Category «Research»

Research: viable business models for city logistics

Pålsson and Katsela published a paper with the title ‘Viable business models for city logistics: Exploring the cost structure and the economy of scale in a Swedish initiative’ in Research in Transportation Economics journal. This paper addresses the challenge of achieving profitable city logistics initiatives.

Research: the TCO of hydrogen vehicles in urban logistics – diesel and BEV still win

Freight transport accounts for 8 to 15% of total traffic flow in urban areas within the European Union. The majority of these deliveries are undertaken by diesel-powered vehicles with disproportionate levels of CO2, NOx, and particulate matter emissions. Accordingly, a variety of strategic options have been advanced as key solutions for addressing fossil fuel demand …

Microhubs defined

Research by Urban Freight Lab of Supply Chain Transportation & Logistics Center (University of Washington) revealed a lack of an established and widely accepted definition for the concept of consolidation centers or microhubs. Many recent implementations of urban freight consolidation have focused on bundling goods close to the delivery point by creating logistical platforms in …

Optimizing the changing locations of mobile parcel lockers

To reduce congestion, environmental damage, and negative health impact in large urban areas plenty of novel concepts for last-mile distribution have been innovated in recent years. The concept treated in this paper is mobile parcel lockers that are able to change their locations during the day, either autonomously or moved by a human driver.

The data gap: what we still don’t know about urban freight

Urban freight makes up an increasing percentage of transport operations and emissions, but there is no common methodology to capture the data we need to optimize deliveries for sustainable cities. Urban freight operations are run by a complex network of private and public sector actors. Often, the most comprehensive data available lies with the private sector, …

Is online grocery shopping better for the planet?

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos claims grocery delivery cuts carbon emissions by 43% compared to traditional shopping. Grist did a fact-check. Grist spoke with experts. They said that on average, ordering online often reduces the carbon footprint of grocery shopping. The word average is key. This finding doesn’t scale down to the individual level neatly, and the way …