| Home shopping allows consumers to shop for goods while in the privacy of their own home, as opposed to traditional shopping, which requires a visit to stores and shopping malls. As a shopping behavior trend, home shopping has also become more popular. This shopping method seems to decrease shopping trips, yet more delivery trucks required to be on the roads. In addition, even more personal trips may occur because saving time on shopping might allow more time for alternate activities.;A study that was performed in 2001 at the University of Delaware, investigated the effects of home shopping on the transportation system of downtown Newark. The purpose of that study was to identify the home shopping impacts on transportation system, precisely, its net effects on traffic volume of the transportation network of downtown Newark, Delaware and then to provide some projections for 2005 and 2010 situation.;The first purpose of the current study was to verify the forecasts provided by Cvetek. For this purpose, a survey questionnaire was prepared to identify the shopping habits of the residents in the study area and also a rough estimation of home shopping within a year in the study area for the current year (2008). Furthermore, the results were used to make a Synchro model to evaluate the mentioned projections. The second purpose of the current study was to make new projections (based on the mentioned evaluations) for the next five years and the next ten years from 2008 (the base year) to address the impacts of home shopping on the downtown Newark street network.;The evaluation process produced two remarkable results. First, none of the scenarios provided in the previous study were proved to be the dominant case for the present condition. Second, although the growth in home shopping has been significantly less than what was projected in the scenarios I, II and III, the MOEs for 2008 are even worse than the worst case scenario projected for 2010.;Simulation results of the new projections for 2013 and 2018 prove that South Chapel Street is the most vulnerable street of the network since its MOEs experience a remarkable decline. Also, for the northbound South College Avenue and Academy Street, a significant increase in Delay and Travel Time for 2013 and 2018 condition is observed. Besides, the least affected links of the network are southbound Academy Street and Southbound South College Avenue. |
