Calderón’s Research Seeks to Ease Freight Congestion
Technology has made receiving items at home easier than ever.
If you need laundry detergent from the store, you can have it delivered instantaneously. If you see a pair of shoes you want to wear this week, they can arrive within two days. If you don’t feel like cooking one night, you can order a meal through Uber Eats to have at your doorstep right after work.
Unfortunately, the convenience comes with a cost beyond just the charge on a credit card. More deliveries mean more vehicles on the road, more traffic, more emissions, more noise, and more pavement damage, among other drawbacks.
Oriana Calderón is an assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and a researcher in the “collaborative community cluster” led by CTR Director Kevin Heaslip. She is working to help find solutions to some of these problems through her expertise in freight transportation, particularly freight resiliency and sustainable freight transportation.
“Many of the freight researchers focus on the supply. Supply is the infrastructure, so let’s make more highways, more bridges, etc. They don’t consider the demand, which is very important as well,” Calderón said. “The demand is a very strong short-term initiative compared to the supply strategies.”