The demand for the transport of goods within cities is rising and with that the number of vans driving around. This has adverse effects on air quality, noise, safety, and liveability in the city. LEFVs (Light Electric Freight Vehicles) offer a potential solution for this. There is already a lot of enthusiasm for the LEFVs and several companies have started offering these vehicles.
Still, many companies are hesitating to start and experiment. New knowledge is needed for logistics concepts for the application of LEFVs. A research paper from Amsterdam and Rotterdam Universities of Applied Sciences shows the outcomes of eight case studies about what is needed to successfully deploy LEFVs for city logistics.
The practical research has shown that city logistics with LEFVs requires good locations for hubs in the distribution network, robust processes, cooperation between customers, logistics service providers and suppliers, good insight into the costs involved, modern ICT, and good organization.
LEFVs lend themselves to logistical flows with five main characteristics: (1) time-critical shipments, (2) those with small numbers of shipments per trip, (3) short distances between stops, (4) those in busy areas where the speed of cars is relatively low, and (5) areas with strict vehicle restrictions or privileges for LEFVs.