Car and Driver - USA (2020-05)

AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH

Cardboard Jungle

Deliveries of online purchases are taking a toll on city streets.

It turns out that the convenience of
buying anything—toilet paper, toi-
let brushes, toilets—with a single tap from
the comfort of your porcelain throne isn’t
without inconvenience in major cities.
Because of our online-shopping habits,
delivery vehicles are stacking up in urban
areas like cardboard boxes in a dumpster.
E-commerce has more than doubled
in the past decade, growing from 4.6 per-
cent to 10.7 percent of U.S. retail trans-
actions. The corresponding rise in home
deliveries—Amazon’s network alone
transported more than 3.5 billion pack-
ages globally last year—is clogging city
streets with trucks that stop frequently
and often park illegally. While trucks
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ies nationwide, they’re responsible for an
outsize 11 percent of congestion, accord-
ing to the 2019 Urban Mobility Report from
the Texas A&M Transportation Institute.
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dense cities like New York. According to
a recent Ne w York Times analysis, daily
package volume to households in the Big
Apple tripled from 2009 to 2017 while
the amount of physical space for the
ubiquitous white, blue, or brown delivery
vehicles remained static. Drivers have

resorted to taking over street corners

with their trucks, sorting packages on

sidewalks as they conscript public space

for private industry. They don’t always

get away with it, though. New York City

handed UPS a bill for $33. 8 million for

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for $14. 9 million.

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expects the number of packages delivered

in the U. S. to double by 2026 , to 100 mil-

lion per day, with 90 percent deriving from

e-commerce and the overwhelming major-

ity of this volume going to residences. The

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as far-fetched as anything the autonomy-

and drone-loving tech industry has come

up with [see “Thinking outside the Box”].

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on the delivery boom are doubling down.

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service to seven days a week and added

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has ordered 100, 000 electric vans from

startup automaker Rivian. But like loos-

ening a belt to cure obesity, having more

delivery vehicles only worsens the prob-

lem. It guarantees that the cost of ship-

ping remains low and the packages—and

the trucks—just keep coming. —Brett Berk

THINKING

OUTSIDE

THE BOX

—

FedEx’s experimental

lidar- and camera-

equipped electric

delivery bot, called Roxo,

proposes a future where

urban delivery traffic

moves from the streets

to the sidewalks. Roxo

weighs 2 00 pounds, can

carry 100 pounds, and

is capable of climbing

stairs, making it an

outlier among delivery

drivers. What’s more,

in the suburban town of

Christiansburg, Virginia,

the company has tested

a flying delivery drone,

developed with Wing, that

drops small packages

mere steps from a

recipient’s front door.

20 ILLUSTRATION BY RYAN OLBRYSH ~ MAY 2020 ~ CAR AND DRIVER