E-commerce last-mile in Belgium: Developing an external cost delivery index

摘要

The rise in online B2C sales resulted in a fragmentation of freight shipments. Logistics service providers are challenged to cope with high competition, a consumer-driven economy, failed delivery issues, reverse logistics and environmental measures taken by policymakers, which are all putting pressure on the costs. The last-mile of these deliveries, widely accepted as the most expense part of the trip, is a trade-off between internal costs, externalities and the density of deliveries. Little is known so far about the actual impacts of e-commerce on transport and logistics on society. In this paper, we first analyse the spatial distribution of e-commerce deliveries during a 4-month period in Belgium. Next, we propose a methodology based on the total vehicle-kilometres travelled to calculate the external costs per parcel at the national level. The results show that despite the high urbanization in the country, the e-commerce consumption per capita is higher in rural areas while the total number of kilometres travelled remains similar to that in urban areas. While urban areas undergo most of the disadvantages related to the e-commerce last-mile, the average external cost per parcel was found to be higher in rural areas.