Modelling effects of E-commerce on urban freight transport

This paper presents models of vehicle routing and scheduling with time windows and traffic simulation for evaluating the effects of e-commerce on urban freight transport and the environment. The models were applied to a test road network. Results indicate that introducing e-commerce (B2C) may lead to more traffic in urban areas and have negative impacts on the environment unless e-commerce is widely used by consumers to some extent. However, some measures including co-operative freight transport systems of home delivery companies, designating time windows by home delivery companies and pickup points are effective to reduce the total costs as well as total running times and NOx emissions.