 Delivering supermarket shopping: more or less traffic?Sally Cairns Transport Reviews, 2004, vol. 25, issue 1, 51-84 Abstract: Car travel for food and other household items represents about 40% of all UK shopping trips by car, and about 5% of all car use. In the past 10 years, there has been an extremely rapid growth, albeit from a very small base, of home delivery services for such shopping. As this sector has developed, there has been increasing concern about the growth in delivery traffic, countered by the hope that services are reducing personal car travel. The balance between such tendencies is critical to the overall impact of services. The present paper examines a range of international evidence, including the results of nine modelling assessments. The evidence suggests that with realistic levels of take‐up, a direct substitution of car trips by van trips could reduce vehicle‐km by 70% or more. More complex shopper behavioural responses will occur, but, according to available empirical evidence, overall traffic reductions are still probable. Meanwhile, the benefits of services could be maximized by use of appropriate cost structures, new types of delivery location, less polluting vehicles, greater cooperation or out‐sourcing by retailers, and measures to encourage greater consumption of local produce. Date: 2004 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:transr:v:25:y:2004:i:1:p:51-84 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1080/0144164042000218391 Access Statistics for this article Transport Reviews is currently edited by Professor David Banister and Moshe Givoni More articles in Transport Reviews from Taylor & Francis Journals |
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