A Comparative Assessment of the Light Goods Vehicle Fleet and the Scope to Reduce its CO2 Emissions in the UK and France
TL;DR: In this article, the authors compared growth patterns and CO 2 reduction opportunities in two countries and identified some of the most important directions for policy in light goods vehicles (vans) in the UK and France.
About: This article is published in Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences.The article was published on 2014-03-20 and is currently open access. It has received 26 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Scope (project management) & Fuel efficiency.
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TL;DR: In this article, a case study investigating current parcel delivery operations in central London identified the scale of the challenge facing the last-mile parcel delivery driver, highlighting the importance of walking which can account for 62% of the total vehicle round time and 40% of total round distance in the operations studied.
Abstract: Growth in e-commerce has led to increasing use of light goods vehicles for parcel deliveries in urban areas. This paper provides an insight into the reasons behind this growth and the resulting effort required to meet the exacting delivery services offered by e-retailers which often lead to poor vehicle utilisation in the last-mile operation, as well as the duplication of delivery services in urban centres as competitors vie for business. A case study investigating current parcel delivery operations in central London identified the scale of the challenge facing the last-mile parcel delivery driver, highlighting the importance of walking which can account for 62% of the total vehicle round time and 40% of the total round distance in the operations studied. The characteristics of these operations are in direct conflict with the urban infrastructure which is being increasingly redesigned in favour of walking, cycling and public transport, reducing the kerbside accessibility for last-mile operations. The paper highlights other pressures on last-mile operators associated with managing seasonal peaks in demand; reduced lead times between customers placing orders and deliveries being made; meeting delivery time windows; first-time delivery failure rates and the need to manage high levels of product returns. It concludes by describing a range of initiatives that retailers and parcel carriers, sometimes in conjunction with city authorities, can implement to reduce the costs associated with last-mile delivery, without negatively impacting on customer service levels.
217 citations
Cites background from "A Comparative Assessment of the Lig..."
...This results in considerable duplication of effort as ‘everyonedelivers-everywhere’ (Browne et al., 2014), and the collective impacts of such insular behaviours on urban street performance are not well understood....
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present the first study of the links and synergy between them, introducing the idea of Hyperconnected City Logistics systems and its nine fundamental concepts making up a rich framework for designing efficient and sustainable urban logistics and transportation systems.
Abstract: City Logistics and Physical Internet are two major concepts aiming to profoundly change freight transportation and logistics for increased economic, environmental and societal efficiency and sustainability. They share several basic ideas and are complementary, City Logistics providing the final and last segments of the Physical Internet logistics and transportation networks. The authors present the first study of the links and synergy between them, introducing the idea of Hyperconnected City Logistics systems and its nine fundamental concepts making up a rich framework for designing efficient and sustainable urban logistics and transportation systems. The authors conclude with a number of research and innovation challenges.
154 citations
Cites background from "A Comparative Assessment of the Lig..."
...Even though a thorough investigation of their impact is yet to be done, such restrictions are modifying carrier behavior, as are legislations aimed to reduce CO2 emissions (e.g., the European Union targets for commercial vehicles, European Commission, 2011, and the establishment of Low Emission Zones, Browne et al., 2014)....
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...…of their impact is yet to be done, such restrictions are modifying carrier behavior, as are legislations aimed to reduce CO2 emissions (e.g., the European Union targets for commercial vehicles, European Commission, 2011, and the establishment of Low Emission Zones, Browne et al., 2014)....
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors conducted 15 experiment-oriented interviews with urban freight transport and service operators who tested and adopted electric vans, exploring technical and operational obstacles in daily operations in Paris and London.
69 citations
Cites background from "A Comparative Assessment of the Lig..."
...Browne et al. (2014) compared UK and France LCV growth patterns and CO2 reduction opportunities and observed that payload limitations are a problem for 3.5 tons electric vans....
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...In the last mile sector, fleet managers’ preferences result from a combination of the above-mentioned factors and technical and operational obstacles associated to electric LCVs, such as limited range (Feng and Figliozzi, 2012) and limited payload (Browne et al., 2014)....
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explored the potential to consolidate these deliveries using an urban consolidation centre and found that in cities with multiple higher education institutions, where in excess of 8000 students live in halls, over 13,000 courier trips could be generated annually, delivering over 4000 m3 of packages.
Abstract: Growth in online shopping has led to increased numbers of small delivery vehicles in urban areas leading to a range of negative externalities. Young people are significant generators of home deliveries and, when clustered in university halls of residence, can generate considerable freight traffic to one location. This paper explores the potential to consolidate these deliveries using an urban consolidation centre. Based on the case of Southampton, UK, data were compiled from three linked sources: a delivery audit of four halls of residence at the University of Southampton housing 5050 residents; annual package receipt records from Southampton Solent University halls (2294 residents); and an online shopping survey distributed to Southampton University students (486 responses). The results suggest that in cities with multiple higher education institutions (HEIs), where in excess of 8000 students live in halls, over 13,000 courier trips could be generated annually, delivering over 4000 m3 of packages. These could be consolidated onto fewer than 300 vehicles for an annual service cost of approximately £18 per student, reducing congestion, parking infringements and improving air quality. Analysis indicated student acceptance of a consolidated parcel service but operational challenges would include enforcement, performance risk, finance and delivery speed.
50 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a "freight traffic controller" (FTC) concept is proposed, which is a trusted third party assigned to equitably manage the work allocation between collaborating carriers and the passage of vehicles over the last mile when joint benefits to the parties could be achieved.
Abstract: There is increasing interest in how horizontal collaboration between parcel carriers might help alleviate problems associated with last-mile logistics in congested urban centers. Through a detailed review of the literature on parcel logistics pertaining to collaboration, along with practical insights from carriers operating in the United Kingdom, this paper examines the challenges that will be faced in optimizing multicarrier, multidrop collection, and delivery schedules. A “freight traffic controller” (FTC) concept is proposed. The FTC would be a trusted third party, assigned to equitably manage the work allocation between collaborating carriers and the passage of vehicles over the last mile when joint benefits to the parties could be achieved. Creating this FTC concept required a combinatorial optimization approach for evaluation of the many combinations of hub locations, network configuration, and routing options for vehicle or walking to find the true value of each potential collaboration. At the same time, the traffic, social, and environmental impacts of these activities had to be considered. Cooperative game theory is a way to investigate the formation of collaborations (or coalitions), and the analysis used in this study identified a significant shortfall in current applications of this theory to last-mile parcel logistics. Application of theory to urban freight logistics has, thus far, failed to account for critical concerns including (a) the mismatch of vehicle parking locations relative to actual delivery addresses; (b) the combination of deliveries with collections, requests for the latter often being received in real time during the round; and (c) the variability in travel times and route options attributable to traffic and road network conditions.
37 citations
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyzed French trends over the last 15 years and latest annual available statistics (2009) about both diesel ownership and use, on the basis of ParcAuto panel data source.
17 citations