Electrifying an urban delivery fleet : a case study

Abstract

When carriers consider electrifying their delivery fleets, it is not only a societal and moral obligation, given road traffic's impact on emissions. It has also become an economic consideration as sustainability metrics can result in investment, and the life-cycle cost of electric vehicles is becoming more attractive. In this paper, we report on an actual case of a South African pharmaceutical company considering replacing and electrifying its current delivery fleet. The paper uses an agent-based simulation approach that models each delivery vehicle on an existing road network. Each vehicle's emissions characteristics are known, and its spatiotemporal movement results from solving a variant of the well-known routing problem. Vehicle movements are coupled with a detailed database of emissions factors to estimate the total emissions per vehicle per link, which can then be aggregated to any required level. The results show that electrifying an entire fleet may not be viable initially, suggesting a hybrid fleet as a more practical intervention in the foreseeable future.