By EZ Parking
Our Challenge
The delivery of goods in urban areas is a huge challenge –space is scarce, traffic is dense and the number of packages keeps growing. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of online orders in Mexico increased sharply. This led to even more delivery traffic and challenges for suppliers to find loading bays – as dedicated loading and un-loading bays are lacking. This in turn led to parking problems, traffic disruptions and higher fuel consumption. A vicious cycle? What can be done?
Our Approach:
To tackle these questions, we asked bright minds and conducted a hackathon. The hackathon was held jointly with the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT) and the Ministry of Environment and Territorial Development of the state of Jalisco (SEMADET), with 712 participants (18% women), mostly from Mexico, but also from Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, France, Nicaragua, Peru and Venezuela.
The winning team was EZParking (read easy parking) used a facility location method to determine the spots for the loading zones and its potential demand based on the business agglomeration. EZParking matches supply and demand for loading and un-loading bays and hence facilitates the delivery of goods. Watch the hackathon video here!
In general, on-street parking and loading initiatives incl. supporting digital solutions aim at providing necessary curb side space for conducting activities for urban freight. These are particularly needed as denser areas in cities are not designed to handle significant volumes of traffic.
First steps
To test the application, a one-month pilot project for digital loading zone management was carried out together with the municipality of Zapopan (1.2 mln inh; in central Mexico). 90 companies participated in the pilot project with 21 loading zones. It was shown that the companies can save 4% of CO2 emissions per ton kilometer by using the digital application. In addition, the data generated enables the municipality to determine the optimal location for the loading zones.
The next step is to expand the pilot measure in Guadalajara to 100 loading zones. If the pilot is successful, the city of Guadalajara has announced that it will roll out the digital platform throughout the city.
Lessons learnt
Surveys showed a high level of satisfaction among participating companies and shop owners, who also supported the expansion of the loading bay concept. A local carrier of large drinking water jars underlines:
“The new loading and unloading bays will help us reduce delivery time, since previously existing loading zones were only very far away from the stores to which we delivered.”
Local carrier of large drinking water jars
The introduction of such an app and parking bays can be one part of a broader strategy to manage delivery traffic in cities in an environmentally friendly way. The GIZ-SUTP sourcebook module 1.7. “Action 7: Managing parking, loading, and unloading” takes a look at this issue and incorporates it into the overall field of urban delivery traffic.
More information
- Video on sustainable last mile delivery
- Website of EZParking
- SUTP Module 1g – Delivering Sustainability: Urban Freight in Developing Cities (ed. 2)
About our project “Implementation of the national climate protection targets in the Mexican transport sector”
Mexico ranks 9th among countries with the highest greenhouse gas emissions in the transport sector, just behind Germany, which ranks 8th. With emissions of 148 million tons of CO2, the Mexican transport sector is the second largest emitter of carbon dioxide emissions after the energy sector.
In order to reduce these emissions, the project supports measures by state and non-state actors.to mitigate greenhouse gases and air pollutants in the transport sector.
Our indicators:
- A vehicle fleet renewal program developed on the basis of the results of a sector working group at national and / or state level is in demand by companies in the sector.
- 80% of a sample of companies that participated in efficiency training measures report in a survey that their fuel consumption in liters per tonne-kilometer (TKM) has been reduced by 10%.
- A funding program contains an approved financing guideline for mitigation projects in urban logistics.
- Standardized reference values and calculation methodology (measurement, reporting and verification (MRV)) for estimating and demonstrating savings of climate-relevant emissions from the road transport sector are introduced as mandatory for government-funded climate protection measures at city, state and national level.