01516492

Component

A striking element of e-commerce is that it is now widespread along the different segments of the population in developed economies, whether they live in central, suburban or even rural areas. Over the past ten years, this transformation has generated a significant demand for dedicated delivery services to end consumers. E-commerce results in an increasingly difficult physical distribution of products, with direct effects on logistics organizations in urban and suburban areas, where traffic congestion and accessibility are crucial factors. In the end-delivery sector, pick-up points and locker boxes represent a fast-growing solution, becoming a key element in the strategy of e-commerce distribution as alternative of home-delivery. They now represent 20% of e-commerce deliveries in France, one of the highest rates in Europe. The purpose of this article is to identify how operators in charge of delivering e-commerce products adapt to different urban, suburban and rural environments. In what ways do pickup point delivery networks differ in dense urban areas and more sparsely populated suburban and rural environments? The authors focus research on the department of Seine-et-Marne, in the East of the Paris region. After a literature review, the authors proceeded by conducting sixteen in-depth interviews with the main transport operators involved in e-commerce in France. The authors finally conducted a spatial analysis for pickup point networks. In addition to providing a better knowledge on current delivery processes for e-commerce, the work intends to contribute to urban planning by providing main features of deliveries for e-commerce according to different residential environments.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AT015 Freight Transportation Planning and Logistics. Alternate title: Final Delivery for Online Shopping: Deployment of Pickup Point in Urban and Suburban Areas.

01503729

14-3131

English

17p

2014

Transportation Research Board 93rd Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Figures; Maps; References; Tables

Electronic commerce; Literature reviews; Pickup and delivery service; Rural areas; Spatial analysis; Suburbs; Urban goods movement

France

Freight Transportation; Planning and Forecasting; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2014 Paper #14-3131

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Jan 27 2014 3:05PM