Hu B., Ponweiser W., Ziakopoulos A., Roussou J., Chaudhry A., Oikonomou M., Gebhard S., Zwart R., Weijermars W., Veisten K., Hartveit K., Brackstone M., Thomas P., Yannis G., “The impacts of automated urban delivery and consolidation”, Proceedings of the Transport Research Arena TRA 2022 Conference, Lisbon, 14-17 November 2022

Automation in urban freight transport is an important milestone for city logistics, but it will most likely be challenging due to the complex traffic situations. The aim of the present paper is to provide an insight in the impact assessment method used and the results related to parcel delivery in Vienna. While the parcel volume is soaring due to the popularity of e-commerce – and especially accelerated by COVID, cities are thinking about the future delivery system. Automation and consolidation are expected to bring disruptive changes to the system we know today. By applying analytical methods, we show which impacts at what magnitude we may expect from the changes brought by automation in freight transport. We consider the direct impacts consisting of fleet size, freight mileage and fleet operation costs, as well as the wider impacts consisting of parking space, public health and road safety.