Last mile delivery by drones: an estimation of viable market potential and access to citizens across European cities

Abstract

Rapid technological developments in autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV or drones) and an evolving legislation may soon open the way for their large-scale implementation in the last mile delivery of products. The use of drones could drastically decrease labour costs and has been hyped as a potential disruptor to the parcel delivery industry. Online retailers and delivery companies such as Amazon, are already filing up patents for the development of multi-level fulfilment centres for unmanned aerial vehicles or "drone-beehives" that would allow the deployment of this technology within built environment. A substantial amount of research has been carried out in the last years on the potential use of drones for parcel delivery, principally in the area of logistic optimisation. However, little is known about the potential market and economic viability of such services in Europe. This paper presents a modelling framework using EU-wide high-resolution population and land-use data to estimate the potential optimal location of drone-beehives based on economic viability criterion. It estimates the potential number of EU28 citizens that could potentially benefit from last mile-drone delivery services under four scenarios. The performed analyses indicates that under the scenario considered as the most technologically realistic, up to 7% of EU citizens could get access to such services. When considering technological improvements scenarios, the share reaches 30%. Furthermore, results suggest that due to the differences in population and land-use patterns in the different Member States, the potential drone coverage across Europe could be very heterogeneous, with the UK, Germany, Italy and France appearing as the most likely countries where drone-beehives may have the most efficient development.

Sustainability Trends in the Postal Systems of Last-Mile Delivery

“…In addition to numerous advantages, there are numerous limitations. First of all, the underdeveloped and defined legislation, low transport capacity, the possibility of errors due to incorrect GPS data (Aurambout, 2019;Chen et al, 2019).…”

Asset tracking, condition visibility and sustainability using unmanned aerial systems in global logistics

“…UAS have been deployed in Wal-Mart warehouses, and have cut inventory time from thirty days to just one, with costs, compared to a human employee, cut approximately in half ( Companik et al, 2018 ). Amazon's UAS have been able to reduce shipping times, with UAS-supported warehouses able to carry 50% more products, with 20% lower operating costs ( Companik et al, 2018 ) and last-mile delivery costs estimated to be similarly reduced ( Aurambout et al, 2019 ). 5G wireless Internet is expected to provide significantly improved UAS performance compared to fourth generation (4G) technology, improving information reliability and latency ( Brake, 2020 ; Huo et al, 2018 ; Rao and Prasad, 2018 ).…”

“…To address power, connectivity and communication issues, UAS have been linked to terrestrial delivery vehicles, which can serve as power sources and replenishment sites, making other deliveries before the UAS returns to the vehicle ( Chiang et al, 2019 ). As such, UAS can serve as last mile delivery vehicles in remote areas ( Aurambout et al, 2019 ; Chiang et al, 2019 ), particularly in humanitarian ( Azmat and Kummer, 2020 ), disaster response and recovery ( Ejaz et al, 2020 ) and medical settings ( Zubin et al, 2020 ). UAS can also offer a number of sustainability advantages, reducing or transferring transportation costs to ‘greener’ modes ( Azmat and Kummer, 2020 ), and perhaps reducing the 15% of global carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions attributed to the transportation sector ( Rodrigue, 2019 ; Kamble et al, 2020 ).…”

Đánh giá dịch vụ giao hàng chặng cuối tại Việt Nam từ góc độ người sử dụng cuối cùng

“…Vì vậy, để vừa tối ưu hóa chi phí giao hàng, mang lại lợi nhuận cho doanh nghiệp mà vừa làm thỏa mãn yêu cầu khách hàng, các doanh nghiệp dịch vụ giao hàng chặng cuối sẽ cần xác định các phương thức giao hàng phù hợp với mỗi loại nhu cầu khác nhau. [13].…”