Land Consumption of Delivery Robots and Bicycle Couriers for On-Demand Meal Delivery Using GPS Data and Simulations Based on the Time-Area Concept

Maren Schnieder, Chris Hinde and Andrew West
Additional contact information
Maren Schnieder: The Wolfson School of Mechanical, Electrical and Manufacturing Engineering, Loughborough University, Loughborough LE11 3TU, UK
Chris Hinde: The Wolfson School of Mechanical, Electrical and Manufacturing Engineering, Loughborough University, Loughborough LE11 3TU, UK
Andrew West: The Wolfson School of Mechanical, Electrical and Manufacturing Engineering, Loughborough University, Loughborough LE11 3TU, UK

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 20, 1-25

Abstract: Regulating the curbside usage of delivery vehicles and ride-hailing services as well as micromobility has been a challenge in the last years, a challenge which might worsen with the increase of autonomous vehicles. The contribution of the research outlined in this paper is an evaluation method of the land use of on-demand meal delivery services such as Deliveroo and UberEats. It evaluates the effect parking policies, operating strategy changes, and scheduling options have on the land consumption of bicycle couriers and sidewalk automated delivery robots (SADRs). Various operating strategies (i.e., shared fleets and fleets operated by restaurants), parking policies (i.e., parking at the restaurant, parking at the customer or no parking) and scheduling options (i.e., one meal per vehicle, multiple meals per vehicle) are simulated and applied to New York City (NYC). Additionally, the time-area requirements of on-demand meal delivery services are calculated based on GPS traces of Deliveroo and UberEats riders in two UK cities. The simulation in the paper shows that SADRs can reduce the time-area requirements by half compared with bicycle couriers. The effect of operating strategy changes and forbidding vehicles to park at the customer’s home is small. Delivering multiple meals in one tour halves the time-area requirements. The time-area requirements based on GPS traces is around 300 m 2 ·min per order. The study allows policymakers to learn more about the land use of on-demand meal delivery services and how these can be influenced. Hence, they can adjust their policy strategies to ensure that on-demand meal delivery services are provided in a way that they use land effectively, reduce external costs, improve sustainability and benefit everyone.

Keywords: time-area concept; sidewalk automated delivery robots; bicycle courier; on-demand meal delivery; parking policies; land consumption; shared mobility; land use (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/20/11375/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/20/11375/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:20:p:11375-:d:656599

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().