by Walther Ploos van Amstel
Many new residential areas are in the urban planning pipeline. Vital neighborhoods with a good balance between working, living and relaxing. Attractive car-free neighborhoods where active, safe and healthy walking and cycling are the new standard.
A study by Capgemini’s in-house digital think tank has revealed that 97% of retailers believe that existing methods of last-mile delivery options are not sustainable. Companies in the food and grocery segment have to catch up with consumer demand for better and faster last-mile delivery services while at the same time mitigating associated profitability risks.
In the evenings between 6 and 9 pm, hundreds of meal attendants make residential areas unsafe on their scooters and bicycles. Home meal delivery drivers on scooters drive more dangerous than other scooter riders. Data from Dutch Veilig Verkeer Netherlands (VVN) show that they are even six times more likely to be involved in road accidents.
An experiment in smart city design is being proposed in Toronto. Sidewalk Labs (Google affiliate) is partnering with Waterfront Toronto to create a mixed-use community on a 12-acre site east of downtown with innovative concepts in local deliveries, waste collection and construction logistics.
Successful delivery consolidation strategies could be a trade-off between transshipment and distribution costs, externalities, the interest of stakeholders and the formulation of required and supporting regulations and incentives.
Growing urban markets provide healthy prospects for omnichannel retailing. With limited household storage capacity, parking for vehicles, or shopping time, newer city dwellers are prime candidates for rapid omnichannel fulfillment.
A paper by the European Federation for Transport and Environment looks at the potential of battery electric heavy-duty trucking in the EU, in particular for the more difficult long-haul segment, by analyzing the technical feasibility, regulatory and market enablers and inhibitors, together with environmental impacts.
A new paper by Sheffield University Management School progresses the discourse on hydrogen vehicles as viable strategic options for addressing sustainability concerns in city logistics, by undertaking a comprehensive total cost of ownership analysis. The outcomes from this study not only support the economic competitiveness of hydrogen vehicles but also analyze the implications of several future …
IFC (part of World Bank) estimates a cumulative climate investment opportunity of $29.4 trillion across six urban sectors in emerging market cities to 2030. The lion’s share of the opportunity is in green buildings ($24.7 trillion), covering both new constructions and retrofits, as cities race to accommodate their growing populations.
In the United States and Western Europe, many traditional grocery retailers are seeing their sales and margins fall. And, things could get even worse. McKinsey presents a vision on how to reverse the trend and presents six imperatives for change. The last mile in online groceries being one of them.