The innovative “portering” strategy, developed by researchers from Westminster’s Centre for Urban Infrastructure, is lowering carbon emissions from last-mile delivery.
There’s no disputing that the pandemic has turbocharged e-commerce. But as we’ve all come to embrace online shopping and home deliveries, one unintended biproduct is the growth in kerbside idling by parcel delivery vehicles, and the significant air pollution it causes.
The research of Professor Maja Piecyk, Julian Allen and Marzena Piotrowska into freight transport has pioneered “portering” as a strategy to reduce carbon emissions, which has already had a significant influence in London.
What is “portering”?
Put simply, portering means delivering goods on-foot, rather than by van or truck.
Shortening delivery vehicles’ time on the road reduces greenhouse gas emissions and local air pollution, improves road safety and traffic congestion, and frees up kerbside space for other road users.
After tracking drivers for two central London parcel delivery businesses Professor Piecyk, Allen, and Piotrowska found, in 2018, that vans typically spent 3.5–4.5 hours parked at the kerbside each day – close to two thirds of the whole time they were out on a round.
Ironically, drivers also walked around 8 km per round, without even counting the distance walked to use elevators or climb stairs, which happened at up to 20% of addresses they visited.
All these findings confirmed the huge potential on-foot portering had to bring about change.
Bringing “portering” to London
Partnering with parcel operator Gnewt by Menzies Distribution (GMD), the researchers undertook a TfL-backed pilot portering scheme in Westminster and the City of London.
In the trial, on-foot porters used electronic messaging to rendezvous at the kerbside with a Gnewt van driver. Porters were given large, waterproof, wheeled bags to efficiently deliver smaller packages across shorter distances, leaving the vehicles free to serve a wider area and deliver items that are too big or heavy for the porter’s bag. The porters and the drivers then communicated with each other via a smartphone app to agree meeting points for the next load.
An independent evaluation of the freight consolidation trials in London fully endorsed implementing the portering system.
The evaluation concluded that the portering trial reduced van kerbside parking time by up to 65%, van driving time by up to 71%, and van driving distance by up to 30%.
As such, Westminster’s collaboration with GMD was rated as having the highest impact and most robust evidence in terms of environmental impact, impact on congestion, ability to rollout and cost of scaling up.
This portering strategy was included in the Mayor of London’s Freight and Servicing Action Plan (2019), following the above success and the researchers’ submission of evidence to its consultation process.
This Action Plan references the researchers’ 2018 study and highlights portering as a “good example” of ways to “minimise the impact of freight and servicing activity”.
It recommends scaling up the strategy across London, particularly central London, in line with the Mayor’s goals of reducing goods vehicles entering the city during morning peak-time, reducing carbon emissions and improving air quality.
In its press release announcing the scheme, TfL laid out ways it would be working with London businesses to facilitate portering, such as offering “‘green’ delivery slots”.
Ford embraces “portering”
One collaborative project of this kind began between TfL and Ford in 2019.
Building on the researchers’ demonstrator project with GMD, Ford also collaborated with Gnewt to trial a “digital parcel courier service” aimed at reducing congestion and offering faster deliveries.
This portering system was enhanced by Ford’s “cloud-based, multimodal routing and logistics software”, and the pilot showed reduced delivery times and workload.
“Although you’ve got more people delivering, they are doing fewer hours,” a spokesperson explained. “So you may have two or three people doing two or three hours every morning rather than having one person doing eight or nine hours.”
After winning the TRANStech Awards 2019’s “Last Mile Innovator Award”, Ford extended the programme to further entrench the portering strategy into its operations.
The lead designer of Ford’s LMD app cited multiple achievements during 2020, including: over 50,000 deliveries completed through the app, five times as many deliveries per day, 160% more deliveries per hour – all of which offset over 10 tonnes of CO2 emissions.
The strategy was further cemented by Ford’s successful pilot scheme with Hermes (now Evri) in December 2020.
“Working through the Christmas peak, the pilot service met unprecedented demand for home deliveries,” a spokesperson explained. “Operating alongside a team of eight pedestrian couriers and located across three postcode areas, two Ford Transit vans delivered the same number of parcels as six vans making conventional doorstep deliveries – and did so more quickly.”
Watch the video The Future of Deliveries – According to Ford; by Ford News Europe on YouTube.
Informing the sustainability strategies of City of London Corporation
Professor Piecyk, Allen, and Piotrowska have influenced the City of London Corporation’s strategies to make Square Mile freight operations more sustainable, without compromising their efficiency or commercial viability.
This occurred through their detailed, research-based, written contributions to the City’s Freight and Servicing Supplementary Planning Document (2018), its Transport Strategy (2019) and its draft Local Plan (2020) – now called City Plan 2036.
Demonstrating City of London’s commitment to portering:
- The freight document proposes a system of “micro-consideration” across the city, which would allow for last-mile deliveries by foot, cycle or zero emission vans in delivery or servicing plans
- Directly following the researchers’ recommendations, the Transport Strategy states that “logistics hubs” within the city “will enable deliveries to be made by cargo cycles and pedestrian porters”
- The City Plan 2036 confirms “freight consolidation and promoting deliveries by foot or bicycle for shorter distances” is part of the city’s strategic policy
The adoption of portering for last-mile delivery is helping the City of London in its goal of meeting World Health Organization (WHO) air quality guidelines in 90% of the Square Mile by 2025.
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