I recently read this book, by Darrell West and John Allen, respectively a Vice President and the President of the Brookings Institution. It was a little dry and numbers-heavy but there were some interesting chapters. I particularly liked their comments on the trends re: car insurance (basically they argue that with the advent of driverless cars, car insurance should go down [p.72], although I think that insurance companies will make up for it in the home insurance premiums), and also I was fascinated by the discussion about the zoning rules and congestion p.96. It is a really great point that vehicles like Amazon Prime delivery trucks put more wear and tear on the roads and they also bring with them a whole range of issues from double-parking to storage issues to parcel theft to apartment buildings that have no loading dock. I enjoyed thinking about the environmental impact of truck delivery as well as the joint warehouse and distribution optimization problems to meet customer needs. Also I had never heard about the freight master plan in Seattle but it is indeed a thing! You can read more about it here. Rating: three stars out of five, which on Goodreads scale means I liked it (enough).
