Impact of Goods Distribution in the Last Mile: An Investigation in the City of São Paulo

Abstract

The number of goods deliveries made in the city of São Paulo has been rising every year. This growth is caused by new consumption habits, as people increasingly opt for online shopping, having goods delivered to their homes or neighborhood markets. However, these deliveries have become increasingly complex because of several issues found in the last-mile distribution of goods. This research sheds light on the interactions among issues related to truck circulation restrictions, receiver characteristics, accessibility and delivery planning, urban road infrastructure, driver behavior, and safety and risk problems that hamper last-mile delivery distribution. Data were collected (via a questionnaire) from drivers who work in the urban distribution of non-durable consumer goods in the city of São Paulo. From the data, structural equation modeling is proposed to evaluate these interactions. Empirical results demonstrate that “lack of accessibility and delivery planning” and “poor urban road infrastructure” are the elements that have the most impact on the “safety and risk problems in urban freight distribution” from the driver’s point of view. These results also contribute to mapping the main problems encountered in the last-mile delivery distribution in the city of São Paulo.