Abstract

With the rise of e-commerce and door-to-door sales, last-mile deliveries are gaining more and more importance. As a result, last-mile distribution has become one of the most sensitive logistics processes due to its uniqueness, difficulties in meeting schedules, and high costs. Therefore, this work explores the use of urban consolidation centers to ease these last-mile difficulties. Experiments are based in different hub-based fleets (traditional internal combustion vehicles or electric cargo bikes), demand patterns, and delivery frequency strategies by means of a biased randomization vehicle rooted in an agent-based simulation model. Results quantify the effect of having an urban consolidation center and highlight the use of electric cargo bikes for the last-mile distribution.