alBOX: White Label Parcel Lockers as Sustainable Solution for Last Mile Delivery

Hohenecker, Nina and Hauger, Georg and Braith, Johannes and Eitler, Sandra and Prandtstetter, Matthias and Schodl, Reinhold and Seragiotto, Clovis and Steinbauer, Matthias (2021) alBOX: White Label Parcel Lockers as Sustainable Solution for Last Mile Delivery. CITIES 20.50 – Creating Habitats for the 3rd Millennium: Smart – Sustainable – Climate Neutral. Proceedings of REAL CORP 2021, 26th International Conference on Urban Development, Regional Planning and Information Society. pp. 41-51. ISSN 2521-3938

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Abstract

Online commerce is an expanding and therefore challenging market. Due to its complexity, innovative solutions are required to guarantee a resource-saving supply quality with flexible goods and services in urban and rural areas. The challenges lie in developing an economically, ecologically and socially sustainable receiving and shipping system that offers the possibility of directly involving the local economy and strengthening locations overall. In particular, overcoming the last-mile in parcel delivery by courier express parcel services (CEP services) is associated with numerous problems. Based on these logistical-organisational problems and challenges, vendor-independent (“white-label”) parcel lockers were developed within the alBOX research project framework. Therefore, a pilot operation of white- label parcel systems in two target areas with different settlement structures (rural community of Kaumberg in Lower Austria and Vienna’s 5th district Margareten) was implemented for twelve months. The implementation of the white-label parcel lockers system was accompanied by conducting a mixed methods research which uses quantitative data (e.g. average package sizes, frequency of orders, usage times etc.) as well as qualitative data (e.g. user experience, operability etc.) to test, analyse and evaluate this innovative service. In this paper, the project’s results are linked to delivery and distribution logistics’ challenges to explain white-label parcel lockers’ contribution to ensure a nationwide, innovative and demand-oriented (local) supply structure for spatially scalable and flexible flows of goods, information and services. For this purpose, supply-related, social, economic, and ecologically and environmentally relevant objectives were considered. The focus is on the results that describe the delivery situation from the recipients' perspective and their usage behaviour. It is discussed to what extent the parcel lockers as the first delivery address influence the delivery situation in the target areas of the pilot operation.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	white label, parcel lockers, last mile, CEP, distribution logistics
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HE Transportation and Communications H Social Sciences > HM Sociology Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA76 Computer software
Depositing User:	REAL CORP Administrator
Date Deposited:	24 Sep 2021 16:19
Last Modified:	17 Oct 2021 17:18
URI:	http://repository.corp.at/id/eprint/733

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