The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the relevance of goods delivery in urban areas. However, this activity often generates a negative environmental impact. Several technologies have been proposed in recent years to reduce it, thus forming a complex innovation landscape characterized by different levels of maturity and effects on the City Logistics (CL) system. This complexity causes a deep uncertainty over the future of CL.
A new paper aims to tackle this uncertainty by forecasting the future of a set of CL technologies. A Delphi survey has been submitted to experts in this field to achieve a stable consensus over 33 projections related to 7 CL technologies for 2030.
Results show that real-time data collection will help the coordination between stakeholders, engendering an increased awareness of the value of using logistics data and its potential drawbacks. Moreover, experts share a positive attitude toward expanding parcel lockers, which should be monitored by public authorities to avoid a negative impact on land use. Finally, technologies such as drones and crowd-logistics have drawn the lowest level of consensus due to their lower level of maturity. This arouses the necessity to further explore issues such as legal and technical barriers.
Source: Giovanni Zenezini, Giulio Mangano, Alberto De Marco, Experts’ opinions about lasting innovative technologies in City Logistics, Research in Transportation Business & Management, 2022, 100865, ISSN 2210-5395, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rtbm.2022.100865