What’s the real transportation impact of online shopping in the United States? A Minnesota study reveals surprising findings.

Shuake Wuzhati

July 28, 2026

E-commerce freight analysis developed by CPCS for the Metropolitan Council challenges common assumptions, revealing that the transportation impacts of online shopping are more complex than they appear.

Key points:

CPCS developed a first-of-its-kind quantitative model to measure the transportation and emissions impacts of e-commerce deliveries and personal shopping trips across the Twin Cities region.
The study found that personal shopping trips account for more than 99% of shopping-related vehicle miles traveled and greenhouse gas emissions, while last-mile e-commerce deliveries contribute less than 1%.
Four future scenarios modeled to 2050 give planners a framework for understanding how urbanization, technology, consumer behavior, and new shopping models could reshape freight and travel patterns.
Actionable recommendations on curbside management, microhub strategies, fleet electrification, and land use policy provide a roadmap for Met Council and local agencies.
Study findings are informing the Metropolitan Council’s 2050 Transportation Policy Plan.

What if delivery vans aren’t the biggest driver of shopping-related transportation impacts?

For years, the growth of e-commerce has raised concerns among transportation planners. More online orders mean more delivery vehicles, more curbside activity, and more pressure on already strained transportation networks.

Until recently, few planning agencies had the data to understand the scale of that change or its implications for their transportation networks.

That’s why the Metropolitan Council, the regional planning organization for the Twin Cities, engaged CPCS to lead a first-of-its-kind study examining how e-commerce is reshaping goods movement, travel demand, and land use.

CPCS developed a custom analytical framework to quantify the transportation impacts of both online shopping deliveries and personal shopping trips, helping the region better understand how emerging consumer behaviors could shape transportation needs through 2050.

A surprising finding: online shopping isn’t driving transportation impacts in the way many planners assume

After analyzing both personal shopping trips and last-mile delivery activity across the seven-county region, CPCS found that personal shopping trips account for more than 99% of shopping-related vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and nearly 99% of associated greenhouse gas emissions. Last-mile e-commerce deliveries account for less than 1%.

Caveat

CPCS’s analysis focused specifically on the last-mile segment of package delivery, which is the final leg that brings the product to the customer’s door.

The study does not account for first- and middle-mile operations within the region, such as movements between fulfillment centers and local distribution hubs.

The same exclusion applies to traditional retail supply chains, whose upstream freight movements are similarly outside the model’s scope.

The comparison is therefore direct comparison of the customer-facing end of both channels.

Even with that caveat, the result carries significant policy implications. It suggests that the freight and planning conversation should focus not just on delivery trucks, but on the personal vehicle trips that e-commerce has the potential to replace.

“While delivery vehicles are highly visible, they often consolidate what would otherwise be many separate passenger vehicle trips. This study quantified those impacts and explored related policy implications. For example, cities and regions will increasingly need to plan for, monitor, and optimize the curbside to help manage emerging pinch points.”

– Veiko Parming, CPCS Project Manager for the study

CPCS’s data-driven approach

CPCS developed a custom quantitative model that, for the first time, measured the vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions generated by both e-commerce last-mile deliveries and personal shopping trips across the seven-county region.

The model combined:

Zip-code-level purchasing data
Distribution facility location data
A CPCS-built algorithmic routing model
Household travel survey data
Academic research and industry intelligence on delivery operations

Together, these inputs helped the team to estimate both delivery-related travel and personal shopping trips across the region.

What affects regional shopping last-mile vehicle miles traveled and greenhouse gas emission growth?

Ecommerce and shopping: What affects regional vehicle miles traveled and greenhouse gas emission growth?

Looking ahead to 2050

Recognizing the uncertainty surrounding future technologies, consumer behaviors, and development patterns, the study explored four distinct scenarios for how freight and shopping activity could evolve through 2050.

The scenarios provide decision-makers with a framework for evaluating how different policy choices and market forces could influence transportation outcomes.

The Urban Hub: explores what happens when population growth concentrates in the core, enabling microhub networks and shorter trip distances.
The Techno-Freight Revolution: models a future where automation drives down shipping costs, e-commerce surges, and delivery fleets go fully electric.
The Omni Breakthrough: examines a world where online ordering grows but high personal shopping travel persists through click-and-collect models.
The Eco-Conscious Consumer: tests the impact of behavioral shifts — consolidated orders, shorter shopping trips, and greater adoption of zero-emission vehicles.

The results reveal that personal shopping trips and parcel deliveries could increase by as little as 11% or as much as 42% by 2050.

GHG emissions, decline in all scenarios, by as much as 48% under the Eco-Conscious Consumer scenario, driven largely by the expected shift to cleaner vehicles.

“Policy choices around land use, infrastructure investment, and consumer engagement will significantly shape which future materializes. Agencies need better data and analytics to understand where new logistics facilities are locating, how delivery patterns are changing, and what this means for congestion, curb space, safety, and infrastructure investment. Studies like this give public agencies the insight needed to anticipate these shifts and plan proactively rather than reactively.”

– Erika Witzke, National Director, Freight Planning and Policy at CPCS.

What agencies can do now: practical strategies for the region

The study wasn’t intended to stop at forecasting. It was designed to help transportation agencies translate insights into action.

Working alongside SHC Consulting, as well as Dr. Giacomo Dalla Chiara at the University of Washington Urban Freight lab, CPCS developed a comprehensive set of recommendations tailored to what Metropolitan Council and local agencies can actually influence. These span three major dimensions of the e-commerce challenge: curbside management, land use planning, and last-mile technology.

Land use planning: analyzed how e-commerce facility types, from large fulfillment centers to last-mile delivery stations, are reshaping industrial real estate demand in the Twin Cities, and proposed planning strategies drawn from peer regions.
Curbside management: benchmarked Minneapolis’s current practices against leading approaches in cities across North America, identifying practical improvements to accommodate growing delivery volumes without sacrificing the public right-of-way.
Delivery technologies: reviewed emerging last-mile innovations including cargo e-bikes, delivery robots, and drone delivery, assessing their maturity and potential for the region.

Among the study’s most notable recommendations:

promoting urban microhubs and consolidated pickup points to reduce VMT,
accelerating EV charging infrastructure to support fleet electrification,
partnering with carriers on pilot projects, and
developing educational programs to help residents understand the transportation impact of their ordering habits.

The study’s findings are now informing Metropolitan Council’s 2050 Transportation Policy Plan, ensuring that e-commerce considerations are embedded in the region’s long-range planning for the first time.

“Building the model required us to triangulate data across multiple sources, such as carrier package volumes, household travel surveys, facility scan data, and academic research on delivery tour characteristics. On the land use and curbside management side, our collaboration with our partners brought the on-the-ground expertise that made the recommendations practical.”

– Shuake Wuzhati, Senior Consultant at CPCS, who led much of the data integration and partner coordination for the study.

Read the full report: https://metrocouncil.org/Transportation/System/Freight/Urban-Freight-Study.aspx

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