Skip to Content
Streetsblog USA home
Streetsblog USA home
Log In
Podcast

Talking Headways Podcast: Zero Emissions Delivery Zones

This week we’re joined by Hamilton Steimer of the World Resources Institute to talk about their report, Zero-emission Delivery Zones: A New Way to Cut Traffic, Air Pollution and Greenhouse Gases. We chat about electrification of fleets, what cities have the best programs for ZEDZ, and the current moment in urban delivery.

Listen here, on Libsyn, or anywhere else you get your podcasts. A full, edited transcript is available here — and a shorter version is below.

Jeff Wood: A potential solution to some of the issues that we’re seeing and m —aybe to speed up some of this electrification of fleets  or at least in certain areas — is the zero-emission delivery zone. What specifically is a zero-emission delivery zone as it’s defined?

Hamilton Steimer: I have to give a little bit of background context before getting into the definition. If you look across, you know, you may have a Europe based audience or not, but if you go to Europe, you may hear "low emission zones." That’s something that’s much more familiar, especially within Europe. These are designated areas within cities, typically at the city center, where vehicles have to meet certain emissions requirements in order to enter, or they may have to pay a fee or something like that. So zero-emission zones are kind of seen as the next step, where now to enter the area you have to have a zero-emission vehicle.

Zero-delivery zones are a subset of zero-emission zones. The way we describe define a zero emission delivery zone is, it's a designated area targeting delivery vehicles that, in which to have unlimited road access, need to be zero-emission.

Jeff Wood: From a policy perspective, why would you wanna focus on deliveries only and not just make it a, you know, low traffic zone or whatever? Why wouldn’t you just make it blanket rather than just freight?

Hamilton Steimer: A lot of the early development regarding this policy is in Europe, as I mentioned, particularly within the Netherlands in 2019, and their national climate plan. I think they require between 30 and 40 cities to implement zero emission zones by 2030. A lot of these cities, you know, obviously those zero mission zones that will be implemented will cover all types of road traffic. Right now, as they kind of take those initial steps, they’re thinking, "EVs are still very expensive. We don’t necessarily have the infrastructure for everyone to transition," you know, "What is a more manageable market aspect that we can target?"

For them they’re targeting this delivery freight sector, which, you know, historically they’ve targeted with their low emission zones.

There’s a lot of policy work targeting the freight sector historically. So for them it’s a more manageable. It's not easy. It’s a more manageable, kind of, first step to target them, see how it goes, start developing that infrastructure, [and] start to understand what are the pros and cons of the policy itself before then later ramping it up to the larger vehicle market.

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Streetsblog USA

Friday Video: The Best Super Bowl Ad You’ll Never See

Every February, Automakers spend millions to get Americans into expensive cars they can't afford. What if we could do the same to get them onto a bike seat?

February 21, 2025

Friday’s Headlines Fear for Amtrak

Amtrak may not survive the second Trump administration, let alone the slow progress on expansion made under President Biden.

February 21, 2025

Protestors Disrupt USDOT Secretary’s Attack on California High-Speed Rail

Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy announced a federal investigation into California High-Speed Rail "waste, fraud, and abuse." Protestors had a different take.

February 20, 2025

Talking Headways Podcast: How Big Box Stores are Destroying the Fabric of America

All of this very much like relates to where we are in terms of the breakdown in our basic civic fabric as a country.

February 20, 2025

Is the Intercity Bus About To Have Its Big Moment?

Intercity bus had an unexpectedly strong year — and some analysts think even greater things are on the horizon.

February 20, 2025
See all posts