Sustainable Cities and Society 71 (2021) 102984

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Sustainable Cities and Society

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/scs

Sustainable last mile delivery on e-commerce market in cities from the

perspective of various stakeholders. Literature review
Maja Kiba-Janiak, Jakub Marcinkowski *, Agnieszka Jagoda, Agnieszka Skowrońska
Wroclaw University of Economics and Business, Nowowiejska 3, 58-500 Jelenia Góra, Poland

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: In the literature, city logistics in terms of last mile delivery on the e-commerce market is quite new area of
Last mile delivery research that is not thoroughly investigated. It can be observed that there are many papers discussing various
Sustainability topics from the perspective of different groups of stakeholders such as residents, governments, shippers, re­
e-Commerce
ceivers, transport companies (CEP), and others. However, there is no holistic approach covering the presented
Cities
Stakeholders
field of research. Therefore, the paper’s purpose is identification of trends in sustainable last mile delivery on e-
commerce market in cities from the perspective of various stakeholders. The research method that serves the
paper’s purpose is systematic literature review in the above-presented field performed through traditional
method and machine learning (VOSviewer). In order to conduct critical analysis of published sources, the Web of
Science and Scopus databases were applied. The paper’s added value is a comprehensive approach to sustainable
city logistics of last mile delivery that includes all stakeholders’ perspectives and the identification of trends in
this area. During the critical literature analysis, authors identified the relations between stakeholders, the fields
of the research, and the trends for developing sustainable last mile delivery on the e-commerce market. It should
be noted, that recent articles discuss newer technological and organization solutions, such as IoT, autonomous
vehicles, crowd-shipping, parcel lockers, and concentrate on the behavior analysis of e-customers.

1. Introduction pollution or congestion problems, and e-commerce services (shippers)

Last mile delivery on e-commerce market is one of many areas of
urban freight transport (UFT) and can be defined as “a series of activities
and processes that are necessary for the delivery process from the last
transit point to the final drop point of the delivery chain” (Kum, Xueqin,
Li, & Yiik, 2018). It can be viewed from three perspectives represented
by various stakeholders: from the demand side (demand for goods
purchased online, represented by individual customers and companies,
institutions), supply (delivery of goods purchased online, represented by
mostly courier, express and parcel companies – CEP and ecommerce
services, producers and online shops) and its physical environment
regulated by local government (Bandeira, D’Agosto, Ribeiro, Bandeira,
& Goes, 2018). Each city logistics stakeholder in the field of last-mile
delivery has its own preferences and expectations. E-customer
(receiver) choose those companies (retailers) that deliver goods faster
and cheaper than others, the authorities (local government) put the good
of all residents above the individual needs of enterprises, transport
companies focus on low delivery costs, often ignoring environmental
compete in satisfying individualized customer needs. To solve these
problems, a sustainable approach to city logistics of last mile delivery is
needed, considering the perspective of key stakeholders (local govern­
ment, shippers & retailers, residents, receivers (e-customers), transport
companies/courier, express, parcel companies (CEP)).
In the literature an interest in city logistics in terms of last mile de­
livery on the e-commerce market has been increasing for several years,
however, many publication typically refer to the individual problems
such as: analysis of the e-commerce impact on the last mile delivery
(Allen et al., 2018; Cardenas et al., 2017; Morganti, Seidel, Blanquart,
Dablanc, & Barbara, 2014), the study on e-customer opinion on alter­
native solutions for the shipments purchased via Internet in relation to
the home deliveries (Iwan, Kijewska, & Lemke, 2016; Lemke, Iwan, &
Korczak, 2016; de Oliveira, Morganti, Dablanc, & de Oliveira, 2017;
Vakulenko, Hellström, & Hjort, 2018), research among logistics com­
panies dealing with the goods deliveries on the e-commerce market (Yu,
Wang, Zhong, & Huang, 2016), the search for the last mile problem
solving ways through optimization models (Florio, Feillet, & Hartl,

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: jakub.marcinkowski@ue.wroc.pl (J. Marcinkowski).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2021.102984
Received 7 December 2020; Received in revised form 26 April 2021; Accepted 27 April 2021
Available online 2 May 2021
2210-6707/© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
M. Kiba-Janiak et al.
2018), the use of smart information systems (Leung et al., 2018), or an
attempt to calculate external costs of city logistics in the field of last mile
delivery on the e-commerce market (Cárdenas, Beckers, & Vanelslander,
2017). However, those problems are discussed mostly from the
perspective of particular stakeholders such as residents, governments,
shippers, receivers, transport companies (CEP), and others.
The paper’s purpose is identification of trends in sustainable last mile
delivery on e-commerce market in cities from the perspective of various
stakeholders. The research tool that serves the paper’s purpose is a
systematic literature review in the above-presented field performed
through the traditional method and machine learning (VOSviewer). In
order to conduct a critical analysis of resources the Web of Science and
Scopus databases were investigated. Authors found it necessary to
formulate several questions in order to conduct a systematic literature
review:
1 How does the number of papers and citations related to the sus­
tainable last mile delivery and e-commerce changed in recent years,
considering the geography of the articles and the factors which in­
fluence this increase?
2 Which are the most popular topics discussed in the analyzed papers
and which are the least?
3 What are the most often discussed groups of stakeholders among
analyzed articles and what issues are related to them?
4 How does the sustainable last mile delivery on e-commerce market in
cities from the perspective of various stakeholders evolved and what
trends can be distinguished?
5 What kind of innovative solutions in last mile delivery on e-com­
merce market in cities are discussed in scientific papers?
The paper’s added value is a comprehensive approach to sustainable
city logistics of last mile delivery that includes all stakeholders’ per­
spectives and the identification of trends in this area. During the critical
literature analysis, authors identified the relations between stake­
holders, the fields of the research, and the trends for developing sus­
tainable last mile delivery on the e-commerce market.
The structure of the paper is as follows: in the next Section 2, state-of-
the-art was introduced. The section presents the state of the art of the
research topics in the field of sustainable last mile delivery on e-com­
merce market. In the following section, the procedure was presented
that characterize methods developed for literature review. In Sections 4
and 5 quantitative and qualitative analyses were introduced respec­
tively. The paper ends with conclusions that summarize the detailed
discussion presented in the paper as well as reply to the research
questions.
2. Identification of research topics in the field of sustainable last
mile delivery on e-commerce market – state of the art
Sustainability starts to play an increasingly important role in the
modern world. It could be defined as “meeting the needs of the present
without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their
own needs” (United Nations, 1987). Besides, sustainable development
definition informs that it is a “process of change in which the exploita­
tion of resources, the direction of investments, the orientation of tech­
nological development, and institutional change are made consistent
with future as well as present needs” (United Nations, 1987). Thus, it can
be assumed, that sustainable last mile delivery on e-commerce market in
cities concerns the planning, implementing, coordinating and control­
ling of processes on urbanized areas related to the last mile delivery of
goods purchased online with the accompanied information, in order to
reduce costs, reduce environmental degradation and increase road
safety, obtained as a result of a compromise developed among the
diverse preferences of stakeholders.
The sustainable context environmentally, socially and economically
is discussed in various ways in the relevant literature. It faces many
2
Sustainable Cities and Society 71 (2021) 102984
publications referring e-commerce market, sustainable transport, and
last mile deliveries separately. Some of them refer to organization and
technology issues, in terms of last mile typology (Gevaers, Van de
Voorde, & Vanelslander, 2014) and last mile costs (Gevaers et al., 2014;
Hjält & Kollberg, 2016). There is also an insight into light goods vehicles
usage and last mile cost decrease without affecting customer service
(Allen et al., 2018). Some articles also compare home deliveries alter­
natives such as parcel lockers and pick-up points (Morganti et al., 2014),
while other one analyse usability and efficiency of parcel lockers (Iwan
et al., 2016), potential demand of parcel lockers (de Oliveira et al.,
2017), roads impact of last mile delivery in the parcel sector (Bates,
Friday, Allen, & McLeod, 2018), provision of Mixed Integer Program­
ming formulation in parcel deliveries in last mile logistics (Baldi, Man­
erba, Perbol, & Tadei, 2018), or assessment of parcel lockers that include
behavior and interaction among stakeholders (Alves, da Silva Lima,
Custódio de Sena, Ferreira de Pinho, & Holguín-Veras, 2019). Other
papers focus on how last mile deliveries can be managed for limiting the
transport impacts within specific parts of the city (such as historic
centres or high-density suburbs).
The other group of papers relate to logistics models and optimiza­
tion. Last mile logistics models on e-commerce market in terms of a
literature review have been presented by Lim, Jin, and Srai (2018),
while Ranieri, Digiesi, Silvestri, and Roccotelli (2018) reviewed on
innovative strategies focusing on externalities cost reduction. There is
also an integrative approach that combines scheduling and vehicle
routing issues with soft time windows (Han, Zhao, Chen, Luo, & Mishra,
2017). New logistics planning models has been also presented by Qi, Li,
Liu, and Shen (2017), while Klein, Mackert, Neugebauer, and Steinhardt
(2018) have demonstrated an approach based on mixed-integer linear
programming.
Crowdsourcing and crowdshipping is getting more popular in the last
mile delivery on e-commerce market. Wang, Zhang, Liu, Shen, and Lee
(2016) proposed a large-scale mobile crowd-tasking model that involves
citizen to perform last mile delivery. Gatta, Marcucci, Nigro, Patella, and
Serafini (2019) assessed economic and environmental impact of a
crowdshipping platform in Rome on the basis of the automated parcel
lockers. The authors proposed the strategy for last mile B2C deliveries.
The crowdsourcing benefits on last mile delivery has been also presented
in terms of a viable customer delivery method for last mile delivery
(Skiver & Godfrey, 2017), but also in terms of a social network of the
customers (Devari, Nikolaev, & He, 2017), prediction of the
crowd-shipping delivery performance (Ermagun, Punel, & Stathopoulos,
2020), contingency theory application (Castillo, Bell, Rose, & Rodrigues,
2018), or partial crowdsourcing integration in last mile delivery plan­
ning (Huang & Ardiansyah, 2019). Besides, Ballare and Lin (2020)
investigated the performance of a microhub delivery paradigm in rela­
tion to the crowdshipping. The benefits of crowdsourced deliveries have
been discussed by Cheng, Gou, Yue, and Zhang (2019) and Guo, Jar­
amillo, Bloemhof-Ruwaard, and Claassen (2019), while crowdshipping
by Le et al. (2019). Another field of research that is visible in the relevant
literature focus on public bike-sharing systems. Soriguera and
Jimenez-Merono (2020) prepared a parsimonious model in order to
create an optimal bike-sharing system. Authors concentrate on a
comprehensive point of view and trade-off analysis between operator
and level of bike-sharing service.
Innovative solution has been presented by Zhang, Sun, Hu, and Zhao
(2019) through order consolidation approach. An extensive set of last
mile delivery innovations have been also presented by Mangano and
Zenezini (2019). The importance of clean transport and its planning for
local governments through wide range of measures in order to reduce
the impact of urban freight transport has been diagnosed by Cossu
(2016). The role of authorities in implementation of strategies that meet
stakeholders’ expectations is shown by Pronello, Camusso, and Valen­
tina (2017).
The ecological issues have been demonstrated by Awwad, Shekhar,
and Iyer (2018) through development of a framework to reduce
M. Kiba-Janiak et al.
greenhouse gas emissions. Bates, Friday, Allen, McLeod et al. (2018)
have diagnosed ICT systems usage to combat the impact on pollution,
congestion and carbon emission in parcel delivery sector. The traveling
salesman problem in connection with carbon emission reduction has
been presented by Jiang, Chang, Zhao, Dong, and Lu (2019).
Inclusion of sustainable development goals – social, economic and
environmental in crowd logistics solutions from the perspective of
various stakeholders, was presented by Rześny-Cieplińska and
Szmelter-Jarosz (2019). There is also an attempt to diagnose Generation
Y’s behaviour and environmental attitude in last mile deliveries (Moroz
& Polkowski, 2016) or consumer participation behaviour in last mile
logistics services (Wang, Wong, & Yuen, 2019). An increased interest in
research is presented from the perspective of urban logistics (Cardenas
et al., 2017) with a presentation of a sustainable solutions and current
challenges in that field (Schöder, Ding, & Campos, 2016), as well as last
mile optimization through designing platform of services and applica­
tions (Pronello et al., 2017). On the other hand, estimation of fuel
consumption while considering the effect of load, speed and acceleration
has been presented by Kancharla and Ramadurai (2018).
Modelling end consumers’ choice towards e-shopping has been also
recognized in the scientific literature. Comi and Nuzzolo (2016) focused
on demographic and socio-economic factors imposing end-consumer’s
choice with preparation of models for simulating shopping choices. van
Duin, de Goffau, Wiegmans, Tavasszy, and Saes (2016) presented the
delivery results prediction on the basis of historical delivery data that
were applied or a logistics parcel service company. Gatta et al. (2020)
presented a modelling framework in order to investigate the potential
acceptability of e-grocery through discrete choice agent-based
approach. Russo and Comi (2020) analysed end-consumers’ choices
and confirmed that socio-economic characteristics and shop location
have an impact on quantity bought by end-consumer. Comi (2020)
presented a modelling framework to forecast urban goods flow that take
into consideration end-consumers among others.
However, a few researchers made an approach to design and eval­
uate last mile deliveries from the perspective of various stakeholders
(Harrington, Srai, Kumar, & Wohlrab, 2016), the others presented only
the general findings in e-commerce logistics (Yu et al., 2016), coherent
view of last mile logistics research (Olsson, Hellström, & Pålsson, 2019)
or scenario assessment that focus on B2C strategy trends and joint co­
ordination of stakeholders (González-Feliu, Durand, & Andriankaja,
2012).
The state-of-the-art review enabled us to classify the topics of the
Table 1
Research topics identified in the field of sustainable last mile delivery on e-
commerce market.
Topics in analysed papers Fields
Increasing road safety, implementing innovative Organization
technologies for management, e-commerce market
analysis, types of deliveries, limiting of transport in
cities, planning models, microhub proposal,
authority’s role, order consolidation
Introducing of applications and e-platforms, parcel Technology
lockers, promotion of light goods vehicles, types of
deliveries, order consolidation
Reducing environmental degradation, clean transport, Sustainability
GHG reduction, bike sharing systems, order
consolidation
Cost reduction in operational and strategic manner, Optimization
logistics models, soft time windows for deliveries
Economic and environmental impact of crowdshipping, Crowdsourcing &
delivery methods, performance assessment, benefits crowdshipping
analysis, integration in deliveries planning
Compromising stakeholders, authority’s role, customer Cooperation
service
Changes in behavior among stakeholders, modelling Behavior
consumer choices, consumer behavior
Source: own elaboration based on the initial literature review.
3
Sustainable Cities and Society 71 (2021) 102984
papers presented in the literature so far into following fields (Table 1):
organization, technology, sustainability, optimization, crowdsourcing &
crowdshipping, cooperation and behavior.
The presented initial literature analysis allows to identify in an
orderly way new solutions used in sustainable last mile delivery and
returns on e-commerce market. Nevertheless, without an in-depth
analysis of the databases and the articles contained therein in relation
to the identified fields and stakeholders, all sustainable solutions will not
be detected. In view of the above, the authors of the article undertook a
detailed bibliometric analysis using software supporting such analysis.
The fields identified so far enable a precise and advanced literature re­
view when selecting keywords in databases and the selection of an IT
tool to diagnose the main clusters within the analyzed databases.
However, it should be borne in mind that the tool used in Section 3 is
based on the foundation of the initial literature analysis from Section 2,
which essentially directs the course of considerations throughout the
article.
3. Procedure of the systematic literature review
Systematic literature review is a basic approach to diagnose the
fundamentals of sustainable city logistics of last mile delivery including
the perspective of various stakeholders. In order to propose a compre­
hensive approach to the presented topics, it is necessary to identify the
knowledge gaps in the relevant literature.
The framework is organized in five stages. The flowchart of the
procedure developed for literature review has been presented in Fig. 1.
The initial stage of a systematic literature review (i) has started with
pre-selection of articles in order to diagnose the state-of-the-art and
identify any scientific gaps. The overview of the indexed articles results
in a set of keywords used in a quantitative analysis completed in the
stage two. Authors of the paper wanted to examine the role of the
stakeholders in the sustainable last mile delivery on the e-commerce
market, therefore, the following set of keywords has been identified for
the analysis: “last mile delivery”, “last mile logistics”, “e-commerce”,
“sustainability” and “stakeholders”.
Initial preparation for the quantitative and qualitative keywords
analysis (ii) enables to identify and examine the research interest in the
topic in terms of: the number of articles, citations, research areas and
years of the publication. The number of articles identified in the initial
phase in the Scopus and Web of Science databases is presented in
Table 2.
To eliminate any potential discrepancies and articles inconsistent
with the subject matter, all articles have undergone the following
procedure:
• Scopus database: articles searched with all the phrases presented in
Table 1 were copied to spreadsheet, where duplicate articles and
articles that did not refer to "city", "cities" or "urban" and "e-com­
merce" were removed. As a result of these eliminating activities, 136
articles remained in the database.
• WoS database: articles searched with all the phrases presented in
Table 1 were copied to spreadsheet, where duplicate articles and
articles that did not refer to "city", "cities" or "urban" and "e-com­
merce" were removed. As a result of these eliminating activities, 99
articles remained in the database.
All articles from WoS and Scopus databases were copied to one
spreadsheet, then duplicate articles were eliminated. The final number
of articles from both databases was: 161. These articles were analyzed in
stage three (iii) in VOSviewer software (van Eck & Waltman, 2013;
VOSviewer), which enabled to investigate relations between keywords,
authors’ names, countries’ origins and types of stakeholders. The visu­
alization of the analysis has been conducted in that stage.
The fourth stage of the research was the qualitative analysis, (iv)
during which the identification of the perspective of various
M. Kiba-Janiak et al. Sustainable Cities and Society 71 (2021) 102984

Fig. 1. Systematic literature review flowchart.

Source: own elaboration.

Table 2
Final number of analysed papers.
The combination of topics
1 “last mile delivery” AND “e-commerce”
2 “last mile logistics” AND “e-commerce”
3 “last mile delivery” AND “sustainability”
4 “last mile delivery” AND “sustainability” AND “e-commerce”
5 “sustainability” AND “e-commerce”
6 “last mile delivery” AND “stakeholders”
7 “last mile delivery” AND “stakeholders” AND “e-commerce”
8 “last mile delivery” AND “e-commerce” AND “stakeholders”
AND “sustainability”
Source: own elaboration.
stakeholders in terms of various areas of last mile delivery on e-com­
merce market has been conducted. The final stage (v) was the identifi­
cation of trends in analyzed papers.
4. Quantitative systematic literature review analysis
century that consists of: rural and urban transport, traffic congestion,
vehicles, greenhouse gas emissions, climate changes, long-distance
trucking, technology and role of e-commerce, e-money and e-travel.
Number of Undoubtedly, the issues related to the last mile deliveries are
papers without
becoming a focus in the field of research and are expecting to increase in
inclusion/
exclusion the future. A year profile of the papers published in Scopus and WoS
criteria databases related to e-commerce in cities, last mile delivery and stake­
WoS Scopus holders has been presented in Fig. 2.
The second step of quantitative analysis refers to the identification of
149 97
124 30
the articles in both databases, which are the most cited. Simultaneously,
55 44 the most influential research articles in the field of last mile delivery on
27 13 e-commerce market in cities belong to the authors presented in Table 3.
201 251 In order to understand the range of analyzed topics related to e-
44 28
commerce in cities, last mile delivery and stakeholders it is necessary to
11 5
5 2 characterize the most cited articles. The top one compared alternative to
home deliveries: pick-up points and automated lockers networks in
Germany and France (Morganti et al., 2014). The second cited article is
concentrated on crowdsourcing and modelling of citizen workers in the
field of last mile delivery (Wang et al., 2016). Besides, Iwan et al. (2016)
analysed the role of parcel lockers from the perspective of its usability
and efficiency on the basis of Polish InPost Company. The general review
of sustainable business models was presented by Nosratabadi et al.
(2019). Analysis of the e-commerce impact on the last mile delivery on

The first step of quantitative analysis refers to the identification of

the initial year of the first publication related to the topics: “last mile
delivery” AND “e-commerce” in WoS database. The first article related
to the topic “e-commerce” was published in 1997 (Strader & Shaw,
1997). It evaluated the cost-based differences from the perspective of
demand and supply side in traditional and electronic marketplaces.
E-commerce is undoubtedly receiving an increased attention nowadays.
In the WoS database the first article related to the topic “last mile de­
livery” was published in 2003 (Chan, 2003). The article surveyed the
role played by major world governments in providing assurance in terms
of e-logistics services transactions.
The combination of topics “last mile delivery” AND “e-commerce” in
Scopus database resulted in the very first publication in 2002 (Fahi­
muddin, 2002). The article evaluated the issues related to the Fig. 2. Number of papers published in Scopus and WoS databases related to e-
improvement possibilities and trends at the beginning of the 21st commerce in cities, last mile delivery and stakeholders.
Source: own elaboration.

4
M. Kiba-Janiak et al. Sustainable Cities and Society 71 (2021) 102984

Table 3
The most cited papers in WoS and Scopus databases.
Authors’ names Title Year Source title Citation Country

Morganti et al. The Impact of E-commerce on Final Deliveries: Alternative 2014 Transportation Research Procedia 74 Germany
Parcel Delivery Services in France and Germany
Wang et al. Towards enhancing the last-mile delivery: An effective 2016 Transportation Research Part E: 64 Singapore China
crowd-tasking model with scalable solutions Logistics and Transportation Review
Iwan, Kijewska Analysis of parcel lockers’ efficiency as the last mile 2016 Ninth International Conference on City 43 Poland
and Lemke delivery solution - the results of the research in Poland Logistics
Nosratabadi et al. Sustainable business models: A review 2019 Sustainability 43 Hungary, UK, Viet Nam,
Lithuania, Australia, Hong
Kong
Allen et al. Understanding the impact of e-commerce on last-mile light 2018 Transportation Research Part D: 41 UK
goods vehicle activity in urban areas: The case of London Transport and Environment
Castillo et al. Crowdsourcing Last Mile Delivery: Strategic Implications 2018 Journal of Business Logistics 35 USA, Ireland
and Future Research Directions
Sivaraman et al. Comparative energy, environmental, and economic analysis 2007 Journal of Industrial Ecology 34 USA, Brasil
of traditional and E-commerce DVD rental networks
Melacini et al. E-fulfilment and distribution in omni-channel retailing: a 2018 International Journal of Physical 30 Italy
systematic literature review Distribution & Logistics Management

Source: own elaboration.

the London example has been conducted by Allen et al. (2018), while
Castillo, Bell, Rose, and Rodrigues (2018) discussed the crowdsourced
logistics concept in terms of its effectiveness on same-day deliveries. The
next cited article is a life-cycle assessment of e-commerce and traditional
business option of DVD rental network (Sivaraman, Pacca, Mueller, &
Lin, 2007). Systematic literature review related to the omni-channel
retailing including e-fulfilment and distribution has been presented by
Melacini, Perotti, Rasini, and Tappia (2018). Taniguchi, Thompson, and
Yamada (2016) discussed the sustainability of urban freight systems
through big data and decision support systems that could be useful for
city logistics schemes. Other cited article was prepared by Sun, Wei, Fan,
Lu, and Gupta (2016). Authors discussed the consumer behaviour
changes based on the social climate of the friendship groups.
Location-routing problem with simultaneous home delivery and cus­
tomer’s pickup has been discussed by Zhou, Wang, Ni, and Lin (2016),
while Perboli and Rosano (2018) proposed simulation-optimisation
framework for building instances and assess operational settings for
urban freight transportation. Finally, the last mile delivery on e-com­
merce market from the perspective of various stakeholders that explores
the role of customer value in e-commerce last mile delivery has been
presented by Vakulenko et al. (2018).
In order to identify the relations between keywords authors of the
article utilize VOSviewer software (Fig. 3). During the procedure the 16
keywords, which are not directly related to the topic, have been
removed from the database. In terms of the links between keywords in
articles identified in the Scopus and WoS databases we can distinguish 5
clusters with 249 links (total link strength: 551). Three main clusters fit
discussed topics: e-commerce, last mile delivery, and sustainability. The
first publication identified in the database is related to transportation,
sustainable development, and environmental impact. Around 2017
there was an increase in the number of papers related to sustainability
and e-commerce (electronic commerce). Between 2018–2019 many
papers related to e-commerce were discussed from the perspective of last
mile delivery, city logistics, urban freight, smart city. The most recent
articles also focus on innovative solutions such as electric vehicles,
crowdshipping, and parcel delivery (parcel lockers). Furthermore,
another VOSviewer analysis shows that most of the publications are
developed by scientists from PR China, Germany, Italy, the United

Fig. 3. Links between keywords in articles identified in the Scopus and WoS databases.
Source: own elaboration with VOSviewer software.

5
M. Kiba-Janiak et al.
States, and to a lesser extent from France, Brazil, Netherlands, and UK
(Fig. 4). However, the highest average citation has articles published by
authors from Singapore and United Kingdom. Such a result may come
from the low number of papers published by the authors from these
countries (so the average citations per article is high). Considering the
articles’ geography, there are 4 clusters with 17 links (total link strength
24). Interestingly, two clusters include countries from various conti­
nents (mainly Europe and America). One cluster has countries from
Europe and one from Asia. The most often cited papers came from
Germany and China. While analyzing links between authors’ names, it
can be observed that there is only one group of co-authors writing about
last mile deliveries on the e-commerce market so far – 1 cluster with 45
links (total link strength: 90). Concluding, there is one group of scientists
who write about e-commerce while collaborating with each other.
5. The perspective of various stakeholders on sustainable e-
commerce in cities – qualitative analysis
On the basis of the quantitative literature review the authors con­
ducted qualitative analysis of stakeholders in terms of identified in
Table 1 research topics related to sustainable last mile delivery on e-
commerce market (Table 4).
Among e-commerce stakeholders in cities the following can be
identified: receivers (e-customers), shippers (producers, online retailers
and e-trade services), residents, government (local and national au­
thorities), transport companies (including courier, express and parcel –
CEP), and others. The group of fields, identified on the basis of the
literature review, includes: organization (how the e-commerce market
operates and how is organized), technology (the usage of new technol­
ogy and alternative home delivery solutions), sustainability (the policy
referring to the economic, social and environmental development),
optimization (methods and solutions on how to optimize last mile de­
livery), crowdsourcing and crowdshipping (solutions that encourage
residents to participate in last mile delivery), cooperation (between
various stakeholders), behavior (preferences of particular stakeholders).
According to the conducted systematic literature review there is no
publication presenting the perspective of all stakeholders on the sus­
tainable last mile delivery on e-commerce market in cities. Each paper
discusses the problem of one or a few of stakeholders, however, none of
them present the holistic approach to this issue.
Considering the analysis of the subject literature it can be observed
that the biggest group of papers relate to sustainable last mile delivery
from the receivers’ perspectives with the total number of 87 scientific
papers. Amongst them, there are 6 articles that were previously diag­
nosed as the most cited ones (Allen et al., 2018; Morganti et al., 2014;
Sun et al., 2016; Vakulenko et al., 2018; Wang et al., 2016; Zhou et al.,
2016). The very first article relates to optimization issues, where an
optimized delivery scheme was presented (Fusco, Tatarelli, & Valentini,
2004). An increased number of papers regarding the perspective of
residents has been noticed since 2016. The focus on organization and
technology fields has significantly increased since 2018. However, the
greatest attention is paid to the issue of sustainable development (26
papers). Considering this aspects papers focus on: customer habits in
terms of delivery type and its change for more ecological (Rai, Verlinde,
Fig. 4. Links between countries, from which articles were identified in the Scopus and WoS databases.
Source: own elaboration with VOSviewer software.
6
Sustainable Cities and Society 71 (2021) 102984
& Macharis, 2019a; Rai, Verlinde, & Macharis, 2019b; Kapser &
Abdelrahman, 2020; Kedia, Kusumastuti, & Nicholson, 2017; Kiousis,
Nathanail, & Karakikes, 2019; Manerba, Mansini, & Zanotti, 2018);
improving delivery times (Bányai, Illés, & Bányai, 2018; Ben Rajesh &
John Rajan, 2020); pick-up point planning from the perspective of
e-customer and city (Cárdenas & Beckers, 2018; Lachapelle, Burke,
Brotherton, & Leung, 2018; de Oliveira, de Oliveira, Sousa, Caliari, &
Nascimento, 2019; Wygonik & Goodchild, 2018); multi-stakeholders
perspective (Freichel, Neumair, & Wortge, 2019; Rai et al., 2019a,
2019b; de Kervenoael, Schwob, & Chandra, 2020; Tebaldi, Murino, &
Bottani, 2020). Research on customers’ behavior (and preferences) also
plays a significant role. One of the most cited articles (Sun et al., 2016)
relates to the behavioral change effect of e-consumers of closer social
networks (for example, WeChat friendship group). Research shows that
effective channels, not cognitive ones, have a huge impact on changing
consumer behavior. Other articles present, inter alia, research on the
behavior and preferences of e-consumers towards innovative techno­
logical solutions (Wang, Yuen, Wong, & Teo, 2018; de Oliveira et al.,
2017). Research on consumer preferences and behavior is an increas­
ingly important aspect of e-commerce, especially now, when consumer
demands are becoming more and more demanding.
Thus, from the literature review, one can observe the progressive
process of the evolution of the role of recipients in the last mile deliveries
on the e-commerce market in cities.
Shippers are one of the most crucial stakeholders in last mile de­
liveries on e-commerce market in cities. They constitute a supply side.
There are 39 scientific papers related to shippers. The analyzed fields in
the relevant literature vary in the presented period. The very first paper
was published in 2007 and fits to the sustainability field through ana­
lyzes e-grocery shopping in urban areas (Murphy, 2007). The articles
related to the perspective of shippers increased significantly since 2018.
Since then, papers focus mainly on two fields: organization as well as
crowdsourcing and crowdshipping. Four of the papers are among the
most cited ones (Allen et al., 2018; Melacini et al., 2018; Nosratabadi
et al., 2019; Vakulenko et al., 2018). However, the widest range of ar­
ticles belong to the sustainability field (15 papers). As the concept of
sustainable development plays a more important role in today’s chal­
lenges, this has also been reflected in the theoretical and empirical
research of many authors who have dealt with the subjects covered in
this publication considering the perspective of the shippers. It can be
observed that in those papers, which pointed out the need to achieve
sustainable goals the following topics has been distinguished: product
quality on e-commerce market (Liu et al., 2016); sustainable customer
habits in terms of delivery types (Rai et al., 2019a, 2019b); co-existence
of e-marketplaces and physical stores (Delgado-de Miguel, Menchero,
Esteban-Navarro, & Garcia-Madurga, 2019).
Residents are also an important group of stakeholders on e-com­
merce market. There is a total number of 12 scientific papers that can be
distinguished within this stakeholder. Only one paper is amongst the
most cited ones (Wang et al., 2016). As in the shippers’ perspective on
the sustainable last mile delivery on the e-commerce market, the very
first article from the residents’ perspective analyses e-grocery shopping
in urban areas (Murphy, 2007). Articles in this perspective belong to
several fields: sustainability (4 papers) behaviour (3 papers),
M. Kiba-Janiak et al.
Table 4
Number of articles considering type of stakeholders and research topics on sustainable last mile delivery on e-commerce market in cities.
Stakeholders (number of publications)
Field
Receivers Shippers
Organization 16 10
Technology 16 3 1
Sustainability 26 15
Optimization 11 1 –
Crowdsourcing & crowdshipping 5 6
Cooperation – 1
Behaviour (preferences) 13 3 3
Source: own elaboration.
crowdsourcing and crowdshipping, organization (2 papers) and tech­
nology (1 paper). The perspective of the residents is not widely recog­
nized in the relevant literature. However, it can be observed that the
most recent articles related to sustainable last mile deliveries refers to:
the role of e-commerce on the national market (Li, Li, Li, Qi, & Hu,
2019); urban consolidation centre (Zelenska & Švadlenka, 2019);
collection and delivery points (Kedia, Kusumastuti, & Nicholson, 2019).
Authorities play a decisive role in a sustainable last mile delivery on
e-commerce market, through regulations, restrictions or other activities.
This group of stakeholders enable to implement any kind of decentral­
ized and sustainable policies within cities. They are responsible for
proper policies, infrastructure investments and strategies implementa­
tion. There are 33 papers in the presented field. Amongst them there is
no paper with high level of citations. The very first article referred to the
organization issues through example of tricycles implementation in
central Beijing, PR China, and their role for packaging delivery, food and
beverage distribution and waste and recycling services (Zacharias &
Zhang, 2015). Articles presented in the relevant literature focuses
mainly on organization field and sustainable solutions. The last aspect is
of upmost importance in the last three years of the analysis. However,
researchers do not pay attention to behaviour and customers’ prefer­
ences from the perspective of authorities and a wide range of coopera­
tion with other stakeholders. Having analyzed the structure of fields,
sustainability field contains 18 papers. Analysis of the relevant literature
in terms of considering the aspects of sustainable last mile deliveries
economically, environmentally and socially suggests that authors and
teams of researchers focus on: e-commerce impact on transportation (Qi
et al., 2017; Stinson, Enam, Moore, & Auld, 2019; Tsakalidis et al.,
2020); technological impact on people living in cities (Sharida, Hamdan,
& AL-Hashimi, 2020); e-customer habits in digitization era (Haziri &
Chovancov, 2018); integration of urbanization and digitization
(Bjørgen, Bjerkan, & Hjelkrem, 2019) and online consumption (Li et al.,
2019); cargo bikes in urban logistics (Nürnberg, 2019; Zacharias &
Zhang, 2015); multi-stakeholder perspective (Freichel et al., 2019).
Transport companies (including courier, express and parcel) consists
another group of stakeholders. They are responsible for distribution of
goods bought by customers on e-commerce market. This group of
stakeholders is quite often discussed in the literature. There are 29 sci­
entific papers that can be distinguished within this field. There is no
article that was previously diagnosed in the group of the most cited ones.
The very first article from the perspective of transport companies fits to
the field organization and belong to Memon and Archimede (2013), who
presented a distributed architecture planning of transportation activ­
ities. Articles in that perspective of stakeholders belong to fields: sus­
tainability (11 papers), technology (8 papers), organization (5 papers),
optimization (3 papers) as well as crowdsourcing and crowdshipping (2
papers). The articles related to the perspective of transport companies
increased significantly since 2018. The perspective of transport com­
panies is focused mainly on organization aspects and technology.
Timeline of articles went also through sustainability and optimization.
The most recent articles pay attention to optimization, crowdsourcing
and technology. When analysing the publications in terms of sustainable
Sustainable Cities and Society 71 (2021) 102984
Residents Government Transport companies – CEP Others
2 9 5 3
2 8 9
4 18 11 3
1 3 –
2 – 2 1
– 1 – 1
2 – 1
last mile deliveries, it can be indicated that this area was considered
particularly in the following fields: parcel sector (Bates, Friday, Allen, &
Cherrett, 2018; Alves et al., 2019; Bandeira, Goes, Goncalves, D’Agosto,
& de Oliveira, 2019; Leyerer, Sonneberg, Heumann, & Breitner, 2019);
transportation planning in cities (He & Haasis, 2019; Memon & Archi­
mede, 2013; Moura et al., 2019); delivery and distribution planning and
optimization (Carotenuto et al., 2018; Janjevic, Winkenbach, &
Merchán, 2019; Sarac, Bojan, Milos, & Slavisa, 2015; Tebaldi et al.,
2020); autonomous/electric/robotic vehicles (Ehrler, Schöder, & Seidel,
2019; Marsden et al., 2018; Silvestri, Zoppi, & Molfino, 2019); IT so­
lutions implementation (Guerrazzi, 2020; Wanganoo & Patil, 2020).
The last group of other/various stakeholders consists of 18 articles.
On-going and increased interest in the analysed topic is presented in the
fields: technology (9 papers), organization and sustainability (both 3
papers), behaviour, cooperation, crowdsourcing and optimization (1
paper). The sustainable last mile deliveries economically, environmen­
tally and socially perspective is associated with implication of e-com­
merce for travel and environment (Rotem-Mindali, 2014), evaluation of
e-commerce sustainable development on regional level (Zhang, Nie, &
Lin, 2016) and city logistics measures (De Marco, Mangano, & Zenezini,
2018).
The stakeholders’ analysis was also conducted with the use of
VOSviewer (Fig. 5). During the analysis, 16 keywords which are not
directly related to the discussed topic have been removed from the
database. Four clusters have been identified. There are two clusters
where two groups of stakeholders were classified to each of them. Re­
ceivers and couriers were categorized to cluster 1 while government and
residents to cluster 3. Shippers were classified to cluster 2. Clusters 4 do
not include stakeholders but the topics relating to freight transport,
urban transport, optimization and technology. This cluster relates to all
groups of stakeholders.
Receivers is the group of the stakeholders which is the most often
mentioned in the analyzed papers. There are links between receivers and
all other clusters, however, the strongest relation can be observed with
the cluster 2 where shippers are included. It is worth noting that the
cluster 3 where government and residents are classified includes also
sustainable development and sustainability. It shows that papers related
to local governments include such topics as sustainability and sustain­
able development (in terms of e-commerce).
6. Discussion and conclusion
The paper’s purpose was identification of trends in the field of sus­
tainable last mile delivery on the e-commerce market in cities from the
perspective of various stakeholders, such as: receivers, shippers, resi­
dents, government, transport companies (CEP), and others. In order to
obtain the purpose, the scientific papers from 2002, when the first paper
related to the discussed topic was published, to 2020 have been
analyzed. A significant increase in the number of the articles related to
the topics such as: sustainable last mile delivery and e-commerce can be
observed since 2018–2019. Most of the identified papers were devel­
oped by the authors from China, Germany, Italy, and to the lesser extent
7
M. Kiba-Janiak et al.
Fig. 5. Links between stakeholders, from which articles were identified in the Scopus and WoS databases.
Source: own elaboration with VOSviewer software.
from the US, France, and Brazil. The observed increased interest in
conducting the study in the field of last mile delivery on e-commerce
market was caused by many factors, such as: greater than before
importance of sustainable solutions in economy, legal regulations and
strategic documents, and recommendations prepared by international
organizations and associations such as United Nations or European
Union (e.g. New Green Deal, White Paper, Green Paper), negative
impact of climate change strengthened by human activity, trends in
GHG reduction, implementation of hybrid & electric cars, strong moti­
vation for choosing alternative forms of deliveries on the basis of com­
panies proposals and consumer behavior, e.g. parcel lockers, PUDO
(pick-up, drop off), and Covid-19 pandemics.
The most cited articles (which can be assessed as the most popular)
were related to the measures introduced for last mile delivery (e.g.
parcel lockers) and business models. The most often discussed topics in
the subject literature were related to last mile delivery on the e-com­
merce market and sustainable e-commerce. The perspective of various
stakeholders was the least discussed topic. The authors found the only
seven papers in both databases, which combine four issues: “last mile
delivery” AND “e-commerce” AND “stakeholders” AND “sustainability”.
There are five main groups of stakeholders (plus the group “the others”),
which were analyzed in scientific papers. The most often discussed
groups of stakeholders among analyzed articles were receivers and
shippers. Last mile delivery problems on the e-commerce market from
the perspective of various stakeholders were mainly related to the sus­
tainability, organization and technology fields. The recent articles dis­
cussed newer technological and organization solutions, such as IoT,
autonomous vehicles, crowd-shipping, parcel lockers, and concentrate
on the behavior analysis of e-customers. According to the report
developed by the World Economic Forum (Deloison et al., 2020), such
solutions as micro-hubs, goods tram, night-time delivery can be in use in
the next one to three years. More advanced technology, such as AGV
locker, drones & trucks, autonomous with runner or H2 FCEV, can be
used in more than three years. However, the cooperation of various
stakeholders (especially private-public) partnership is required.
Regarding transport companies (including CEP), the evolution of
8
Sustainable Cities and Society 71 (2021) 102984
discussed topics was also observed. They started with performance
analysis and then concentrated more on sustainability and cooperation
issues. The most recent articles focused more on strategic planning and
long-term investments. Shippers and local authorities were the next the
most often discussed groups of stakeholders. Papers which included the
perspective of shippers concentrated mainly on technological and
organizational issues (e.g. mobile depots). The recent papers focused
more on cooperation with other stakeholders. Articles related to local
authorities and their role in the field of last mile delivery on the e-
commerce market concentrated mainly on organization issues and sus­
tainable solutions. The last group of papers discussed the group of res­
idents, especially in terms of their involvement in crowdsourcing and
crowdshipping solutions within last mile delivery on the e-commerce
market. Business models of the sharing economy, such as crowdsourcing
or crowdshipping for last mile deliveries in the e-commerce market, are
an important trend in scientific research (and also in business). This
issue, as one of the significant trends, was also observed by Bosona
(2020). According to this author, crowdshipping & crowdsourcing
enable to reduce fixed costs, empty space in vehicles, and adjust to the
changing consumers’ expectations.
Satisfying consumers’ expectations regarding last mile delivery on e-
commerce market is also arising subject. According to de Araújo, dos
Reis, and da Cruz Correia (2020), one of the trends in advancing last
mile delivery is CEP’s alignment to the consumers’ expectations.
Nevertheless, more attention should be also paid to e-consumers be­
haviors, especially to the factors which can change these behaviors to­
ward more sustainable (in terms of last mile delivery). As for now the
strongest predictor for such changes is price sensitivity, while perfor­
mance expectancy, social influence or facilitating conditions, among
others, are less important (Kapser & Abdelrahman, 2020). According to
Rai et al. (2019a, 2019b) the most popular and widely implemented
sustainable solutions in the field of last mile delivery that affect con­
sumer behavior are parcel lockers and pick-up points. Therefore, there is
a legitimate need to verify consumer preferences and behaviors in terms
of sustainable last mile deliveries on e-commerce market.
The papers identified in the relevant literature evolved from the
M. Kiba-Janiak et al.
general view of e-commerce market and sustainable development role in
economy into solutions that are and may be implemented in last mile
delivery. The following trends may be distinguished: the focus on sus­
tainability, changing consumers’ expectations regarding last mile de­
livery, CEP’s alignment to those expectations, sharing economy business
models (crowdshipping & crowdsourcing).
In further research, the authors would like to conduct the study on
behavior analysis of various e-commerce stakeholders to identify factors
that would change their attitude toward more sustainable last-mile de­
livery on the e-commerce market. Authors are also aware that conducted
critical literature analysis has some limits regarding papers presented in
other databases, not included in this analysis.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors report no declarations of interest.
Acknowledgements
The paper is a part of the research project which is being financed by
the National Science Centre in Poland granted on the basis of the deci­
sion number 2018/31/B/HS4/03711.
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