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Anticipation of New and Emerging Trends for Sustainable Last-Mile Urban Distribution

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Smart Energy for Smart Transport (CSUM 2022)

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Abstract

Globalization and the COVID-19 pandemic led to an increased number of consumers using e-commerce services. This trend has been raising the demand for logistic activities, especially on the last-mile. This part of the supply chain is expensive and ineffective, and a source of negative externalities such as air and noise pollution, traffic congestion and accidents. The anticipation of innovative solutions can help to mitigate these costs. In this context, this paper provides a systematic literature review of the existing literature regarding emerging solutions for last-mile parcel delivery. For guiding the development of more sustainable last-mile parcel distribution, and to provide some insights for future research, we identified and summarized the emerging concepts within this field domain. The results show that innovative solutions have been emerging at different levels: (i) definition of new crowdsourcing-based models, (ii) use of new types of vehicles, and (iii) development of optimization systems based on data collection and the combination of different technologies. Moreover, recent studies show that new strategies are being developed focusing on using consumers as active actors of delivery; non-road and autonomous vehicles are promising concepts in last-mile operations; and different logistic operations, such as vehicle routing, are being optimized with data analytics, cloud technology and mobile apps.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    AFMS: Advanced Fleet Management Systems.

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Acknowledgements

This work is financed by National Funds through the FCT–Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology) within the e-LOG project (EXPL/ECI-TRA/0679/2021). Tânia Fontes also thanks FCT for the Post-Doctoral scholarship SFRH/BPD/109426/2015.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. INESC TEC—Institute for Systems and Computer Engineering, Technology and Science, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, 4200-465, Porto, Portugal

    Vasco Silva, António Amaral & Tânia Fontes

  2. School of Engineering, Polytechnic Institute of Porto, Porto, Portugal

    Vasco Silva & António Amaral

Authors
  1. Vasco Silva
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  2. António Amaral
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  3. Tânia Fontes
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Correspondence to Vasco Silva .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil Engineering, University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece

    Eftihia G. Nathanail

  2. Department of Planning and Regional Development, University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece

    Nikolaos Gavanas

  3. Department of Civil Engineering, University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece

    Giannis Adamos

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Silva, V., Amaral, A., Fontes, T. (2023). Anticipation of New and Emerging Trends for Sustainable Last-Mile Urban Distribution. In: Nathanail, E.G., Gavanas, N., Adamos, G. (eds) Smart Energy for Smart Transport. CSUM 2022. Lecture Notes in Intelligent Transportation and Infrastructure. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23721-8_106

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23721-8_106

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