Methodology Smartdrop

Last-mile delivery

Smartdrop focuses on the last mile, which is the transportation of goods from the distribution centre to the final destination (home, shop, pick-up point, parcel delivery machine, etc.), regardless of whether this distribution centre is located in Belgium or abroad. The condition is that the final destination is in Belgium.

Logistical flows

The tool takes into account different logistical flows: parcels accompanying retail deliveries, dedicated transport (performed by the company or by third parties) and parcels injected into the logistics network of one or more parcel operators. Return flows from consumers to distribution centres are also included, as are missed deliveries. Finally, the analysis also takes into account customer travel for parcel collections.

Measuring sustainability

Sustainability is reported based on the external costs of the most important transport externalities. Externalities are changes of welfare caused by economic activities that are not reflected in market prices (Weinreich et al., 1998).

In the transport industry, they refer to situations in which transport consumers or producers trigger additional costs to society without bearing these costs themselves. The external costs are such external effects expressed in cash.

We consider the following externalities: air pollution caused by congestion, climate change, noise pollution, traffic accidents, infrastructure damage and well-to-tank processes.

Calculate impact

We need different data to calculate the impact. The logistics services take the parcels to their (final) destination. If this destination is a pick-up point, we also need to take into account the consumer's travel. The retailer provides the data for the logistics part.

If the retailer is not responsible for the transport movements, we use our own VUB Mobilise TRABAM model. This model and its results have been validated by the parcel operators.

The consumer travel data is collected in a representative survey, which is supplemented by responses from surveys carried out by retailers themselves.

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