Investigating how trucks impact social equity with new freight data

How does truck activity impact disadvantaged communities compared to their non-disadvantaged neighbors? StreetLight uses new truck data to show how you can investigate inequitable truck impacts in your community.

Truck activity can have a huge impact on local emissions and traffic congestion, but not all communities are equally affected. Now, new truck data from StreetLight helps analysts investigate how truck traffic impacts disadvantaged communities (DACs) across the U.S., and how factors like urban density, vehicle weight class, and industry type contribute – and help diagnose – inequitable impact.

Key Takeaways

• In New York state, StreetLight’s data indicates disadvantaged communities are impacted by worse truck travel delays than non-disadvantaged communities, potentially exacerbating negative outcomes, such as air pollution and emissions. 

• Communities in the urban core are the most impacted by truck travel delays and the added emissions and pollution they often generate. 

• Overall, medium-duty trucks show the most unequal impact on disadvantaged communities. Trucks in this category from the public administration and transportation and warehousing industries may warrant special attention for DACs.

Trucks are some of the worst offenders when it comes to vehicle emissions. Although they are indispensable to today’s freight logistics, they also emit more CO2 and other air pollutants than cars because they typically emit more GHGs per mile in addition to traveling much longer average distances. 

Compounding trucks’ oversized climate impact is a dramatic spike in freight activity. A 2021 analysis by USDOT’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics predicted total U.S. freight activity would grow 50% by 2050, with trucks accounting for 65% of that total.¹ This proliferation of truck traffic also challenges existing road capacity in many communities, exacerbating rising congestion and safety issues. 

And these ramifications often come down hardest on disadvantaged communities — people who live in low-income neighborhoods where high congestion, noise pollution, and poor air quality are common. For this reason, analyzing how truck activity impacts disadvantaged communities is critical to reducing harms. 

Now, freight planners, fleet operators, and businesses can use new truck data from StreetLight to understand how freight activity impacts different communities, as well as investigate related questions about who truck activity serves, which industries are most represented, and how travel delays impact logistics, emissions, and equity. 

Below, StreetLight analyzes commercial vehicle activity in New York, comparing its impact on DACs vs. non-disadvantaged communities.

How Trucks Impact Disadvantaged Communities in New York

Since 2021, disadvantaged communities (DACs) have been a key focus of efforts to improve transportation equity. These communities are “marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution,” as defined by Executive Order 14096, which established the Justice40 Initiative, a policy promising to funnel at least 40% of federal investments in clean energy, clean transit, sustainable housing, and similar programs into low-income census tracts that qualify as disadvantaged communities.² 

In the state of New York, about 36% of all census tracts — accounting for about 35% of the state population — are considered to be DACs.  

While all truck traffic can negatively impact a community’s air quality, traffic congestion, and local emissions levels, analyzing how different weight classes impact DACs vs. non-DACs can add helpful nuance to planning efforts aimed at mitigating this impact and targeting policy interventions. 

To unpack the impact of trucks on DACs. vs. non-DACs, StreetLight’s analyzed truck activity in New York state by weight class and how it differed in these community types. Streetlight finds that light-duty and medium-duty truck activity have a disproportionate impact on disadvantaged communities per mile. Meanwhile, heavy-duty activity per roadway mile is slightly higher within non-DACs. 

Truck Activity Per Roadway Mile is segmented by commercial vehicle weight class to compare trucks’ impact on DACs vs. non-DACs. See our Methodology section at the end for more details.

Going further and factoring in travel delays among trucks, the picture changes substantially. 

The chart below illustrates the inequitable impact of congestion, with DACs encountering significantly more traffic delays per roadway mile, even among truck classes that have a lesser presence in DACs compared to non-DACs. In fact, DACs are faced with more traffic delays across every class of truck, suggesting that DACs may also be exposed to disproportionately high emissions from both gas-powered and diesel-powered trucks as these vehicles linger through delays, contributing to poor health outcomes.

Measuring the average delay from free-flow speed per roadway mile reveals that traffic delays impact disadvantaged communities significantly more, regardless of which classes of truck are driving in their community.

While trucks are not necessarily the cause of these traffic delays, congestion mitigation efforts can still help reduce the impact that trucks — and indeed all vehicles — have on the communities they travel through. 

Because these delays are averaged across the entire available roadway network, the per-mile delay impacts appear small. Nevertheless, the fact that average delays are higher for DACs than non-DACs suggests that analyzing congestion is a worthy step when evaluating the impact of truck traffic within disadvantaged communities. 

While traffic delays are a nuisance for communities in and of themselves, lengthening commute times and making it harder to access essential goods and services, delays also intensify other negative impacts of vehicle activity like emissions and air pollution. 

Where Truck Delays Have the Biggest Impact by Density

For agencies to manage truck activity in a way that improves transportation equity, it’s also important to understand that DACs are diverse in makeup, as are non-DACs – no two communities look exactly the same. For example, urban density can have a significant impact on how communities are impacted by trucks. 

To understand these nuances, let’s first establish how DACs are distributed across different urban densities – from rural locations to the urban core.

The map above highlights important nuances to consider when comparing census tracts—firstly, rural census tracts cover far more area, and therefore far more roadway network miles, than urban tracts. For this reason, StreetLight normalizes Truck Activity by roadway mile for this analysis (see Methodology section for more details). 

Furthermore, the map shows that DACs are concentrated in urban areas. Zooming in on New York City reveals just how many DACs call the city home compared to rural areas throughout the state. The chart below explores this distribution by population.  

Since DACs are concentrated in urban areas, you might expect to find that truck delays are only an issue for DACs in urban and urban core locations.  

However, in the chart below, we can see that while delays are worse in urban DACs, even in rural and suburban areas, DACs are impacted by more travel time delays than their non-DAC counterparts, highlighting the importance of targeting congestion mitigation efforts and improving freight planning within disadvantaged communities across all urban densities.

How Different Truck Weight Classes Impact Communities

To further contextualize StreetLight’s truck findings by density, let’s zero in on the roles different truck weight classes play in each type of tract.

Truck Weight Class Distribution by Urban Density

How Different Industries Contribute to Truck Impact, by Weight Class

Given the disproportionate impact medium-duty vehicles have on DACs by overall activity, and especially when factoring in travel delays, it’s helpful to understand what roles these vehicles play in communities, and which industries drive medium-duty truck activity.

As the image above depicts, commercial vehicles range from class 1 to class 8, with classes 1 and 2 considered “light-duty” vehicles, ranging from commercial vans to pickup trucks. Classes 7 and 8 are “heavy-duty” vehicles, including garbage trucks, city transit buses, and traditional semi-trailer trucks. Everything in between (classes 3-6) is considered “medium-duty,” ranging from local delivery trucks to school buses.³ 

Based on mileage, medium-duty truck activity in New York’s DACs is predominantly comprised of Public Administration and Transportation and Warehousing vehicles, with Real Estate and Rental and Leasing (the front-runner for medium-duty activity in non-DACs) trailing just behind. 

Meanwhile, Real Estate and Rental and Leasing and Transportation and Warehousing also make a strong showing within the heavy-duty vehicle activity breakdown. Although heavy-duty vehicles show more truck activity per roadway mile within non-DACs compared to their DAC neighbors, these trucks still have a significant impact on DACs, especially as they contribute more emissions and noise pollution per mile traveled compared to smaller trucks. For this reason, understanding the industry breakdown among heavy-duty trucks could also generate valuable lessons for equity-focused freight planning.

Based on these findings, medium- and heavy-duty trucks serving the transportation and warehousing industry could warrant special attention from freight planners. These trucks often travel to and from larger hubs of freight activity, such as distribution warehouses and ports, making communities impacted by these high-traffic freight routes that much more likely to experience air and noise pollution due to nearby truck activity. Moreover, much of this truck traffic may not be ending in these communities, merely passing through. For this reason, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) provides special funding opportunities for decarbonization efforts that target ports.⁴

Key Takeaways for Managing Truck Traffic Impacts

To improve outcomes for disadvantaged communities, planners must consider the inequitable impacts of truck traffic as they work to mitigate congestion, reduce emissions, and route trucks efficiently. 

StreetLight’s analysis highlights that some classes of truck impact DACs more than their non-DAC counterparts, suggesting that analyzing this truck activity and targeting electrification efforts toward these weight classes and industries in particular may help address inequitable impact and target the most impactful improvements. 

Additionally, the analysis shows traffic delays are a problem disproportionately impacting DACs across all urban densities, but especially in the urban core. Though these delays are not necessarily caused by trucks themselves, they can exacerbate the impacts trucks have on local emissions and air quality, making efforts to mitigate congestion and route trucks more efficiently in disadvantaged communities especially critical. 

Finally, the Transportation and Warehousing industry emerges as a significant contributor to trucks’ impact on disadvantaged communities. This industry could warrant special attention from planners or businesses looking to address freight’s equity impact. And for businesses with large logistics operations, placing emphasis on improved routing and electrification could mitigate congestion and emissions impacts on disadvantaged communities. 

For more information on how you can use transportation data to address congestion in your area, download StreetLight’s Congestion Solutions Guide: Everything But Highway Expansion. 

And to learn how you can analyze truck activity and prioritize the most impactful improvements, watch our webinar, Better Freight Planning with New Truck Data: Improve Economics & Emissions.

Methodology

This analysis includes truck data for March 2024 within the state of New York, including residential roadways. 

To measure Truck Activity, StreetLight analyzes sample Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) for commercial vehicles per mile of available roadway network in each census tract.  

To analyze traffic delay, StreetLight uses a weighted average of travel time delay per mile of available roadway network in each of the urban density and DAC/non-DAC categories. The weight is the segment truck sample count, so that segments with higher numbers of trips have their delay represented proportionately. In other words, the travel time delay value for each of these categories represents how much delay a driver can expect when travelling one mile within that category. 

StreetLight analyzes the urban density of census tracts based on the density of their roadway networks.

Census tracts are labeled “disadvantaged” vs. “non-disadvantaged” based on how they are classified by the Justice40 Initiative. In general, census tracts labeled “disadvantaged” meet a threshold for “environmental, climate, or other burdens” and “an associated socio-economic burden.”⁵ 

1. USDOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics. “Freight Activity in the U.S. Expected to Grow Fifty Percent by 2050.” November 22, 2021. https://www.bts.gov/newsroom/freight-activity-us-expected-grow-fifty-percent-2050

2. The White House. “Justice40, a whole-of-government initiative.” https://www.whitehouse.gov/environmentaljustice/justice40/

3. U. S. Department of Energy, Alternative Fuels Data Center. “Maps and Data – Vehicle Weight Classes & Categories.” https://afdc.energy.gov/data/10380

4. Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy. “Federal Funding Opportunities for Port Low- to Zero-Emissions Technologies.” https://www.energy.gov/eere/federal-funding-opportunities-port-low-zero-emission-technologies

5. Office of Energy Justice and Equity. “Justice40 Initiative.” https://www.energy.gov/justice/justice40-initiative