Freight-Efficient Land Uses: Methodology, Strategies, and Tools

Land-use planning and policymaking is central to how communities manage their economic activity and the social and environmental impacts these activities produce. Because of this central role, enhancing land-use practices to better incorporate the needs and impacts of freight activity has strong potential to improve the efficiency of their associated supply chains. This paper summarizes the key findings of the NCFRP 08-111 project on “Freight-Efficient Land Uses (FELUs)”, probably the most comprehensive research project to date aimed at designing policy procedures to foster land-uses that minimize the private and external costs associated with the production, transportation, and consumption of goods. As part of the paper, the authors define freight efficient land-uses, identify the principles that should guide the process towards FELUs, outline the process to develop FELU plans and programs, propose to analyze the freight efficiency of current and future land uses in their jurisdictions, and identify complementary initiatives (both land-use and transportation related) that could help mitigate the negative impacts on local communities. The authors discuss three illustrative cases that provide evidence on how land-use decisions produce unintended effects on local communities. The paper explains how decision makers can carefully consider the FELU principles in their planning and avoid or mitigate such negative results.