Home delivery vs parcel lockers: an economic and environmental assessment

The past few years have been characterised by the emergence and the growth of B2C e-commerce in both developed and emerging countries (eMarketer, 2015). This phenomenon has highlighted the importance of conceiving new delivery strategies in order to deal with the increasing challenges of an internet-driven society. In this context, last mile logistics, i.e. the concluding distribution process to the end customer is particularly critical (Wang et al., 2014). One of its biggest problems is related to missed deliveries. The authors aim to analyse one of the solutions recently introduced to minimise missed deliveries, i.e. Parcel Lockers (PLs). More in detail, our objective is to develop an analytical model to assess the costs and the environmental impact of the distribution process based on the use of PLs and compare them with the ones of traditional Home Delivery (HD). The paper adopts a quantitative approach. The core of the research is represented by an Activity-based estimation model, which was developed and verified by following a three-step methodology: (i) Description of the last mile delivery phases in the two considered shipment options, (ii) Modelling of the environmental impact and costs produced by the two alternative processes, (iii) Application of the model to a base case, performance of sensitivity analyses and validation of results. We find that PLs generally cause less operational costs and carbon emissions than HD, although benefits are not homogeneously split among couriers and customers. The paper represents a starting point to bridge the gap found in the extant literature regarding the combined evaluation of e-commerce delivery processes from a financial and environmental perspective. The paper is also relevant for practice as it provides couriers with a reliable tool to support their decision-making activities and benchmark their environmental and economic performances.