Environmental Benefits of Using New Last-Mile Solutions and Using Electric Vehicles in China

Abstract

Unlike much of the existing research into the environmental impacts of home shopping and delivery activities, which focus on evaluating the operational efficiency of home delivery failures, this paper aims to investigate the CO2 emissions associated with treatments of failed-delivery parcels. The paper considers the potential environmental profits from using some innovative home delivery solutions: 1) the utilization of new home delivery solutions, under which the self-pickup point (SPP)/smart cabinet (SCB) is used as an intermediate address for customer’s collection and 2) upgrading fuel-powered goods vehicles to battery vans to make deliveries. Two sets of vehicle routing problem models for fuel-powered vans and battery vans are established. A sample network comprising of 500 customers and several SPPs/SCBs in Beijing, China, is proposed in the case study, to verify the proposed models and heuristics. The numerical results suggest that: 1) reductions in CO2 per average parcel delivered by new home delivery solutions increase with the ratio of home delivery failures, 2) it is proved that using battery freight vehicles obtains more environmental benefits than using the fuel-powered vans, and 3) customers’ personal trips for collecting their failed-delivery packages from the local depot or SPPs/SCBs share a large proportion of CO2 per parcel. The research has practical implications for both government and industry practitioners. Possible suggestions include: 1) promote a cleaner transportation mode for residents, by encouraging them to either take the bus or drive a battery passenger car, 2) careful design of a combined SPP and SCB network in urban areas, and 3) accelerate the process of vehicle electrification in the logistics industry by issuing allowances for purchasing electric vehicles from the government.