An article titled “Impact of Autonomous Vehicle Assisted Last-Mile Delivery in Urban to Rural Settings” determines that this technology reduces the completion time of delivery tours and provides the most cost-effective business model. It appears in Transportation Science.
“The starting point of this paper involved the United States Postal Service announcing its idea to start using autonomous vehicles in rural routes,” said Sara Reed, assistant professor of business analytics at the University of Kansas.
“What we find is autonomous vehicles are cost-effective across all customer geographies, but it’s actually in urban environments that will see the most gains, particularly because parking is a challenge and customers are closer together. Serving customers on foot in urban environments becomes more advantageous than in rural environments where one may need to walk long distances between customers after parking.”
FedEx and Volkswagen have already utilized autonomous vehicles in countries such as China and Germany. Domino’s Pizza and 7-Eleven are now experimenting with bringing food and products to American customers. The USPS is aiming to implement this service by 2025, projecting a deployment on 28,000 rural routes. What once sounded like “Jetsons”-era futurism is now right around the corner.
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