Managing last-mile urban freight transport through emerging information and communication technologies: a systemic literature review

Up-to-today, urban logistics has shown significant relevance around the world because of the numerous problems due to the increase in freight flows in the cities driven by the changes occurring, e.g., smaller and more frequent deliveries. The irreversibility of these processes is pushing researchers to look for theoretical and practical approaches to address changes to improve sustainability. Therefore, the need to develop new methods and models to govern urban freight transport are emerging and the evolution of information and communication technologies (ICT) have opened the road to develop and implement new advanced approaches to manage sustainable urban last-mile freight transport. In particular, they are mainly devoted to support traffic management and control, and land planning through the integrated use of ICT, which allows one to optimise freight traffic by collaborating fleet management, advanced urban supply chain integration, and so on. In order to capture the current state of research and to identify the future challenges, a systemic review is presented

Digital technologies catalyzing business model innovation in supply chain management - the case of parcel lockers as a solution for improving sustainable city mobility

The rise of information technologies pushes companies into digital restructuring. Organizations integrating emerging technologies into their supply chains can boost efficiency by streamlining processes and making more informed decisions using predictive analytics. This research dis-cusses major enablers for digital transformation and presents the application of those along different parts of a digital supply chain, while focusing on technical characteristics, implementations, and impact on organizational capabilities and strategies. The parcel lockers are a technology that sustains and improves last-mile delivery. By combining it with night-time delivery improves the City's Sustainable Mobility and, therefore, reduces the local emissions and city congestion

Mixing quantitative and qualitative methods for sustainable transportation in Smart Cities

L'abstract è presente nell'allegato / the abstract is in the attachmen

Last-mile delivery services in retail : a consumer-centric approach

The retail industry faces a multitude of complex sustainability challenges, which calls for transformational change. While the retail industry is a major driver of production and consumption patterns, it also offers significant potential to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. Notably, logistics services, such as warehousing, delivery, and returns, have gained vital importance in retail due to the continuous growth of e-commerce and the development toward omnichannel retail. Escalating parcel shipping volumes have sparked growing interest in last-mile delivery among scholars and practitioners. In fact, last-mile delivery has been described as the most expensive, least efficient, and most polluting part of the supply chain. Despite the recognition of the growing importance of the consumer, scholarly investigations on last-mile delivery from the consumer perspective remain fragmented and rather limited. Building on the notion that changing consumer demands and behavioral patterns represent the primary drivers of change in the retail industry, the purpose of this research is to explore the consumer perspective on last-mile delivery to provide a foundation for more sustainable retail business models.This dissertation compiles the results of four papers from four separate, yet subsequent, studies. The first study, a systematic literature review, proposed a framework of last-mile logistics research that consists of five interrelated components. The review identified a lack of consumer research in last-mile logistics. The second study, a multiple case study, explores customer expectations of an unattended home delivery service in e-grocery retail. The study captured three types of services expectations—desired service, expected standard service, and predicted service—which are formed by three determinants; personal needs, technology literacy, and situational factors. The third study, an engaged scholarship field study, explored customer experience of an unattended home delivery service in e-grocery retail. The study found that the total customer experience in last-mile delivery is multidimensional, comprising consumers’ cognitive, emotional, behavioral, sensorial, physical, and social responses to the service. The fourth study, a collaborative study, explored the drivers of circular business model innovation and how to accelerate this process in fashion retail. The study proposes that consumer centricity acts as a main driver of circular business model innovation, and that logistics acts as a catalyst that accelerates this process, which contributes to the transformation of fashion retail towards the circular economy. This dissertation contributes to research in multiple ways. The results of this dissertation shed light on the last-mile delivery customer journey in retail by mapping forms and determinants of customer expectations and by providing a rich understanding of customer experience dimensions. The findings illustrate how customer experience has become more logistics and supply chain-related. Furthermore, this dissertation contributes to the literature by identifying patterns of circular business model innovation and illustrates how consumer centricity and logistics affect the transition of retail business models toward circular economy.This dissertation also holds multiple implications for practice. This research indicates that consumer centricity holds significant potential to reduce the environmental impact of last-mile delivery. Retailers can leverage consumer centricity to encourage consumers to adopt more sustainable last-mile delivery services and accept longer lead times and time windows. Moreover, managers are encouraged to take advantage of consumer centricity as an innovation driver and logistics as a catalyst in circular business model innovation to unfold the full potential of the circular economy

Trendswatch 2013: Back to the Future

TrendsWatch 2013 highlights six trends that CFM's staff and advisors believe are highly significant to museums and their communities, based on our scanning and analysis over the past year. For each trend, we provide a brief summary, list examples of how the trend is playing out in the world, comment on the trend's significance to society and to museums specifically, and suggest ways that museums might respond. We also provide links to additional readings. TrendsWatch provides valuable background and context for your museum's planning and implementation

City logistics: challenges and opportunities for technology providers

Current last-mile logistics operations are inefficient. The economic competitiveness of logistics service providers is affected by distinct factors, such as the limited time windows they are given to deliver freight in increasingly complex urban environments. This paper presents the different challenges that the sector faces to make its operations more sustainable, from both economic and environmental perspectives. Then, an exhaustive list of measures and initiatives is presented and for each of them, the impact on the different agents involved in last-mile operations is analyzed. This study is expected to help understand the relations between the different actors and design compensatory mechanisms between the parties that mostly benefit from the measures and the most affected ones. Finally, a particular focus is set on the technological developments that are expected to shape the evolution of last-mile operations in the medium or long term. As in the passenger mobility industry, digitization, the emergence of more innovative and modular vehicles, and automation are trends that will undoubtedly affect the market. To maximize the impact of these new technologies, balanced and fair governance schemes and compensatory mechanisms between agents should be designed. The authors believe that the EIT Urban Mobility framework is perfectly adequate to improve this required collaboration between all agents. As a first step towards an increased sustainability of last-mile operations, win-win and agreed measures should be implemented to set the ground for more innovative and disruptive solutions that will emerge in future years.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version