Fifteen months after New York City introduced congestion pricing, commercial fleets have clearly adapted. New telematics data from Altitude by Geotab, based on more than 50,000 commercial vehicle trips, shows that operators have responded not by avoiding Manhattan, but by using their vehicles more efficiently.
The most striking finding is a 15% increase in operational efficiency. Before congestion pricing, a commercial vehicle completed an average of 4.0 trips per day within the congestion zone. Today that figure has risen to 4.6 trips. Rather than reducing activity, fleets are making each vehicle work harder to offset the additional toll costs.
Traffic conditions have improved—but only partly. Around 37% of streets within the congestion zone now experience higher average travel speeds, particularly in neighborhoods such as Little Italy, Chinatown, and the Lower East Side. Yet congestion has by no means disappeared. Almost half of all roads showed no significant change, while 16% actually became slower.
Perhaps the most interesting lesson concerns the so-called idling paradox. Vehicles spend less time idling per trip, but total daily idling has increased slightly because each vehicle makes more deliveries. This underlines a familiar truth in city logistics: congestion is only part of the problem. Delivery operations are also constrained by scarce loading and unloading space, inefficient curb management and growing demand for last-mile deliveries.
The vehicle mix also illustrates how quickly logistics adapts to policy. Following the introduction of congestion pricing, fleets temporarily shifted from medium and heavy trucks towards lighter multi-purpose vehicles. By the second half of 2025, however, the vehicle composition had largely returned to previous patterns, suggesting that operators experimented before settling into new operating models.
For policymakers, the message is clear. Congestion pricing can improve traffic flow and encourage logistics companies to optimize fleet utilization. But pricing alone will not transform urban freight. Cities also need better loading zones, digital curb management, consolidation hubs, and smarter delivery regulations to reduce emissions and improve logistics efficiency.
New York demonstrates that logistics is remarkably adaptive. The challenge for cities is to ensure that public policy adapts just as quickly.