From Crains:It seemed like a no-brainer: Trucks in Manhattan could save money and time if they delivered their goods at night. But it took a one-month pilot program and thousands of dollars in incentives to get companies to change their habits.
Now that the program is over and the results show savings for companies making and receiving deliveries, some of those businesses are continuing their newfound ways. Transportation officials hope their enthusiasm will encourage other businesses to follow suit.
The city’s Department of Transportation said each truck in a pilot program that operated between 7 p.m. and 6 a.m. saved about $1,000 in parking fines alone, and saw its average delivery route time drop by 48 minutes. About eight delivery companies participated. Small companies were paid $300 per participating truck and large trucking companies received a single grant of $3,000 to compensate them for having to make changes in their delivery schedule.
The pilot program, billed by transportation officials as the first of its kind to study off-peak deliveries, and funded in part with $1.2 million in federal money, ended in January. Department of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan said the city would not pursue a ban of daytime deliveries into Manhattan but might change its policies to make certain curbside deliveries off-limits until the evening.
“We’re trying to make it more efficient for people to do business in the City of New York,” Ms. Sadik-Khan said.
Twenty-five businesses agreed to receive goods at night, among them Whole Foods, Foot Locker and a handful of restaurants. Those businesses each received $2,000 to help cover overtime and other costs.
5 comments:
The only businesses that can afford to do this is of course BIG business.
Heh it's a real nice day to sit outside on the pedestrian only street today . . . . (not)
There are some problems with overnight deliveries. One is noise complaints, often deliveries are in residential neighborhoods and there is a fair amount of noise associated with truck deliveries. Another problem is overnight deliveries require business to be open at least partially. Employees need to be working to receive and stock deliveries. Management needs to be working as well, to ensure safe delivery of goods. This is an added cost to businesses.
If overnight deliveries were to become more commonplace, parking will still be an issue, and the city would find it profitable to employ ticket agents on overnight shifts. Trucks still double park etc overnight, the enforcement is just not around at those times. Bloomturd is not going to let the city lose parking or ticket revenue to overnight deliveries. It would just be a matter of time before muni meters were in effect all night, and traffic agents will be on the prowl overnight as well.
Bloomturd is bleeding delivery companies dry with tickets and regulations, and I doubt he has any intentions on changing this practice.
Here's an example. 10.7 mil from fed-ex in 07-08.
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/14/when-a-fedex-truck-is-absolutely-positively-towed/
We ALL pay for this every time we mail a package or purchase goods in the city.
Sooooo a city that's broker than broke can afford to pay bonuses and incentives for this to work. Sorry, doesn't fly in my world.
Keep me up all night with trucks driving down 80th street where it is already prohibiting truck traffic. Enforce the existing laws before going willy-nilly with new ideas that promote greater issues that harm us.
Many countries also do all road repairs at night.
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