Planning Freight-Efficient Land Uses: Methodology, Strategies, and Tools (2022)

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1   Land-use planning and policymaking are central to how communities manage their economic activity and the resulting social and environmental impacts. Enhancing land- use practices to better incorporate the needs and impacts of freight activity has the poten- tial to improve the efficiency of the associated supply chains. Freight activity—the flow of goods through an area, the movement of vehicles transporting these goods, or the loading and unloading of freight vehicles during that movement—is integral to the economic activity of every municipality. However, in any concept of freight, efficiency is highly dependent on land-use plans and the decisions made by transportation stakeholders. The main goal of this Guide is to prepare practitioners to make land-use decisions that lead to freight-efficient land uses (FELUs)—those that minimize the private and external costs associated with the production, transportation, and consumption of goods—by providing them with the tools needed to analyze the freight efficiency of current and future land uses in their jurisdictions, and identify and select land-use and transportation initiatives. The Guide offers practical insight into each stage of the planning process, from understanding the nature of the problem and its context to choosing a policy or planning solution to address the issue. The Guide was created as part of NCHRP Project 08-111, “Effective Decision-Making Methods for Freight-Efficient Land Use.” As a starting point for integrating FELU concepts into current land-use practices, five key principles were identified: Principle 1: Minimize the private and external costs of supply chains and their stages. Principle 2: Reduce the distance traveled at supply chain stages, upstream and downstream. Principle 3: Mitigate or eliminate the externalities at supply chain nodes and large traffic generators (LTGs). Principle 4: Recognize and account for local conditions. Principle 5: Engage all stakeholders. The Guide is organized into 10 chapters. Chapter 1 offers an introduction to land-use planning and describes the importance of considering freight activity in the planning process. Chapter 2 defines the concept of FELU and expands on its principles. Chapter 3 describes the process of developing a FELU program. Chapter 4 discusses the role of various stakeholders in the land-use planning process. Chapter 5 summarizes the research con- ducted by the team to characterize urban and metropolitan economies, supply chains, and freight activity. Chapter 6 outlines the suggested analytical process to understand and evaluate existing conditions at a given jurisdiction. Chapter 7 describes a range of land-use initia- tives that could be used to foster FELU programs. Chapter 8 reviews the basic elements of the urban freight transportation decision-making process, the counterpart of the land-use management and planning process. Chapter 9 contains a comprehensive list of transportation S U M M A R Y Planning Freight-Efficient Land Uses: Methodology, Strategies, and Tools

2 Planning Freight-Efficient Land Uses: Methodology, Strategies, and Tools initiatives that could be used to support FELU efforts. Chapter 10 discusses a set of case studies that shows the concept of freight efficiency in real-world settings. An acronyms and abbreviations list, references, and four appendices are also included in the Guide. Developing a set of tools and recommendations that are applicable to a variety of agencies and regions is a challenging task. They have to consider the heterogeneity in land-use patterns, economic conditions, and government structures across the United States. To help consider the local context, the project team developed tools and methods, detailed in Chapter 6, to evaluate existing conditions unique to local areas and to understand how these conditions influence freight mobility. The methods rely on publicly available data that allow the tools to be more accessible to practitioners that seek to understand the geographic distribution of freight activity and the separation between key stages of the supply chain. A key component of this research effort was to develop a comprehensive list of initiatives that promote freight efficiency. Throughout this Guide, the term “initiative” refers to an entire spectrum of mechanisms, including projects, programs, regulations, and policies, that the public and private sectors can use to foster sustainable practices. These recommendations are not only limited to those that alter land uses, but also to those that include complemen- tary transportation initiatives that support freight-efficient operations. The land-use initia- tives were developed as part of this project, and the complementary transportation initiatives consist of an updated set from those found in NCFRP Report 33: Improving Freight System Performance in Metropolitan Areas: A Planning Guide (Holguín-Veras et al. 2015). Initiatives were conceived based on literature reviews, expert academic and practitioner knowledge, and discussions with public- and private- sector stakeholders for a total of more than 300 refer- ences. Forty-three land-use initiatives and sixty-one transportation initiatives were catego- rized into several major groups, listed and described as follows: LAND-USE AND TRANSPORTATION INITIATIVES • Facilities and Infrastructure Management. Construct or upgrade private or public facil- ities and infrastructure to enhance freight efficiency. • Parking and Loading Areas Management. Expand parking and loading areas or optimize the space available for these activities to maximize freight efficiency. • Pricing, Incentives, and Taxation. Use monetary transactions or voluntary regulations to incentivize and encourage FELUs. • Stakeholder Engagement. Facilitate stakeholder interactions and provide platforms that allow education, communication, and collaboration among stakeholders. LAND-USE INITIATIVES • Long-Term Planning. Employ planning tools or planning strategies that foster FELUs while acknowledging the local economic and land-use conditions. • Zoning. Utilize zoning tools (either regulatory controls or discretionary approaches) as ways to enhance freight movements and reduce the negative externalities created by freight activity. • Site and Building Design. Change the design of sites and buildings to minimize or elimi- nate the negative effects of freight activity on surrounding communities. TRANSPORTATION INITIATIVES • Vehicle-Related Strategies. Foster the use of technologies and practices that reduce the negative externalities produced by freight vehicles. • Traffic Management. Improve traffic conditions using techniques from traffic engineering and control, including vehicle restrictions, time restrictions, and traffic control.

Summary 3   • Logistics Management. Implement intelligent transportation systems (ITS) and improved last-mile delivery practices to coordinate local freight activity. • Freight Demand Management. Address the negative externalities generated by freight activity by altering the modes of travel and the timing of deliveries. The land-use initiatives are presented in Chapter 7, and the transportation initiatives are presented in Chapter 9. Each initiative is accompanied by a short description, analysis of the initiative’s implementation barriers and potential unintended effects, and examples of best practice implementations. Additionally, the initiatives are also accessible online on the Initia- tive Selector for Improving Freight System Performance and Freight-Efficient Land-Use tool (Holguín-Veras et al. 2021). The Initiative Selector is a webpage that acts as a decision-support system to aid in the selection of alternatives for various problems. For a given set of inputs, the Initiative Selector provides practitioners with suggestions about potential initiatives that could be implemented to fix a given problem. The Initiative Selector is by no means a replace- ment for engineering and planning; rather, it consolidates knowledge to aid planners in find- ing possible solutions and in considering alternatives of which they might not be aware. Several case studies are presented in Chapter 10 to illustrate the concept of freight effi- ciency through real-world scenarios. These case studies offer insight on novel ways to orga- nize urban logistics, the consequences of not properly planning for freight, how the spread of freight activity can be measured for selected U.S. cities, and the impact of the location of logistics facilities. The Guide also contains a reference list and four appendices. Appendix A contains an overview of emergent trends and technologies affecting freight land use and transportation. Appendix B contains an overview of the interaction index, a measure of urban freight con- centration used in the analyses in Chapter 5. Appendix C lays out results of the analysis of metropolitan statistical area (MSA) clusters explored in Chapter 5. Appendix D characterizes common supply chains and their main attributes from the perspective of freight facilities.