Characteristics of Innovations in Last-Mile Logistics - Using Best Practices, Case Studies and Making the Link with Green and Sustainable Logistics

The first part of this paper describes and defines the problematic nature of the last mile. In the Innovative last-mile concepts will be described using case studies and best-practices in the second part. Attention will be paid to process the technological innovations of the last mile. Examples are given of situations where the innovative concepts have been applied, successfully as well as unsuccessfully. For the business-to-consumer (B2C) market, the e-commerce sector is a good case study. Amazon.com can be used as an example of implementing innovations in the last-mile on a successful way, whereas several other e-commerce companies went bankrupt during the e-commerce collapse around the year 2000. The defunct of these companies was in most cases a result from the very high costs of the last-mile in their supply chain. Webvan.com is an example of such an unsuccessful innovative last-mile strategy. Attention will also be paid to night deliveries to supermarkets in urban regions with a high level of population density and the problems with noise levels. Concerning the definition of “last-mile logistics”, deliveries to supermarkets cannot be considered as “full part of the last mile”, although some case studies about deliveries to supermarkets during the night can be used to learn important lessons about innovative concepts to reduce noise levels and increase environmental levels for the last mile. Fourth, an overall assessment is made and policy conclusions are drawn focusing on the concepts which have the highest merit from being further analyzed in detail, and eventually being implemented with government support.