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday May 26 2017, @01:36AM
Makes more sense than fucking everyone over with faux concern over some employee coming in early to work. Productivity has benefits for a lot more people than just Walmart. Here, truck drivers aren't in the way as much when everyone else is on the road.