Characterization of urban distribution networks with light electric freight vehicles

摘要

The massive incorporation of light electric freight vehicles (LEFV) in the last mile distribution has been identified as one of the alternatives that large Latin American cities shall include in their agenda for cleaner and more effective public policy in logistics operations. Thence, in this paper, a routing optimization model was used to evaluate the reduction in operational cost and GHG emissions when fueled cargo trucks or motorcycles are replaced by LEFV (i.e., e-trikes or e-bikes) in the last mile distribution in large Latin American cities. Results showed that for the case of a commercial area in Bogota, and two lines of business (i.e., parcel delivery and dry chain), the use of LEFV reduces more than 50% de operational cost and more than 95% the GHG emissions. These high reductions are due to the synergistic effect of switching from fuel to electricity and reducing the energy consumption of vehicles.