City logistics challenges and innovative solutions in developed and developing economies: A systematic literature review

Abstract

Varying characteristics of developed and developing countries have resulted in different challenges and innovative solutions of city logistics. This study aimed to identify research clusters on city logistics between developed and developing economies and to systematically compare city logistics challenges and associated innovative solutions for both economies. Bibliometric analysis and a systematic literature review were applied to analyze 328 peer-reviewed publications, comprising 229 (70%) and 99 (30%) articles addressing case studies in developed and developing economies, respectively. We discovered six research clusters in city logistics literature for developed countries, compared with only four for developing economies in which public policy has not been addressed. Urban growth, environmental challenges, and traffic congestion are the three major city logistics challenges in both types of economies. Furthermore, fleet increment and inadequate loading/unloading spaces are the city logistics challenges analyzed in the literature on developing countries compared with the literature on developed economies that addresses the challenges of education deficiency, regulation, emergence of new business models, and network accessibility and capacity. Consequently, innovative solutions adopted by developed countries demonstrate varied processes involving technology, policy (including public policy and sustainability measures), infrastructure, and economic measures, while for developing countries, the focus remains on effective and efficient distribution operations using optimization and collaboration efforts.

The Importance of City Logistics for Urban Tourism Development: Searching for a New Research Field

“…The focus of cluster two is on logistics and transport, as well as other themes which in relation to those, are relevant for tourism. This cluster features such expressions as tour ist destination, urban transport, and travel behaviour, often in conjunction with COVID- 19 The term tourism logistics was identified in this cluster. This is a relatively new term in th literature and still does not have a widely recognised definition.…”

“…City logistics, as one of the techniques of city management, has become a necessity in recent years. Obviously, the introduced solutions are customised, as every city has its own needs, depending on size and spatial layout, degree of economic development [19], and the city's individual character and cultural and environmental resources.…”

“…City logistics is often explored for working out solutions to specific problems occurring in a city or region [17,39], or for applying certain tools to streamline the flow of goods in cities [40][41][42]. Some researchers have reviewed the literature, applying bibliometric analysis to identify research gaps in this regard [19,[43][44][45][46]. Many studies of city tourism have been aimed at finding opportunities for the development of certain regions [47][48][49] or exploring the opportunities offered by emerging technologies that have recently been used in promoting city tourism [50,51].…”

A Viewpoint on the Challenges and Solutions for Driverless Last-Mile Delivery

“…7. The city streets' burden, which directly affects logistics operations, is something that does not seem to normalize over time [13,14]. The above-mentioned difficulties extend beyond the realization of an optimized sorting system [6].…”

Implementation of Digital Technologies in Construction Companies: Establishing a Holistic Process which Addresses Current Barriers

“…The literature resulting from the material retrieval needed to be further selected in order to comply with the credibility of a standardized literature review [11,12]. To avoid duplicates, literature findings with matching information were first combined with the Zotero software.…”