ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 health crisis has had a strong impact on societies around the world, affecting both the health of populations and countries' economies. While lockdowns imposed to stop the spread of infection reduced urban mobility and had a positive impact on air quality, lowering the emission of polluting particles and greenhouse gases, they had the opposite effect on urban freight distribution (UFD). With the population remaining at home, ecommerce-driven shipments surged, and total freight traffic increased. In order to have a better understanding of this phenomenon, the aim of this study was to identify the impact of COVID-19 lockdowns on the daily operation of the region's main logistics agents. Lessons learned from this cyclical scenario could be used to define more sustainable public policies regarding UFD in the post-COVID era. To meet the above objectives, semi-structured interviews were conducted with public administrations and private operators, before being transcribed and encoded for later analysis. The results of our study show that common problems in UFD, such as traffic congestion or problems finding parking in the loading and unloading (L/U) zones, temporarily disappeared during the lockdown phase. Delivery times were consequently reduced, despite an increase in operations due to ecommerce. In addition, the public administrations took advantage of this situation to adapt the urban space and force a transition towards new delivery systems, such as cargo-bikes, to guarantee sustainable last-mile operations in specific zones.
ABSTRACT
The growth of e-commerce and the on-demand economy in urban and metropolitan areas has been accelerated by the recent COVID-19 pandemic. As a consequence, logistics and transportation operators are subject to a noticeable pressure to develop efficient delivery systems. These systems are also influenced by the global trend towards more sustainable transportation and mobility, which implies changes in urban policies and technological innovations-e.g., the substitution of traditional diesel petrol-drive vehicles by electric ones. This paper analyzes the current and predicted needs of logistics operators in the Barcelona metropolitan area. To do so, urban regulations are analyzed and key shareholders are interviewed. The analysis of these interviews promote a discussion on how the use of new 'agile' optimization algorithms-which are based on the combination of biased-randomized heuristics, computer parallelization techniques, and IoT / 5G technologies-can contribute to enhance urban distribution practices. Finally, we present a case study in which the effect of different configurations of working/resting times and parking areas availability on routing solutions is studied. Our research aims to provide comprehensive knowledge to managers and policy-makers, and to offer them with powerful tools capable of generating real-Time solutions to complex last-mile delivery challenges under dynamic conditions. © 2021 Elsevier B.V.. All rights reserved.