When city residents or planners talk about congestion in urban areas, a lot of common images come to mind. Crowded trains and platforms. Sidewalks packed with walkers and shoppers. Streets lined with honking cabs and bicyclists dodging in and out of traffic lanes. And yet a critical part of our urban infrastructure is often overlooked: the transportation of our packages and goods.

RPA staff recently attended a three-day conference on urban freight hosted at the University of Gothenburg and Chalmers and supported by the Volvo Research and Educational Foundation. The conference convened hundreds of freight professionals and academics from around the world to discuss how the movement of goods presents challenges for our cities and how best to plan for sharing urban space.

Gothenburg is the home of Sweden’s largest seaport and the Volvo Corporation. It also serves a case study of sustainable urban redevelopment. The city is currently transforming portions of its older inner harbor while still encouraging the growth of its logistical industry that is responsible for distributing goods throughout Sweden. The focus on quality of life and the coexistence of the freight industry and urban life is on a scale far different than the New York region. In Gothenburg noise in urban areas is monitored and controlled to a much greater degree, resulting in a healthier and less stressful environment than what we are used to in U.S. cities. This type of noise research is being used in other cities in South America to determine the most feasible locations for off-hour urban freight deliveries in cities based on the amount of existing background noise.

At RPA, we are constantly thinking about how urban freight could be improved in our own region. At the conference, I gave a presentation on the goods movement challenges facing the New York region and how RPA’s Fourth Regional Plan research is evaluating solutions. We also are taking stock of best practices and innovations happening globally for this industry, as shown in our recent report, Why Goods Movement Matters. Funded by VREF and in collaboration with the Urban Freight Platform in Gothenburg and two VREF Centers of Excellence at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y. and at University of Southern California, the report synthesizes research conducted by these three academic institutions on how urban freight can best coexist with other forms of urban life in bustling, crowded cities.

This research, and the conference, are important steps to stress the vital nature of goods movement to cities around the world and the opportunities for shared urban space that improves quality of life.