Category «Research»

Research: purchase intention and actual purchase of cargo bikes

To support the penetration of cargo cycles in commercial freight transport, research by Narayanan et al. aims at identifying the significant influencing factors for their purchase, using data from Europe’s largest cargo cycle testing project, “Ich entlaste Städte.” This is achieved by developing binary logit models for the intention to purchase (stated at the end …

Electric cargo bikes – a comprehensive review

Electric cargo bikes can potentially reduce the negative impacts of transportation systems when utilized for the right application. There is a growing literature, especially on commercial freight transport. Therefore, it is essential to have a comprehensive outlook of the prevailing literature to synthesize the existing knowledge base. A paper by Narayanan and Antoniou consolidates the …

Experts’ opinions about lasting innovative technologies in City Logistics

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the relevance of goods delivery in urban areas. However, this activity often generates a negative environmental impact. Several technologies have been proposed in recent years to reduce it, thus forming a complex innovation landscape characterized by different levels of maturity and effects on the City Logistics (CL) system. This complexity …

On-Demand Logistics: solutions, barriers, and enablers

The urban freight sector provides an essential service by delivering goods that shops, companies, and households require at a specific place and time. However, the growth of e-commerce and the dawn of on-demand logistics (after this ODL) have raised citizens’ expectations of logistics systems, further stressing them and increasing their operational and environmental costs. There …

Barriers to change in urban freight systems: a systematic literature review

A new paper by Mikael Kervall and Henrik Pålsson presents a systematic review covering 93 peer-reviewed journal articles. The study was designed to advance earlier research in this area by providing a system perspective on barriers to development in urban freight systems. The theoretical knowledge about these barriers was analyzed and synthesized, the relationships between …

What is the potential for shared autonomous cargo-bike fleets?

Finding a sustainable mobility solution for the future is one of the most competitive challenges in the logistics and mobility sector. As a result, policymakers, researchers, and companies are working intensively to provide novel, environmentally friendly, and sustainable options. While autonomous car-sharing services have been introduced as a promising solution, an innovative alternative is the …

Perceived safety of cargo bikes: a barrier against a greener future?

While cities focus on making logistics more and more environmentally sustainable by implementing “green deals,” the potential impact of the increase of cargo bikes remains unclear. A thesis by Groningen student Youri Meerstra investigates perceived safety that residents experience with a potential increase in cargo bikes, in this case, the residents of the inner city …