Performance of Light Electric Freight Vehicles in Urban Areas - Adapting the Performance Prism framework to manage CEP stakeholder relationships and improve the performance of Light Electric Freight Vehicles in the last mile

Abstract

Urban areas and specifically the logistics providers responsible for the last mile in these environments have become under more pressure over recent years. Reasons for that could be seen in the growing trend of economies having more globalized supply chains. Also, more and more people around the world move into urbanized areas while at the same time e-commerce platforms and companies have risen over the past years, which basically offer customers to order everything online within a short time window. These circumstances have led to negative consequences on the quality of life in urban areas, as well as growing inefficiencies and costs for the operators affected within the last mile of delivery. Therefore, it is crucial to consistently explore alternative solutions that could potentially improve the last mile delivery within dense urban areas. One of these solutions is presented in this report in the form of Light Electric Freight Vehicles (LEFV), mainly cargo bikes, being used for the final delivery in the parcel sector and how the performance of this alternative could be improved. The report shows that the LEFV has advantages, as well as disadvantages to the regular vehicles used for parcel deliveries. Still, to increase the operational efficiency of the LEFV, certain characteristics, such as dimension, weight and speed would need to be changed, which would go against the definition of a LEFV. The result shows that the performance enhancement has to come through a better relationship and more cooperation between the operating company and its external stakeholders. Specifically, the local authorities need to understand the importance of their roles and the influence that they can have on the issues arising from urban freight. They need to realize that they can be an active part of the solution instead of only defining the regulatory terms for others.