Mechanics@Home: Designing an optimised user-centric service for PostNL's XL parcel delivery

This graduation project is carried out for PostNL's XL parcel delivery. PostNL is one of the biggest delivery companies in the Netherlands and one of their departments takes care of XL parcel delivery. This department is called Extra@Home. XL parcels can be seen as non-regular parcels, meaning odd sizes or weights. For Extra@Home, the XL parcel...

Improving the Efficiency of a Decentralised Dynamic Last-mile Parcel Distribution Model and Adding the Circumstances of Mixed Fleets and Congestion

This study aims to investigate and develop the efficiency of a decentralised dynamic system for last-mile parcel distribution. A better understanding of the efficiency, and thus the feasibility of this decentralised logistics method, contributes to a better understanding of the potential of these systems as alternatives to the current centrally...

Claus - Enabling last-mile delivery in urban environments with limited mobility access

In this report the development and design of Claus is presented. Claus is an auxiliary drive train module for last-mile delivery hand trucks. The objective of the concept is to enable delivery workers to deliver parcels to the growing amount of addresses in urban environments with limited mobility access.<br/><br/>Due to the combination of...

Potential Impact of Car-Based Crowdshipping on Vehicle Mileage and Carbon Dioxide Emission: An Agent-Based Modelling Study Case

The significant growth in B2C e-commerce in the last decade increased the traffic and volume of parcels in last-mile delivery significantly. To mitigate the impact of the last-mile delivery service such as the increased traffic and carbon dioxide (CO2) emission, crowdshipping emerged as an innovation that utilise the travelling crowd as...

LEVVs in the last mile - creating a vehicle decision model for nuisance-free parcel delivery for PostNL

The e-commerce market is growing rapidly and PostNL continues to strive for delivery to the doorstep. The last mile of delivery is considered the most impactful part of the logistical chain. On top of environmental impact, the liveability of the city centre is challenged by bulky delivery vans rushing through narrow streets...

An international growth strategy for a fast-growing last mile delivery planning company

Plotwise is a tech scale-up that offers continuous planning for last mile delivery. By providing data-driven AI planning software as a service, the company strives to improve the delivery planning process of its customers and thereby allowing them to handle the growth in demand for home delivery. The home delivery market is expanding at an...

The impacts of e-commerce growth on the amount of kilometers driven for last-mile delivery in the Netherlands: A system dynamic based analysis on the relation between e-commerce and the logistic sector

This research clarifies the relations between the growing e-commerce sector and the logistic sector. The last-mile transportation of goods bought via e-commerce is growing, which leads to negative impacts on the environment and mobility. A Causal Loop Diagram (CLD) illustrating the relations is made and a simulation model is build quantifying...

Towards a Digital Twin Framework for Adaptive Last Mile City Logistics

The use of real-time data in logistics is an important topic. Every day, logistics produces a large quantity of data, which is mainly produced by monitoring and controlling the enormous flow of goods. The last-mile delivery market is expanding at a rapid pace through large- and small-scale consumer platforms, but the economic drivers to create...

The Impact of Collaborative Scheduling and Routing for Interconnected Logistics: A European Case Study

Interconnected logistics system can play an important role towards having a more sustainable green freight transport. Recently, after introducing the concept of Physical Internet (PI), researchers have started to explore the opportunities and challenges that a collaborative and interconnected network could create in different aspects of the...

Software Architecture for a Self-Organizing Logistics Planning System: A continuation study on the SOLiD project

The rise of e-commerce has led to a congested last-mile delivery paradigm. Increasing customer expectations have pushed carriers into a delivery market with diminishing profitability. Furthermore, the current state of last-mile delivery has high societal costs in congestion and environmental impact. To address these challenges, scientists in the...

An agent-based model evaluating last-mile solutions for parcel delivery in an urban area: A case study in the zero emission zone of Rotterdam

E-commerce has grown rapidly worldwide over the past decade and thus more parcels are shipped into urban areas. The last mile delivery of these parcels into an urban area create big problems such as congestion and pollution. In order to tackle these problems new solutions have been found by either changing the operations of the system or using...

Improving the Picnic Runner’s Experience: Applying user experience to vehicle design

The aim of this thesis is to implement knowledge of a user's experience into vehicle design. Picnic is developing a new delivery vehicle and this project will explore what could be improved on the current ePV for the ePV2. The target user, the Picnic Runner is researched thoroughly to find where the ePV design lacks positive user experience....

Exterior design of a bigger, faster, stronger last-mile delivery vehicle for Picnic Technologies

Picnic is an online supermarket currently operational in the Netherlands and Germany. Groceries are ordered from an app and delivered to the customer using a last-mile delivery vehicle. This last-mile delivery vehicle is currently used for densely populated cities and works well enough to support the current number of deliveries. However, this...

Using drones in the last-mile logistics processes of medical product delivery: A feasibility case study in Rotterdam

The term last-mile delivery refers to the final leg of a business-to-customer service, in which products are shipped from a depot to a destination point by means of land transportation, such as vans and small trucks. Although these vehicles provide a common and easy way to consign products, companies are striving for new transport technologies...

Introduction of drones in the last-mile logistic process of medical product delivery: A feasibility assessment applied to the case study of Benu 't Slag

The term last-mile delivery refers to the final leg of a business-to-customer service, in which a product is shipped from a depot to a final destination point by means of land transportation, such as vans and small trucks. Although they provide a common and easy way to consign products, companies are striving for new transport technologies to...

Charge scheduling of electric vehicles in last-mile distribution: A case study at Picnic

This thesis proposes a model for charge scheduling of electric vehicles in last-mile distribution to investigate the impact of charge schedule optimisation on charging cost. A mixed integer problem formulation is proposed that considers labour, battery degradation and time-variable energy cost. The benefit of implementing charge schedule...

Exploring the Market Potential of Bicycle Crowdshipping: A Bi-level Acceptance Perspective

Crowdshipping has emerged as an avenue to provide sustainable option for the<br/>future of urban package delivery. The main challenge in crowdshipping realm is to maintain sustainable network of customers (demand) and couriers (supply). To help resolving the challenge, this research offers a comprehensive approach to examine market potential of...

Understanding Financial Viability of Urban Consolidation Centres: Regent Street (London), Bristol/Bath & Nijmegen

The concept of an urban consolidation centre (UCC) has been extensively researched. Despite the potential positive environmental and social impact, the main obstacle remains the lack of a sustainable business model. The goal of this paper is to understand how to organize UCC viability as a concept providing environmental and social benefits...