The New York City Off-Hour Delivery Program: A Business and Community-Friendly Sustainability Program

The New York City Off-Hour Delivery (NYC OHD) program is the work of a private-public-academic partnership—a collaborative effort of leading private-sector groups and companies, public-sector agencies led by the New York City Department of Transportation, and research partners led by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The efforts of this partnership have induced more than 400 commercial establishments in NYC to accept OHD without supervision. The economic benefits are considerable: the carriers have reduced operational costs and parking fines by 45 percent; the receivers enjoy more reliable deliveries, enabling them to reduce inventory levels; the truck drivers have less stress, shorter work hours, and easier deliveries and parking; the delivery trucks produce 55–67 percent less emissions than they would during regular-hour deliveries, for a net reduction of 2.5 million tons of CO2 per year; and citizens’ quality of life increases as a result of reduced conflicts between delivery trucks, cars, bicycles, an...