Reducing the transport footprint of last-mile logistics

The demand for same day deliveries is ever growing, whilst journey times in urban areas continue to worsen as a result of increasing congestion. Typically, little thought is given to logistics in urban planning, nor the environmental burden faced by everyday deliveries. Transfer to more sustainable practices across multiple, cleaner transit modes can help to relieve some of these pressures.

This research aims to investigate the potential for a multi-modal logistics fleet to operate across many applications in an urban and peri-urban environment, using NHS same day delivery systems in the Solent region as case studies. Data from multiple NHS bodies and local government will inform analyses to understand the extent to which sharing logistics assets is plausible, and the implications for overall network performance. The research will also look to embrace modern technologies such as drones and e-Bikes and understand their potential scope for reducing the environmental footprint of same-day delivery.

Part of the research will include the optimisation challenge of combining health care loads such as pathology samples from GP surgeries and patient/local ambulance movements, with city council loads such as library books and school meals.
Allocations to appropriate vehicles to meet the criteria for each delivery is important to maintain or improve services, thus an allocation system will be developed to support this research. With a better understanding of these challenges, this research will seek to identify optimal combinations of mode which can help to improve the efficiency of health care logistics and reduce the current environmental footprint.