The scope for sustainable distribution and servicing in the Regent Street area of Central London

LRN 2009

Cardiff Business School

10 September 2009

Marzena Piotrowska, Michael Browne, Darren Briggs,

Julian Richardson, Ian Wainwright

Regent Street characteristics

• Situated in Central London in the borough of City of Westminster and in the heart of London’s West End

• Occupied mostly by commercial tenants

• Prime shopping and tourist destination

• In 2008 over £4.5 billion was spent in the West End, making it the UK's top retail centre

Tenants in Regent Street

Retail outletsFashion and shoe storesCafés and restaurantsHealthcare and toiletries storesJewellersBanksLuggage and leather goods storesOpticiansElectronic and electrical goods storesChildren / Toy storesSportswear storesHome furnishings storesMixed goods store

Non-retail businessesAccountantsBusiness ConsultantsFinancial AdvisorsLegal FirmsRecruitment AdvisorsMedical InstitutionsTravel AgentsOther (i.e. retailers’ Head Offices,

publishers)

Planned Regent Street improvements

• Wider pavements

• Reduced traffic volumes

• Off-site consolidation centre serving local businesses

Aims of the study

• Gain better understanding of freight transport and servicing activities taking place in the Regent Street area

• Identify viable ways in which the existing operations can be made more sustainable

Research methodology

• Tenant survey – a questionnaire completed by retail and office tenants

• Observation and vehicle count survey

• Driver interviews

Tenant survey

• Total of 484 questionnaires were distributed to:

Retailers – 122 questionnaires

Office tenants – 362 questionnaires• Overall response rate – 21%• Designed to gather information about freight and

service related activities taking place at tenants’ premises

Observations and vehicle count

• Conducted at 14 sites in Regent Street area over a 48 hour period

• Started at 07:00 hours on 20 January 2009 and finished at 07:00 hours on the 22 January 2009

• Total of 2134 vehicle counts were recorded• Collected data and information helped to

understand freight and service related activities taking place in the surveyed area.

Driver interviews

• Combined with observations and vehicle count at 14 sites in Regent Street area

• Total of 314 drivers were interviewed which accounts for about 15% of the total vehicle count

• Drivers asked about key facts related to their journey to the Regent Street area

Freight and service vehicles

Vehicle Type Count %

LGVs 1291 63

HGVs 584 29

Other 168 8

Total 2043 100

LGVs & HGVs – Trip purpose

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

1000

LGVs HGVs

Co

un

t

Collection

Delivery

Servicing

Waste Collection

Other

Deliveries to Regent Street area

Sector Percent of Survey Data

Hospitality 39%

Business 28%

Retail 19%

Consumables 9%

Servicing 4%

Other 1%

Arrivals of LGVs and HGVs

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

Time (Hrs)

Co

un

t

LGVs

HGVs

Deliveries and Services– activities during the day

Arrival Time Deliveries (%) Services (%)

Between: 07:00-10:00 hrs Morning Peak 41% 32%

Between: 10:00-16:00 hrs 39% 34%

Between: 16:00-19:00 hrs Evening Peak 6% 8%

Between: 19:00-00:00 hrs 1% 7%

Between: 00:00-06:00 hrs 13% 19%

Dwell Time of LGVs and HGVs

LGVs HGVs

Dwell Time (mins)

Number of Vehicles

Percentage (%)

Number of Vehicles

Percentage (%)

0-5 376 39 158 36

6-20 476 49 184 41

21-40 78 8 76 17

41+ 38 4 25 6

Total 968 100 443 100

Dwell time by trip purpose - LGVs

Dwell Time(mins)

Delivery Servicing CollectionWaste

Collection

0-5 40% 19% 39% 67%

6-20 51% 50% 53% 25%

21-40 7% 16% 8% 6%

41+ 2% 15% 0% 2%

Conclusions

• Significant number of freight and servicing vehicles• LGVs accounting for 63% of all recorded counts

and dominating all operations except for waste collections

• Majority of vehicles involved in delivery operations• Service trips carried out mainly by LGVs• Little activity outside 9am – 5pm window –

potential scope for out of hours deliveries