Facilitating ECommerce at the State and Local Levels: High Technology Meets and Perhaps Depends on t

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Facilitating E-Commerce at the State and Local
Levels High Technology Meets (and Perhaps
Depends on) the Old

• by
• Michael D. Meyer, Ph.D., P.E.
• School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
• Georgia Institute of Technology

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Information Technologies and
Influence virtual communities cyber cities
cyberopolis infocities telecommunities
network cities digital places
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Virtual communities that networks bring together
are often defined by common interests rather than
by common location.the story of virtual
communities so far, is urban history replayed in
fast forward---but with computer resource use
playing the part of land use, and network
navigation systems standing in for streets and
transportation systems.as more and more business
and social interactions shift into cyberspace, we
are finding that accessibility depends even less
on propinquity, and community has come
increasingly unglued from geography Mitchell,
1999.
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The old demarcation between work and home will
evaporate---in its place will be a shift in the
location of work, a new role for cities, a new
role for the home, and reshaped communities.In
half a centurys time, it may well seem
extraordinary that millions of people once
trooped from one building (their home) to another
(their office) each morning, only to reverse the
procedure each eveningAll this might strike our
grandchildren as bizarre Cairncross, 1996.
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10 U.S. Cities Most Likely to Benefit From the
Internet (Stephen Roulac, 2000) New York, San
Jose, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston,
Seattle, Atlanta, Chicago, Miami and
D.C. Why? these cities are able to attract the
talent. sense of place, beauty in the natural
environment, transportation system, 24-hour city
with mixed uses/mixed activity/diversity
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Sommers and Carlson, The Brookings
Institution Ten Steps to a High Tech
Future Location decisions for high tech players
varied by sector High tech manufacturers
suburban industrial parks due to cost factors and
future expansion New telecommunications, internet
content, and e-commerce companies downtown
locations for the infrastructure and
competitive advantage in hiring
talent Biotechnology firms near research
institutions and hospitals
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• Ten Steps to a High Tech Future
• Understand high tech firms and your citys
  competitive
• advantage
• Invest in human capital
• Create research and development presence
• Invest in physical capital
• Invest in quality of life
• Streamline permitting, planning, and other
  public services
• Adapt other local laws (such as special tax
  policies)
• Provide venture and seed capital
• Create support programs for entrepreneurs
• Apply information technology in the public sector

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Hal Cohen Like anything else, high tech requires
infrastructure, and like any infrastructure, the
new tends to go right where the old was as
economic logic says to minimize risk by investing
in already dominant areas.new telecom
infrastructure like fiber optic is run between
the same important info hubs that already
dominate via copper connections, often on
rights-of-way of even older infrastructure such
as railroads and highways, reinforcing those
networks traditional, city-centric organization
of space. Mitchell Moss The future is much more
like Silicon Valley or San Francisco where firms
engaged in the same activities thrive by being
next to each other, where they can access each
others products and labor forces.
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This implies that enhancing the transportation
system as part of a metropolitan strategy to
improve quality of life and promote the
livability of urban places directly fits into a
strategy of encouraging e-commerce and high tech
development
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• SMART GROWTH (ITE SPECIAL ISSUE)
• Comprehensive plan
• Regulations/ordinances
• Growth boundaries
• Pedestrian/bicycle/transit
• Flexible design
• Access management
• Intelligent transportation system
• Incentives and disincentives
• Pricing
• Special improvement districts

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• What about business transportation?
• Five major economic trends have affected the
  nature of business transportation requirements
• Importance of trade and globalization of the
  economy
• Growth of service industries
• Restructuring of traditional manufacturing to
  increase competitiveness and emergence of high
  technology and knowledge-based industries .
• Industrial location and demographic trends,
  including increased flexibility for businesses in
  their location decisions and an aging population
• Reduced government roles and increased
  privatization

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Average Daily Number of Trips by Vehicle
Type Vehicle Type N Mean Light-Duty
Trucks 991,233 4.99 Medium-Duty
Trucks 91,060 9.96 Heavy-Duty
Trucks 231,112 4.83 Base All trips,
including vehicles that made no trips on travel
day (weighted). Comparison of Weighted Daily
Truck Trips. City Mean Atlanta 6.88
San Antonio, TX 8.27 Phoenix, AZ
7.70 Winston-Salem / High Point /
Greensboro, NC 7.40
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Commercial Trips by Land Use Destination
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Average Total Daily Mileage by Commercial Vehicle
Type
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Average Trip Length (miles) by Commercial Vehicle
Type
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Time of Day
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• E-business and freight movement
• Collaborative logistics (reduction in empty
  miles
• source of transportation cost savings network
• perspective)
• Evolution from linear supply chain to value
• webs
• Dispersed manufacturing merge-in-transit
• interfaces
• Implications? Requires real time information
• 95 reliability

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• Demand for smaller and more frequent shipments
• favors air and expedited ground delivery
• Intermodal and terminal transshipment capacity
  is
• the key
• E-business requires a transportation system
  that
• performs in a way that is comparable in ease
  and
• reliability.
• B2C requires a transportation system that
  provides
• near ubiquitous access to all possible
  consumer
• locations in a market.

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• Important Emerging Issues
• Distributed business operations
• Location of consolidation/distribution centers
  and impact on
• surrounding transportation system
• Neighborhood/community-based subcenters
• Employee access to these distribution centers
• Consolidation of intermodal terminals to gain
  economies of
• scale
• Desirable transportation system performance
  focused on
• reliability
• Fleet vehicles powered by fuels other than
  carbon based

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Examples Brownfield intermodal freight
infrastructure in northern New Jersey Global
freight village Commuter rail package dropoff New
warehousing next to international airport Package
delivery distribution/collection facility within
one block of rail intermodal facility Truck-only
facilities Curb management strategies
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Conclusions The transportation system plays an
important part in completing the transaction.
Terminal capacity, location and operations that
allow integrated product movements across modes
are critical business decisions in providing the
most cost efficient delivery of services.
Proximity of e-commerce activities suggests an
important supporting role for good
transportation
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Transportation Planning Issues Over Time