The increasing use of e-commerce introduces major challenges for last-mile delivery, which is critical to ensure smooth functioning of supply chains. Besides the speed and cost of delivery, which are the most important factors for last-mile logistics, environmental and social sustainability factors are taking on an increasingly important role, especially in urban areas. In this perspective, last-mile delivery by drones could be a good choice both in terms of transport speed and sustainability. Being electrically powered, drones can reduce environmental impact; moreover, they enable the reduction of road congestion since they do not interfere with land infrastructures. The goal of this study is to analyse the viability of drones for last-mile delivery in the Italian city of Milan. A stated preference survey was carried out to assess end-user propensity towards drones. Using these results, a goods delivery service by drones was designed. Furthermore, a preliminary financial analysis was performed to evaluate the benefits for a company that would provide such a transport service. Findings show that last-mile delivery by drones can be successfully used to deliver small and light packages, reducing environmental and social impacts, and ensuring profits for the transport provider.

Nowadays, designing and adopting sustainable and greener transport systems is of upmost interest. The European Commission and different EU countries are developing plans and programs—but also delivering resources—aimed at the decarbonization of cities and transport by 2030. In this paper, the case study of the city of Brescia, a city of about 200,000 inhabitants located in northern Italy, is addressed. Specifically, a preliminary operational and financial feasibility study is performed assuming the replacement of the entire compressed natural gas (CNG) powered bus fleet of a specific line; the two alternatives considered are battery electric buses (BEBs) and fuel cell electric buses (FCEBs). For the comparison and evaluation of the two alternatives, specific economic parameters of the three alternatives (BEB, FCEB and the current solution CNGB) were considered: CAPEX (CAPital EXpenditure) and OPEX (OPerational EXpenditure). This allowed us to determine the TCO (total cost of ownership) and TCRO (total cost and revenues of ownership) along three annuities (2022, 2025 and 2030). For the BEB alternative, the TCO and TCRO values are between EUR 0.58/km and EUR 0.91/km. In the case of the FCEB solution, the values of TCO and TCRO are between EUR 1.75/km and EUR 2.15/km. Considering the current CNGB solution, the TCO and TCRO values range between EUR 1.43/km and EUR 1.51/km.

The goal of this work is to apply the idea of the city in 15 min to railway stations that can become the starting point of the analysis as they represent the “gateway”, where users start their last mile of travel after getting off the train. Within the research, 11 railway stations located in the Lombardy Region in Italy were identified and analyzed. To perform the analysis, an analytical index was implemented and determined for each station: this index summarizes the main features of the station itself in relation to the territory in which it is located. The adopted approach is comparative: it is not important the absolute value of the index of each station, but the comparison between the different indices. In this way it is possible on the one hand to classify the stations and on the other hand to identify and propose possible interventions to improve the role of a railway station in a territory. The proposed model is expandable and replicable: it is possible to add other useful indicators for the calculation of the index of each station and it is also possible to perform the analysis in different territorial contexts. In fact, it is a decision support tool able to provide indications and information for the planning and programming of the railway system and of the city; among the potential users of the proposed model there are railway station managers and administrations.

Environmental issues have reached global attention from both political and social perspectives. Many countries and companies around the world are adopting measures to help change current trends. Awareness of decarbonization in the transportation sector has led to an increasing development of energy storage systems in recent years, especially for ground vehicles. Batteries, due to their high efficiency, are one of the most attractive energy storage systems for vehicle propulsion. As for road vehicles, the growing interest in Electric Vehicles (EVs) is motivated by the fact that they reduce local emissions compared to traditional Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicles. The purpose of the paper is to present a study on how to plan and implement vehicle charging infrastructure on motorways. In particular, a specific road in Italy is analyzed: the motorway A1 from Milan to Naples with a length of about 800 km. This motorway can be considered representative because it passes through some of Italy’s most important cities and regions and may represent the backbone of Italy. A useful model for defining the optimal location of electric vehicle charging stations is presented within the paper. Starting with the data on the average daily traffic flows passing through the main nodes of the motorways section, the demand for the potential vehicles needed to define the number and dimension of charging stations and provide an adequate supply is estimated. The analysis was performed considering five-time horizons (year 2022 to year 2025) and four Scenarios involving the installation of 4, 8, 16, and 32 Charging Stations (CSs) in each service area, respectively.

In this paper, a quantitative model is implemented with the main goal of building a decision support tool to assess the feasibility of implementing a Vehicle-To-Grid (V2G) service by a company operating a fleet of electric buses. The proposed model can calculate the energy that a vehicle within a depot can deliver back to the grid during periods of peak energy demand, based on the operational schedule that must be guaranteed (number of buses in service). After a presentation of the main features of V2G and the main benefits this technology can bring to the transportation company, the model structure, and related algorithms, as well as input and output data, are presented and discussed. To verify the effectiveness and validity of the proposed model, a case study related to the company that manages public transportation in the city of Milan, Italy, is described. In particular, 2 depots were analyzed considering the energy load during peak hours and the energy that could be injected into the grid considering the vehicles parked in the depot. From a quantitative point of view, V2G could feed about 7 MW to 10 MW into the grid, depending on the day of the week and time of day. Considering an average connection of 3 kW for a household, between 2,300 and 3,300 households could be served. In addition, an economic evaluation was performed considering energy trading: monthly, total revenues are 45,922 € and total costs are 42,848 €; the economic benefit can be estimated at about 3,074 €.