Evaluating the Efficacy of Shared-use Vehicles for Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions: A U.S. Case Study of Grocery Delivery

Abstract

This paper compares the CO2 emissions from the use of personal vehicles to shared-use vehicles for grocery shopping in Seattle, Washington. The research builds on existing literature by considering the importance of modeling the logistical details of routing and scheduling, and by comparing the results of an American case study to existing European case studies. We find the US and European case studies to provide consistent results, that low customer density provides greater opportunities for emissions reductions, and that logistical efficiencies can account for approximately 50% of CO2 reductions.

Coordinated Logistics with a Truck and a Drone

“…One of the basic phenomena that is of interest to us is the trade-off between efficiency in transportation along a backbone network (in this case, the route of the truck) versus direct trips between locations (in this case, the direct trips taken by UAVs); this is arguably one of the fundamental dichotomies in transportation and logistics [12,13]. In this sense, our problem of interest is philosophically similar is [11], which asks whether small local retail stores are preferable to "big-box" retailers, with [44], which estimates the changes in net CO 2 emissions that result by introducing grocery delivery services, and with [45], which computes the optimal layout of a set of facility locations that are themselves connected with a backbone network.…”

Household-Level Economies of Scale in Transportation

“…The intent of our work is to better understand the trade-off between centralized and decentralized distribution schemes. Our work could be said to follow naturally from [36,49,50], for example, and would also fit in the company of [15,17], all of which study this same trade-off in one form or another.…”

“…A model of this kind is useful when one wants to understand the benefits of implementing a new delivery service for a specific good, such as groceries; one example of this can be found in [50], which discusses the consequences of introducing grocery delivery services in Seattle, Washington. A more nationalized phenomenon would be the recent introduction of "last-mile" services such as Google Shopping Express [13], which offers same-day deliveries facilitated by a specialized fleet of vehicles.…”

“…In the current literature, this complication is handled by either simplifying the problem at hand or by introducing additional assumptions into the problem structure. For example, in the recent paper [50], the authors perform a detailed computational study that estimates the changes in net CO 2 emissions that result by introducing grocery delivery services in Seattle, Washington. As suggested in Figure 1 of that paper (which we reproduce here in Figure Figure 1: The above image is reproduced from Figure 1 of [50], which compares the cost of direct trips to and from a central location (at left) with travelling salesman tours that visit multiple locations (right).…”

“…For example, in the recent paper [50], the authors perform a detailed computational study that estimates the changes in net CO 2 emissions that result by introducing grocery delivery services in Seattle, Washington. As suggested in Figure 1 of that paper (which we reproduce here in Figure Figure 1: The above image is reproduced from Figure 1 of [50], which compares the cost of direct trips to and from a central location (at left) with travelling salesman tours that visit multiple locations (right). 1 as well), the authors do not consider the possibility of multi-stop trips and compare the cost of a direct trip between one's house and a store to the marginal cost incurred by adding oneself to a travelling salesman tour that services many households.…”