Deliveries In Urban Areas Research Articles

Citizen Science Approach for Assessing the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Service Potential of Urban Green Spaces in Ghana

Urban green spaces are linked to good human health and well-being, sustainable cities and communities, climate action, life on land and under water, as well as offering a platform for quality nature-based education. Their efficient management will no doubt be necessary if strides are to be made in efforts to protect biodiversity and enhance ecosystem service delivery in urban areas. This will, in part, require building the capacity of community members as citizen scientists to take up conservation roles. This study explored the levels of biodiversity and the proxy-based ecosystem service potential of urban green spaces in Sunyani, Ghana, using citizen science approaches. The green spaces accessed were the University of Energy and Natural Resources Wildlife Sanctuary and Arboretum, the Sunyani Parks and Gardens, the Sunyani Residency Park, and the Sunyani Senior High School Woodlot. The different levels of biodiversity (trees, arthropods) and ecosystem services were observed for the five green spaces assessed, with a significant relationship observed between arthropod communities and vegetation variables. Our results showed that citizen scientists perceived urban green spaces to supply more significant provisioning and regulating services than any other ecosystem services, even though they were highly dissatisfied with how green spaces are managed. The children’s perception of the composition of nature was slightly narrow, as they largely centered on plants and animals only. Even so, their awareness of the value of nature was high, as were the threats of human activities to nature. Citizen science approaches could complement biodiversity studies in data-deficient regions; however, collected data may require additional verification and validation from experts for conclusive and better inferences.

Factors associated with the very high caesarean section rate in urban areas of Vietnam.

Caesarean section and associated factors require detailed investigation globally. This study aims to determine the rate and associated factors of caesarean deliveries in urban areas of Vietnam. A cross-sectional study using questionnaire answered by women who had infants aged under 30 months was conducted from March to May 2021. Data were collected in 18 commune health centres in two cities during the day of routine immunization. Multivariable logistic regression was performed to assess factors associated with caesarean section. The overall caesarean section rate was 49.6%. The caesarean section rate in private hospitals (57.8%) were significantly higher than in public hospitals (49.1%). Caesarean section rate in first-time mothers (47.1%) were as high as this rate among mothers who had given birth before (50.6%). Factors associated with higher rate of caesarean section include increasing in women's age, pre-pregnancy body mass index, gestational weight gain, and infant's birth weight; first-time mothers; mothers living in urban areas; and mothers giving birth in private hospitals. This study revealed a high rate of caesarean deliveries in urban areas of Vietnam. Comprehensive investigations of both medical and non-medical reasons for caesarean deliveries in Vietnam are urgent needs to shape the prioritized interventions.

Improving the efficiency of last-mile delivery with the flexible drones traveling salesman problem

This paper analyzes how last-mile delivery performance can be improved based on combining one truck and multiple drones. We propose a Flexible Drones Traveling Salesman Problem (FDTSP) model to minimize the total delivery time. In FDTSP, a truck acts as a mobile launch platform for drones, delivers parcels to customers, and replaces drone deliveries when necessary, while drones distribute parcels to as many customers as possible to minimize the time spent on the whole route. To solve the FDTSP, we prose a two-stage heuristic formulated on bisecting K-means and metaheuristics approaches. Alternative delivery solutions for exceptional customer nodes, which exceed the drone endurance, are also introduced to ensure the deliveries for all customers in the network. The comparison analysis of three algorithms is also examined. The FDTSP significantly achieves time saving between 7.13% and 24.17% and improves the on-time service level between 13.01% and 19.77% compared to the truck-only mode. The number of customers served by drones can increase up to 56.47% if using one drone; however, additional drones may have declining marginal returns. The FDTSP reduces total tour time for last-mile delivery in urban areas with a high density of customers. Additionally, the longer the drone endurance and the faster the drone speed, the higher the efficiency of the FDTSP.

Experts' opinions about lasting innovative technologies in City Logistics

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the relevance of goods delivery in urban areas. However, this activity often generates negative environmental impact and several technologies have been proposed in recent years to reduce it, thus forming a complex innovation landscape characterized by different levels of maturity and effects on the City Logistics (CL) system. This complexity causes a deep uncertainty over the future of CL. This paper aims to tackle this uncertainty by forecasting the future of a set of CL technologies. A Delphi survey has been submitted to experts of this field to achieve a stable consensus over 33 projections related to 7 CL technologies for the year 2030. Results show that real-time data collection will help the coordination process between stakeholders, engendering an increased awareness over the value of using logistics data as well as its potential drawbacks. Moreover, experts share a positive attitude towards the expansion of Parcel Lockers, which should be monitored by public authorities to avoid a negative impact on land use. Finally, technologies such as drones and crowd-logistics have drawn the lowest level of consensus due to their lower level of maturity, which arouse the necessity to further explore several issues such as legal and technical barriers.

The Value of Criminological Theories in Explaining Cybersecurity in South African Smart Cities

AbstractThe development of smart cities in South Africa has the potential to enrich quality of life, encourage economic growth and reduce the human ecological footprint. It can advance and elevate service delivery in urban areas by applying various information and communication technologies. However, despite the countless benefits available, smart cities are at risk for major cybersecurity breaches that can produce devastating consequences. Criminological theories provide a foundation for understanding and explaining the criminal activity. Advancements in computer technologies and increased use of electronic devices and the Internet have resulted in crimes committed in cyberspace. As such, criminology scholars have been forced to think differently about how crimes are committed in cyberspace and how theoretical perspectives can be advanced to explain these non-traditional crimes. This article contends that criminological theories can inform cybersecurity risks in smart cities. This paper is based on theoretical findings through a qualitative inquiry, and the data were analysed thematically. The authors illustrate the value of social learning theory, neutralization theory, code of the street theory, space transition theory, actor-network theory and integrated model theory in explaining cybersecurity risks in smart cities.

Carrier collaboration with the simultaneous presence of transferable and non-transferable utilities

This paper deals with a problem in collaborative logistics which arises when a number of carriers, having both transferable and non-transferable utilities, form a coalition. The main application of the problem is last-mile delivery in urban areas. We propose mathematical models to formulate both cases of cooperation and non-cooperation as multi-objective optimization problems in which carriers seek two objectives, including maximizing profit and increasing customer coverage. To allocate the coalition outcomes to participating carriers in the proposed cooperative game, we develop mathematical conditions to define a generalized core solution concept. In addition, we develop a generalized form of the well-known Shapley value ensued by a detailed discussion on the trust issue in these games. Thereafter, two methods of reaching a compromise among coalition members are proposed. Moreover, a heuristic algorithm and a full-enumeration method are developed to find Pareto-optimal solutions for the bi-objective cooperative game. In order to evaluate the efficacy of the proposed models and algorithms, a set of benchmark instances having up to 225 customers are devised. Computational results indicate that cooperation can lead to profit improvement ranging from 9.07% in small-size instances to 14.7% in large-size instances on average, without worsening the customer coverage.

Optimal models for autonomous trucks and drones resupply for last-mile delivery in urban areas

The last-mile delivery in urban areas is the biggest challenge for carriers. In recent years, e-commerce has experienced strong growth, which has caused an explosion in the number of packages to be delivered. Businesses no longer hesitate to invest in new technologies such as artificial intelligence and drones. In this paper, we present a model of autonomous truck delivery resupply by drones, introducing the concept of transshipment point. Through comparisons with other delivery models, we show that our solution can be economically viable and improve the lives of inhabitants and customers.

Evaluate Sustainability of Using Autonomous Vehicles for the Last-mile Delivery Industry

This research is aimed at confirming whether the autonomous vehicles (AV) for last-mile delivery is sustainable in terms of three aspects – social sustainability, environmental sustainability, and economic sustainability. The safety was solely considered for the social sustainability because of its importance of AV application for lastmile delivery. This study finds that it is relatively safe to use AVs for delivery because of the speed limit of actual society and the good road conditions provide the ground that AV runs safely for last-mile delivery in urban areas. Besides, AV has a special advantage when facing pandemic. For environmental sustainability, the emission problem is the main concern. It is concluded that AV has a significant advantage in emission reduction in terms of a series of emissions. This mainly results from the driving behaviors difference between AV and human vehicles. As for the economic sustainability of AV, this research adopted a quantitative way to illustrate because the cost of AV is essential to consider because of AV’s commercial nature. The research reveals the cost advantage of AV under different carrying capabilities.

Evaluating Distribution Costs and CO2-Emissions of a Two-Stage Distribution System with Cargo Bikes: A Case Study in the City of Innsbruck

During the last years, e-commerce has grown rapidly. As a result, the number of parcel deliveries in urban areas is increasing, which affects the inner-city traffic and leads to congestion and air pollution, thereby decreasing the quality of life in cities. City administrators and logistic service providers have been working on the optimization of parcel distribution in order to alleviate congestion and reduce the negative impact on the environment. One of the solutions for environmentally friendly parcel distribution are two-stage distribution systems with city hubs. City hubs are facilities located close to the delivery area which are used as an enabling infrastructure to store and consolidate the parcels. For the last mile delivery from the city hub to final customers, zero emission vehicles, such as cargo bikes, can be used. Many studies have been conducted on this topic in recent years. This paper contributes to this research area by evaluating the implementation of such a two-stage distribution system with a city hub and cargo bikes in Innsbruck, Austria. The goal is to determine the best location for a city hub and the composition of the delivery fleet by minimizing the total distribution and CO2-emission cost. E-vans are used for the first and cargo bikes for the second stage of the parcel delivery. The problem is modeled as a vehicle routing problem with multiple trips and is solved in ArcGIS Pro, using the built-in routing solver. The analysis shows that all hub candidates provide comparably good results, with one potential station, the main station, showing the highest improvement compared to the basic system, with delivery by conventional vans. Savings in distribution costs of up to 30% can be achieved. Furthermore, by taking into account both indirect and direct emissions with a well-to-wheel approach, CO2-emissions can be reduced by 96%.

Enhancing Consumer Experience through Development of Implicit Attitudes Using Food Delivery Applications

In the context created by the COVID-19 pandemic, the aim of the research in this article is to highlight how the consumer experience is constructed, starting from the consumer’s attitudes—which we consider to be implicitly positive—and from the formation of habits of using mobile applications for food supply. Data were collected from 610 people—users of applications for food delivery in urban areas—in the spring of 2021, using a quantitative type of research in the form of a field survey based on questionnaire completion; for the model validation, we used confirmatory factor analysis. The online questionnaire link was sent out in April 2021, followed by the consumers’ completion of the questionnaire in the same month. The proposed theoretical model highlights the influence of variables that are specific for technology acceptance models on the perceived utility and development of implicit attitudes based on it, as well as the habits of using the application. The results of the research validate the proposed model, showing that attitudes in the form of an implicit-type attitudes developed in time are influencing habits and aid the development of a certain usage behavior depicted by a consumption experience that has specific content. Our paper contributes to a better understanding of the consumer experience development process within the context of technology acceptance in the field of food delivery services, emphasizing the importance of satisfying hedonic motivations as an integral part of the compensatory mechanisms determined by the effects of the pandemic.

Effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on health facility delivery in Ethiopia; results from PMA Ethiopia's longitudinal panel.

To examine the effect of COVID-19 on health facility delivery in Ethiopia. We used longitudinal data with a pre-post exposure to the pandemic to assess change in facility delivery patterns nationally and by urban and rural strata. We conducted design-based multivariable multinomial logistic regression comparing home, lower-level facility, and hospital delivery with date of birth as a spline term, with a knot indicating births before and on/after April 8, 2020. Six regions in Ethiopia, covering 91% of the population. Women were eligible to participate if they were currently pregnant or less than six weeks postpartum and were recontacted at six weeks, six months, and one year postpartum. 2,889 women were eligible and 2,855 enrolled. Data used in this paper come from the six-week interview, with a follow-up rate of 88.9% (2,537 women). In urban areas, women who delivered during the COVID-19 pandemic had a 77% reduced relative risk of delivering in a hospital relative to women who delivered prior to the pandemic (aRRR: 0.23, 95% CI: 0.07-0.71). There were no significant differences between the pre- and COVID-19 periods within rural strata where the majority of women deliver at home (55.6%). Overall, the effect was non-significant at a national level. Among women who delivered during the COVID-19 pandemic, 20.0% of urban women said COVID-19 affected where they delivered relative to 8.7% of rural women (p-value = 0.01). We found that delivery patterns in urban areas changed during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, but there was no evidence of large-scale declines of hospital delivery at the national level. Concerns about COVID-19 transmission in health facilities and ensuring lower-level facilities are equipped to address obstetric emergencies are critical to address. COVID-19 will likely slow progress towards increasing rates of institutional delivery in urban areas in Ethiopia.

Patient satisfaction and acceptability with telehealth at specialist medical outpatient clinics during the COVID‐19 pandemic in Australia

BackgroundOutpatient clinics were shifted rapidly to telehealth in Australia during the Coronavirus disease 19 (COVID‐19) pandemic, drastically altering patient care and experience.AimsTo investigate patient satisfaction and acceptability of telehealth consultations during the COVID‐19 pandemic.MethodsProspective observation study conducted in two hospital rheumatology outpatient departments (OPD) undertaking telehealth consultations during COVID‐19. A modified version of a validated telehealth evaluation survey was posted to all patients attending the telehealth OPD rheumatology clinics, including balanced 5‐point Likert scales and free‐text responses. Cluster analysis was applied to the Likert‐scale questions, alongside thematic analysis of free‐text responses.ResultsThere were 128 respondents (29% response rate), of which 69.5% were women and the majority (87.5%) was aged 50 years or older. All telehealth consultations were conducted by telephone. Nearly one‐fifth of patients indicated consistent dissatisfaction with telehealth across the range of questions. These patients were older, reported lower educational qualifications and lower health literacy scores and lacked access to the Internet. While many patients found this mode of consultation to be convenient, patients expressed concerns regarding absence of physical examination. A recurrent theme was a desire for a mixed‐model clinic in the future, with flexibility of having both telehealth and face‐to‐face consultations.ConclusionsThis study offers unique insights into patients' experiences with telehealth, which until the current global pandemic, has been an uncommon mode of consultation delivery in urban areas. This study suggests when defining the place of telehealth in future healthcare delivery, patient perspective and careful patient selection will be key. Disease progression, language and cognitive ability, health literacy, technology access and patient and clinician preference are important considerations when deciding how effectively to embed and integrate telehealth into consultations.

Cargo tram in freight handling in urban areas in Poland

Trams are usually used to carry passengers, but across Europe there are some examples of using them for carrying freight (‘CarGoTram’ of Dresden, Germany and the ‘Cargo-Tram’ of Zurich, Switzerland). There are specific conditions that provide a possibility of using trams for cargo delivery in urban areas. They concern infrastructural, economic, and organisational issues. The main purpose of this article was to identify the conditions and determine the possibilities of implementing a cargo tram in urban areas in Poland. This article has shown that in individual urban transportation systems there are factors that facilitate or inhibit implementation of cargo trams in UFT, and implementation of a concrete solution should be adjusted to the local conditions so that the tram transport system is not disturbed in providing its basic function, i.e. serving the public passenger traffic. To achieve the assumed aim, the following research methods were used: literature review, documentary method, Delphi method, and case study. The area of research was the city of Szczecin, Poland.

Implementation of a comprehensive systems of integrated mental health service delivery in urban areas. Lessons learned from the Inner Sydney Urban Partnership for Health and Well-Being

The International Journal of Integrated Care (IJIC) is an online, open-access, peer-reviewed scientific journal that publishes original articles in the field of integrated care on a continuous basis.IJIC has an Impact Factor of 5.120 (2020 JCR, received in June 2021)The IJIC 20th Anniversary Issue was published in 2021.

Constrained Urban Airspace Design for Large-Scale Drone-Based Delivery Traffic

Large-scale adoption of drone-based delivery in urban areas promise societal benefits with respect to emissions and on-ground traffic congestion, as well as potential cost savings for drone-based logistic companies. However, for this to materialise, the ability of accommodating high volumes of drone traffic in an urban airspace is one of the biggest challenges. For unconstrained airspace, it has been shown that traffic alignment and segmentation can be used to mitigate conflict probability. The current study investigates the application of these principles to a highly constrained airspace. We propose two urban airspace concepts, applying road-based analogies of two-way and one-way streets by imposing horizontal structure. Both of the airspace concepts employ heading-altitude rules to vertically segment cruising traffic according to their travel direction. These airspace configurations also feature transition altitudes to accommodate turning flights that need to decrease the flight speed in order to make safe turns at intersections. While using fast-time simulation experiments, the performance of these airspace concepts is compared and evaluated for multiple traffic demand densities in terms of safety, stability, and efficiency. The results reveal that an effective way to structure drone traffic in a constrained urban area is to have vertically segmented altitude layers with respect to travel direction as well as horizontal constraints imposed to the flow of traffic. The study also makes recommendations for areas of future research, which are aimed at supporting dynamic traffic demand patterns.

Evaluate sustainability of using autonomous vehicles for the last-mile delivery industry

This research is aimed at confirming whether the autonomous vehicles (AV) for last-mile delivery is sustainable in terms of three aspects - social sustainability, environmental sustainability, and economic sustainability. The safety was solely considered for the social sustainability because of its importance of AV application for last-mile delivery. This study finds that it is relatively safe to use AVs for delivery because of the speed limit of actual society and the good road conditions provide the ground that AV runs safely for last-mile delivery in urban areas. Besides, AV has a special advantage when facing pandemic. For environmental sustainability, the emission problem is the main concern. It is concluded that AV has a significant advantage in emission reduction in terms of a series of emissions. This mainly results from the driving behaviors difference between AV and human vehicles. As for the economic sustainability of AV, this research adopted a quantitative way to illustrate because the cost of AV is essential to consider because of AV’s commercial nature. The research reveals the cost advantage of AV under different carrying capabilities.

Reusing Newspaper Kiosks for Last-Mile Delivery in Urban Areas

The current increase in e-commerce is generating growing problems in urban areas in terms of both traffic flow (increasing traffic, no parking spaces) and environmental issues (noise, atmospheric pollution, etc.). In parallel, an iconic element of historic districts is disappearing: more and more newspaper kiosks are closing their business as their work dwindles. In this scenario, the objective of this paper is to propose a model for last-mile parcel delivery that exploits the current available newspaper kiosk network by using them as parcel lockers. To demonstrate the benefits of this proposal, we map the kiosk network of the city of Valladolid (Spain), and compare the environmental impact of a traditional (door-to-door) delivery and the proposed model which reuses old kiosks as parcel lockers. The necessary steps to carry out simulations are described in detail so that experiments can be replicated in other cities that face the same issues.

Electric vehicles performing last-mile delivery in B2C e-commerce: An economic and environmental assessment

The proliferation of e-commerce in the recent years has been recognized to have a huge impact on transportation owing to the increasing need for last-mile deliveries in urban areas. Further, it is claimed to be responsible for the rising number of vans moving in cities, considerably impacting environmental sustainability. In this context, electric vehicles (EVs) could substitute internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) to mitigate their harmful impact on the environment. This work aims to provide a comparison between the EVs and the ICEVs used to perform last-mile deliveries in business-to-consumers (B2C) e-commerce, considering both economic and environmental perspectives. The life cycle assessment method is adopted for the evaluation of environmental impact. However, economic assessment is based on the total cost of ownership analysis, which allows the comparison between the two types of vehicles throughout the ownership period. The analysis was conducted considering an Italian city (Milan). The use of EVs proved to be economically beneficial when an 8-year timeframe was considered. Even if the initial investment for EVs is high, owing to a purchasing price that is nearly double when compared to ICEVs, the lower operating expenditure makes EVs a competitive option. Considering the environmental perspective, EVs turned out to be the best option in all the scenarios assumed. In particular, EVs lead to a decrease in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 17% (in the 20 km/day case) to by 54% (in the 120 km/day case), or even more if a higher daily mileage is considered.

Urban delivery of fresh products with total deterioration value

ABSTRACT The deterioration of fresh products is often severe during fresh product delivery in urban areas, which is a significant challenge. We propose a novel model for the urban delivery of fresh products with different perishability. The objective of this model is to minimise the total deterioration value (TDV) and distance travelled. The TDV is related to the perishability, deterioration rates and quantities of different fresh products. A customised genetic algorithm is proposed to solve the model. The fitness value is calculated according to the preferential delivery of fresh products with high deterioration rates. Finally, a case study of fresh product delivery for a company in Shanghai is explored to assess the effectiveness of the proposed model. The results show that the proposed approach can lead to the highest drop of 11.8% of TDV compared to that based on the traditional shortest-path model.

The impact of optimizing delivery areas on urban traffic congestion

The objective of this article is to study the impacts of freight delivery in urban areas and its impact on urban congestion which is a factor accentuating greenhouse gas emissions. To this end, we focused on the lack and unavailability of delivery areas (DAs), defined as spaces where delivery vehicles may park for final deliveries. Their absence leads drivers to double-park. To minimize the impact of this problem, a field study was initially conducted, followed by an Integer Linear Program formulation of the DAs' problem, with emphasis on their location, number, and usage. By solving this problem, we could optimize the location of DAs taking into account stores assigned to them and their respective delivery demands. Subsequently, we evaluated the impact of double-parking and the DAs' optimization on urban congestion through a new method combining optimization and simulation. This approach is tested on a french case study. Finally, detailed numerical simulation results of various generated instances of traffic highlight the strong relationship between urban traffic congestion and number, use, and location of DAs.