LCA harmonization for the last-mile delivery sector

Juliana Steinbach, Sinéad Mitchell

University of Galway, Ireland; I-Form, the SFI Research Centre for Advanced Manufacturing, Ireland; Ryan; Institute for Environmental, Marine and Energy Research,
juliana.steinbach@universityofgalway.ie & sinead.mitchell@universityofgalway.ie

Vehicle diversity in the last milhe delivery sector

How can I A strong harmonized

What: Last mile delivery refers to the very compare a approach relies on Why: Modelling the environmental impacts
drone and a everyone understanding
last step of the delivery service, when a the main environmental
of last mile delivery services based solely on
van delivery
parcel is moved from the transportation system? factors related to the the environmental impacts of conventional
hub to its final destination. LCA of services sector! and alternatively fuelled vehicles in
are profoundly more complex than movement (vehicle-km) can hinder several
products due to intangible characteristics inputs due to the lack of representativeness
of the former. of the system boundary and functional unit.

How: This poster aims to briefly introduce

some of the important elements to be
Delivery route considered during the development of the Impact allocation
How many trips are necessary to initial phases of a last mile delivery LCA with How are you allocating emissions in
fulfill the service? special distinction to the development of a the different phases of the system?
suitable functional unit for the assessment. Production Production Production
+ (including
EoL energy)
Electricity and
fuel production
are usually
allocated in the Use

Time-dependent normalization
use phase
Use
Use

one-to-one one-to-many
EoL EoL

What are the longest and shortest's vehicle

life-spam?

Load capacity Load suitability

How much weight/many items can Is it reasonable to deliver the product
the vehicles carry? utilizing the vehicles under
consideration?
1000 cycles 2 years 10 years

Functional units
System boundary
Weather sensitivity To gate-to-gate or
Is your vehicle sensitive to uction
Parts prod n can to cradle-to-grave?
contributio 88%
harsh weather conditions? 5-
vary from l global
of the tota pacts Fuel/Energy
waring im Transportation
production
/distribution
Raw material Parts Use EoL
extraction production

Transportation Transportation
Transportation
You might need
to set a back up
system in your
assessment!

Transportation of a payload of
Van 'distance driven' (km) 'mass' (kg), within 'radius' (km),
Other elements delivering 'number of packages'
Road infrastructure impacts (units) per "period of time".
City centre vehicle access LinkedIn
ASMME
Air occupancy impacts research goup
Delivery time window One of the primary purposes of a functional unit is to provide a reference to
Wearehouse impacts which the input and output data are normalized. When similar vehicles are ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: This work is funded by
Private delivery area compared, the reference for the normalization process is almost the same. For the Department of Business, Enterprise, and
Innovation and administered by Enterprise
Day/night delivery the case of very distinct vehicles there are more elements affecting the Ireland under the Disruptive Technologies
Delivery atempts Innovation Fund, MI-DRONE Project. The
Double parking inputs/outputs of the system in order to fulfill the same service. The greater authors would like to acknowledge the support
from Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), through
Noise impacts the divergence between the analyzed systems, the more intricate the the MaREI Research Centre for Energy, Climate
and Marine and the I-Form Advanced
Route factors operational framework must become in order to ensure seamless functionality. Manufacturing Research Centre.
Urban traffic