Quanquan Chen, a PhD Candidate in Civil Engineering at the City College of New York, was awarded a Volvo Research and Educational Foundations (VREF) Study Visit Grant.  Quanquan has been working with the MetroFreight team at the University Transportation Research Center (UTRC) under the guidance of advisor Dr. Alison Conway to study parking activity associated with curbside delivery to residential buildings in New York City.  From November 2^nd to 21^st, 2016, she traveled to Paris, France to visit with MetroFreight partners at IFSTTAR.

The aim of her visit was to share the research experiences between New York and Paris on e-commerce related residential delivery issues. During the visit, she met and conducted interviews with Dr. Laetitia Dablanc and other IFSTTAR researchers working in this area.  With guidance from the Paris research team, she also had the opportunity to meet with the Paris Region Planning and Development Agency (IAU Île-de-France) and a representative from local industry. Particular topics of discussion included up-to-date results of an e-commerce survey conducted in the Paris region, local conditions for the parcel industry, and delivery vehicle accessibility in the city center. After learning about basic conditions in Paris City, Quanquan also conducted field observations to collect basic information of delivery vehicle behaviors in selected neighborhoods. Quanquan also gave a presentation summarizing results so far from on-going and completed residential delivery projects in New York.  Following the visit, Quanquan will be developing a report comparing delivery conditions in New York and Paris.