by Jimmy Mai, MSCE 2017

On Thursday, August 4^th, METRANS and MetroFreight jointly sponsored a research seminar featuring a presentation by Dr. Laetitia Dablanc, “The Rise of Instant Delivery Services in European Cities; What Are the Potential Impacts on the Urban Freight Routine?” Over 20 researchers, professional practitioners, and students attended the event. Dr. Genevieve Giuliano, Director of METRANS, introduced the speaker and pointed out that instant delivery, being a relatively new subject to study, has interesting effects on consumer consumption behavior.

A pioneer researcher on instant delivery, Dr. Laetitia Dablanc is the Director of Research at the French Institute of Science and Technology for Transport, Development, and Networks (IFSTTAR, University of Paris, France), a part-time visiting professor at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and a member of MetroFreight. Her area of research includes freight transportation, freight and the environment, urban freight and logistics, rail freight, and freight transport policies. She earned a Ph.D. in Transportation Planning from École des Ponts ParisTech and a Master’s degree in City and Regional Planning from Cornell University.

(Photo by Laetitia Dablanc )

Dr. Dablanc’s research focused on gathering data from instant delivery companies such as Take Eat Easy (Belgium-based), Postmates (created in San Francisco by a German entrepreneur), Mesh Korea, and Amazon Prime Now. Although these companies participate in the instant delivery market, they diverge in the amount of assets such as vehicles and terminals that they own, the number of drivers they employ, and the kinds of goods they deliver. Mesh Korea, for example, owns all of its vehicles while Take Eat Easy owns zero logistic assets. These companies may employ full-time drivers, contract with a delivery company, or contract with individual couriers.

With very limited data and analysis prior to her research, Dr. Dablanc was able to collect comprehensive data only in the City of Paris. She estimated a rate of 0.2 instant deliveries per home per week, which is equivalent to approximately 100,000 instant deliveries and pick-ups per week in the metropolitan area. Of these deliveries, 20% were carried by motorbike, 10% by van, and 60% were delivered by bicycles. The remaining 10% were delivered by walking, roller blade, transit, or cargocycles.

To conclude the presentation, Dr. Dablanc indicated several key findings. The first is that demand for instant delivery is likely to grow. Consumers prefer this option and often do pay decreasing cost for shipping. The delivery cost for companies, however, is unlikely to go down. Moreover, since 2015, instant delivery companies experienced increasing challenges in raising capital from investors. To combat these challenges, companies need to revisit their business models. In addition, city zoning and traffic policies also need to adapt.

Dr. Laetitia Dablanc

Laetitia Dablanc, Ph.D., is Director of Research at the French Institute of Science and Technology for Transport, Development and Networks (IFSTTAR, University of Paris-Est, France), part-time visiting professor at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and a member of MetroFreight (a VREF Center of Excellence in urban freight research led by the University of Southern California).

She is currently working on logistics sprawl issues and freight transport planning in U.S. and European megaregions. Laetitia was a visiting scholar at the Georgia Institute of Technology (2010-2011) and the University of Southern California/METRANS (2011-2012). She is a member of the steering committee of the World Conference on Transport Research Society.

Jimmy (Jinhao) Mai

Jimmy (Jinhao) Mai is an MSCE-Transportation Engineering student at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. He is interested in active transportation, parking management, and transit. Specifically, he is passionate about projects that promote multi-modal transportation. Jimmy can be reached at [email protected].