by Walther Ploos van Amstel
The Last Mile Innovation Report 2026 provides one of the most comprehensive overviews of innovations currently reshaping parcel delivery. Covering AI, transport management systems, electric vehicles, microhubs, cargo bikes, returns logistics, computer vision, and parcel lockers, the report argues that the last mile is evolving from a simple delivery function into a strategic operating system …
Coincident with the rapid growth of omnichannel retailing, growing urbanization, changing consumer behavior, and increasing focus on sustainability, academic interest in the area of last mile logistics has significantly increased. The influx of research spans multiple disciplines and various methodologies, underlining the complexity and fragmentation of last-mile logistics research, which leads to a lack of …
Parcel delivery has been subject to significant paradigm shifts over recent decades, caused by urbanization. The economic development in the mid-1990s led to the rise of faster-growing medium-large-sized companies that specialized in the delivery of small parcels, giving birth to the Global Courier, Express, and Parcel (CEP) market.
The objective of the EU-funded SAILOR project is to develop real-time solutions to the matching problems of parcel delivery companies and the final customer, shortening routing distance as well as increase first-time deliveries and reverse logistics in the last mile. The final goal of SAILOR is to improve cost efficiency and decrease congestions and pollutions …