E-commerce and sustainability : a total cost of ownership comparison between Diesel and electric vehicles for last mile delivery

The Internet has revolutionised the everyday lives of people and the way to do business. The spread of IT systems is acting, among many other things, as enabling factor of electronic commerce diffusion. E-commerce and online services in the broader sense are now at the heart of the lives of consumers and businesses in general. Extant research widely agrees to charge e-commerce growth as one of the main responsible for increasing demand on last mail delivery (e.g. Allen & Browne, 2010; Bestufs, 2008), as it involves a higher need for delivering goods from online retails to final consumers’ houses. Last mile distribution is becoming a great challenge in big cities, negatively affecting the quality of life of many citizens from both air and noise pollution viewpoints. Hence, promoting a sustainable logistic system rise to primary objective of today’s society. To this purpose, the literature counts among the most relevant solutions for mitigating said negative effects associated with the last ring of the supply chain, the introduction of electric vehicles (EVs) for performing last mile distribution. This thesis aims to analyse the operational and economic feasibility of the EVs’ adoption for executing the last mile, giving an overview of the main challenges and benefits associated with the adoption of EVs. Initially the work provides an in-depth literature review about e-commerce and last mile issues bringing out the underlying bond between them. Drawing on extant research, whereby the Total Cost of Ownership methodology (TCO) offers a comprehensive view of all cost associated with the possession of a vehicle, the work develops a scenario analysis that juxtaposes EVs and ICEVs in a city centre urban context. Particularly, such analysis has been applied to three European cities, Milan, Madrid and Oslo in order to understand the role played by distinct regulation frameworks on EVs adoption. Owing to such analysis, this work highlights the most relevant factors affecting EVs adoption competitiveness in last mile, with a particular focus on the levers in the hands of governments that improve EVs competitiveness.