Identifying the Challenges to Sustainable Urban Last-Mile Deliveries: Perspectives from Public and Private Stakeholders

While freight transportation is a necessary activity to sustain cities’ social and economic life—enabling the movement and deployment of goods and services in urbanized areas—it also accounts for a significant portion of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The urban freight ecosystem is a complex network of agents, both public and private. Reducing CO2 emissions from urban freight requires the collaboration and coordination between those agents, but the motivations behind their goals, strategies for achieving those goals, and the challenges faced by each agent may differ. In this paper, we document the strategies aimed at reducing CO2 emissions considered by cities and private companies with the goal of understanding the challenges to progress faced by each. To accomplish this, we interviewed officials from purposefully sampled city departments in North America and private companies involved in city logistics. We found that cities face challenges related to a lack of strong leadership, resources, and policy tools. Companies must consider technological challenges, costs, and their workforce before reducing emissions. Cities and companies are challenged by the disaggregated nature of the urban freight “system”—a system that is not organized at the municipal scale and that is driven by performance and customer expectations.