Widespread adoption of green vehicles in urban logistics may contribute to the alleviation of problems such as environmental pollution, global warming, and oil dependency. However, the current adoption of green vehicles in the last mile logistics is relatively low despite many actions taken by public authorities to overcome the negative externalities of distributing goods in cities. This paper presents a comprehensive literature review on studies investigating the adoption of green vehicles in urban freight transportation, paying specific attention to e-commerce. To shed light on the adoption of green vehicles in city logistics, the paper conducts a systematic review of the empirical literature on the topic. The 159 articles reviewed were classified into the following: (a) Optimization and scheduling (67 papers); (b) policy (55 papers); (c) sustainability (37 papers). Among the 159 articles, a further selection of 17 papers dealing with e-commerce, i.e., studies that highlight the most relevant aspects related to the integration of green vehicles in e-commerce urban logistics, was performed. Our findings indicate that green vehicles are competitive in urban deliveries characterized by frequent stop-and-go movements and low consolidation levels while incentives are still necessary for their adoption. The use of autonomous vehicles results the most promising and challenging solution for last-mile logistics.

This paper aims at understanding and evaluating the environmental and economic impacts of a crowdshipping platform in urban areas. The investigation refers to the city of Rome and considers an environmental-friendly crowdshipping based on the use of the mass transit network of the city, where customers/crowdshippers pick-up/drop-off goods in automated parcel lockers located either inside the transit stations or in their surroundings. Crowdshippers are passengers that would use the transit network anyhow for other activities (e.g., home-to-work), thus avoiding additional trips. The study requires firstly, estimating the willingness to buy a crowdshipping service like the one proposed here, in order to quantify the potential demand. The estimation is realized adopting an extensive stated preference survey and discrete choice modeling. Then, several scenarios with different features of the service are proposed and evaluated up to 2025 in terms of both externalities (local and global pollutant emissions, noise emissions and accidents reductions) and revenues. The results are useful to understand and quantify the potential of this strategy for last mile B2C deliveries. Moreover, it provides local policy-makers and freight companies with a good knowledge base for the future development of a platform for public transport-based crowdshipping and for estimating the likely impact the system could have both from an economic and environmental point of view.

This study presents the result of a traffic simulation analysis based on Floating Car Data and a noise emission assessment to show the impact of mobility restriction for COVID-19 containment on urban vehicular traffic and road noise pollution on the road network of Rome, Italy. The adoption of strong and severe measures to contain the spreading of Coronavirus during March-April 2020 generated a significant reduction in private vehicle trips in the city of Rome (-64.6% during the lockdown). Traffic volumes, obtained through a simulation approach, were used as input parameters for a noise emission assessment conducted using the CNOSSOS-EU method, and an overall noise emissions reduction on the entire road network was found, even if its extent varied between road types.

Autonomous vehicles and shared mobility represent two fields of strong innovation in transportation research, and Shared Autonomous Vehicle (SAV) services have been studied as a new promising mobility system. Such services offer a strong potential especially when integrated with the Public Transport (PT) system, increasing its attractiveness by providing first- and last-mile connections to low-demand areas. This paper performs a systematic review on a niche of SAV-related literature, selecting articles that address PT-SAV integrations, the issue of how SAVs should be implemented together with already existing transit systems to enhance collective mobility. Papers have been classified firstly according to the methodological and modelling approaches used by researchers, and then according to the different operational schemes with which SAV systems can be deployed. Common findings have been reported and commented on, identifying the lack of articles aimed at determining the most suitable SAV service typology for specific contexts and network configuration. Many authors indicate that if SAVs are operated as feeder modes to mass transit, they might improve public transport connectivity. However, further research is needed to explore the efficacy of SAV systems as an opportunity to address first/last-mile PT planning issues.

The research presented in this paper is focused on the definition of a new methodology for evaluating how illuminated crosswalks influence drivers’ behavior when approaching the zebra in nighttime conditions. The proposed methodology is based on in situ speed measurements, and cars’ speed was detected in an urban road segment of the city of Rome with a Telelaser instrument. Vehicles speed profiles are measured in the same road segment both in LED-illuminated conditions and in non-illuminated conditions. Results have shown a promising impact of the LED lighting system on pedestrian safety. In fact, cars’ mean speed decreases by 19.3% at the crosswalk section in illuminated conditions. Moreover, a positive effect on safety, in terms of mean speed reduction (−16.4%), was found even in the absence of pedestrians.