delivered to the recipient, either at the recipient's home or at a collection
point”, i.e. the “last-mile issue”, ismore expensive and less efficient
for parcel distributors because of delivery failures (typically when the
receiver is not at home during delivery slots), congestion, urban
constraints, non-optimum loading rates and regulations (Gevaers, Van
de Voorde, & Vanelslander, 2011). Thus delivery providers must adapt
their organizations to succeed in both kinds of delivery. For example,
to minimize delivery failures, not-at-home delivery solutions have
been created by CEP providers all around Europe, such as pickup-point
networks (developed by postal companies and private networks in all
countries; Hermes is one of the leaders with Parcelshop in Germany
and the UK), parcel lockers (Packstation in Germany is one of the
most famous networks with others established all over Europe), and
scheduled delivery. Urban parcel providers have also launched
additional services to improve delivery reliability, such as notification
before delivery or applications to ease interaction between the delivery
personnel and clients.
4.3. The growing concern of local authorities over urban logistics
The requirements of public authorities regarding delivery and
sustainability in the city are the final driving force behind the creation
of the urban parcel delivery sector. The constant urbanization of the
population and globalization of the economyhave led to a huge concentration
of parcel deliveries in cities. This has made urban freight an
essential activity for the city to grow and be liveable. However, urban
goods distribution is also considered by public authorities and citizens
to be responsible for congestion, all sorts of environmental pollution
and global warming (Dablanc, 2009; Giuliano et al., 2013).
Over the past fifteen years, urban goods distribution has become a
shared issue and a concern for cities all over the world and it can now
be considered that urban logistics is entrenched in the political agenda
(Cherrett et al., 2012; Lindholm, 2013a, 2013b). Various European, national
and local measures (regulations, dialogue and planning) as well
as experiments have been implemented in European cities to deal
with the issues identified above. The major trends today in France as
well as in Europe are to forbid or limit access to the city center for
goods distribution vehicles most of the time through environmental or
quality-of-life motivations, for example implementing time windows,
pedestrian zones, one-way streets, congestion charges and so on,
which complicate parcel distribution to shops and consumers and
threaten delivery productivity. Experiments have also been conducted
to consolidate goods thanks to urban distribution centers in several
cities (Browne, Allen, & Attlassy, 2007; Diziain, Gardrat, & Routhier,
2013; Lindholm, 2012). In that context, CEP actors delivering in cities
have adapted their organization and vehicles to city measures and
regulations as we have seen above.
Finally, national regulatory frameworks for urban logistics and
mobility can also change in the coming years under the pressure of
the European Commission. In France, issues related particularly to air
quality and polluting emissions, exceeding European standards, could
have consequences on local regulations, such as low emission zones,
congestion charges, standards and modal shifts for instance, and make
delivery more complex in cities.
5. Conclusion
5.1. Research implications
While the urban parcel delivery sector is an essential activity in
urban logistics, the European CEP sector is under-represented and
under-studied in today's urban freight research literature. Nevertheless,
this is a topic that the urban freight research community would benefit
fromunderstanding better, nowand for the future, regarding the development
of e-commerce and the increase inmovement of goods in cities.
Multi-actor analysis methodologies in urban logistics and academic
research on stakeholder's reactions to measures and dialogue between
urban freight stakeholders could benefit from the typology by improving
the understanding of one particular stakeholder. Among other
topics related to parcel deliveries, the particular topic of subcontracting,
of which we have seen the essential place with the last-mile delivery,
is under-studied and should take a particular place in the research
agenda.
We have given a comprehensive and structured approach of the
parcel delivery industry, which is at the heart of city life and economy,
and a better understanding of the concerns and rationales of the
European CEP players in a very quickly changing context. This is a
topic that urban freight practitioners, both private and public, would
benefit from understanding better in order to favor a successful
dialogue among the urban logistics stakeholders. For public authorities,
the typology could help identify one of the relevant urban freight
stakeholders whose presence is essential for a wider dialogue and
who can be a partner — financially and operationally — for the experimentation
of innovative urban logistics organizations. Thanks to the
understanding of the objectives and concerns of parcel delivery
providers, coherent and efficient urban freight measures and policies,
as well as sustainable experiments of new logistics organizations,
accepted by all players and adapted to the targeted activity, could be
implemented. Moreover, on the basis of those results, the study of the
evolution of the players' game and its drivers could be deepened, for
example in a prospective study, which would be relevant for firms to
adapt their strategies to.
5.2. Future prospects
The CEP sector is changing rapidly and will continue to do so since
the rise of e-commerce and cross-border online sales seem to be in
their infancy, as remarked by the players during the interviews. In
2011, the estimated total turnover of cross-border e-commerce in
the European Union (both physical — including parcels — and also,
above all, digital goods) was 47 billion Euros out of a total EU ecommerce
market (excluding micro enterprises) of 277 billion Euros
(FTI Consulting, 2011), and this was predicted to grow. As online
shopping reaches beyond borders, parcel providers must provide
seamless delivery. Even if cross-border e-commerce is a growth
opportunity for the urban parcel providers, they will need to deal with
political, technological and technical challenges, seeing delivery has
been identified as a key bottleneck, e.g. issues related to delivery price,
quality of service, tracking/tracing and delivery information, and return
logistics. As cross-border parcel distribution has emerged as the new
frontier for parcel distributors, several strategies to cover the larger
scale and overcome price related barriers and technological issues
have been identified, such as cross-border e-commerce partnerships
of different parcel distribution actors and cooperation around the use
of common IT tools, targeted buying, and cross-border settlements
thanks to partnerships.
Since the European Commission is fully aware of the economic
potential of intra-European cross-border e-commerce, it launched a
consultation on cross-border parcel delivery in 2012 to evaluate the
opportunity for a European regulation to improve the convenience of
delivery services to consumers, provide cost effective delivery solutions
and promote interoperability between stakeholders (European Commission,
2012). The consequences for parcel providers could be
numerous, since the main issue of the consultation is to decide on the
degree of regulation: self-regulation vs regulator organization. The
European Commission is also examining delivery prices and thus
delivery production costs, parcel size standards, the standardization of
last-mile delivery solutions in all the European countries, the level of
information provided to the receiver with effects for parcel providers
on their tools, standardization and interoperability between countries
and among e-merchants, the return logistics issue with effects for
professionals on costs and organizations, etc.