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Last mile delivery in logistics and Last mile

delivery in
supply chain management: logistics

a bibliometric analysis and

future directions 1137
Nghiep Tuan Ha Received 14 July 2021
Revised 22 December 2021
Department of Business and Innovation, RMIT International University, 14 January 2022
Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam 19 February 2022
23 March 2022
Mohammadreza Akbari Accepted 9 April 2022
College of Business, Law and Governance, James Cook University, Townsville,
Australia, and
Bill Au
Department of Business and Innovation, RMIT International University,
Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam

Abstract
Purpose – The main objective of this paper is to provide a systematic literature review (SLR) and structured
insight into last mile delivery, ultimately identifying gaps in current knowledge and proposing a framework for
future research direction in terms of sustainability in the area.
Design/methodology/approach – This paper identifies and synthesizes information from academic
journals and examines “Journals and Publishing place,” “Geographic location,” “Year of Publication,”
“University and Author Affiliation,” “Themes and Sub-themes,” “Theory,” “Research Design, Methods and
Area” and “Industry Involvement.” A collection of online databases from 2005 to 2020 were explored, using the
keywords “Last mile delivery,” “Last mile logistics,” “Last mile transportation,” “Last mile fulfillment,” “Last
mile operations” and “Last mile distribution” in their title and/or abstract and/or keywords. Accordingly, a total
of 281 journal articles were found in this discipline area, and data were derived from a succession of variables.
Findings – There has been significant growth in published articles concerning last mile delivery over the last
15 years (2005–2020). An in-depth review of the literature shows five dimensions of the last mile: last mile
delivery, transportation, operations, distribution and logistics. Each of these dimensions is interrelated and
possess clustered characteristics. For instance, last mile operations, last mile transportation and last mile
delivery are operational, whereas last mile distribution is tactical, and last mile logistics possess strategic
characteristics. The findings also indicate that even though the sustainability concept can be incorporated into
all levels of the last mile, the current literature landscape mainly concentrates on the operational level.
Research limitations/implications – This review is limited to academic sources available from Emerald
Insight, Science Direct, Taylor and Francis, Springer, MDPI and IEEE containing the mentioned keywords in
the title and/or abstract/or keywords. Furthermore, only papers from high-quality, peer-reviewed journals were
evaluated. Other sources such as books and conference papers were not included.
Practical implications – This study dissects last mile delivery to produce a framework that captures and
presents its complex characteristics and its interconnectedness with various related components. By analyzing
last mile delivery in its entirety, the framework also helps practitioners pinpoint which levels of last mile
delivery (operation, tactical or strategic) they can incorporate the concept of sustainability.
Originality/value – The research findings enrich the contemporary literature landscape and future work by
providing a conceptual framework that incorporates the “economic,” “environmental” and “social” pillars of
sustainability in all dimensions of the last mile delivery.
Keywords Systematic literature review, Last mile delivery, Supply chain management, Sustainable last mile,
Bibliometrics, Framework
Paper type Literature review Benchmarking: An International
Journal
Vol. 30 No. 4, 2023
pp. 1137-1170
The authors would like to thank Dr. Seng Kok for his support and encouragement throughout this © Emerald Publishing Limited
1463-5771
research. DOI 10.1108/BIJ-07-2021-0409
BIJ 1. Introduction
30,4 Over the last few decades, the world has witnessed and endured several global
pandemics such as Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003, HIV/AIDS in 2005–
2012, Avian Influenza (H5N1) in 2006, Swine Influenza (H1N1) in 2009 (Chung, 2015),
and the most recent Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in early 2020. The COVID-19 was
believed to have started in Wuhan (China) in December 2019 and was officially
declared as a pandemic by World Health Organization (WHO) on 12 March 2020 (Li,
1138 2020). The COVID-19 pandemic is considered to be exceptionally devastating and very
different from pandemics in the past so much so that it has triggered numerous
preventive measures aiming at containing the crisis (Barnes, 2020). These actions, in
turn, significantly impacted all industries and changed the economic, political and
sociocultural landscapes (Buheji and Ahmed, 2020; Sigala, 2020). Some of the measures
(such as physical distancing, travel restriction and social lockdown) have engendered
impacts so profound that the post-COVID-19 era is officially referred to by many as
the new normal (Jamaludin et al., 2020). In that vein, digital platforms such as Zoom
and Google Meet have reported a significant increase in user traffic and profits,
signifying a transition into a virtual workplace (Condon, 2020; Isaac et al., 2020).
Moreover, durable change to the business landscape is expected to emerge as
consumers are shifting from brick-and-mortar stores to E-commerce platforms (Kang
et al., 2020). While it is certain that E-commerce has grown considerably even before
COVID-19, the pandemic has augmented and accelerated the trend (Hannon et al.,
2020). The recent report by the United Nations (2020) indicates a significant online
shopping boom compared to pre-COVID-19 levels. To illustrate, online orders in North
America had doubled and were up by more than 50% in Europe; the number of online
shoppers would also expect to reach 2.1 billion by 2021 (Hannon et al., 2020; OECD,
2020). The rapid increase in online shopping also heightens demand for last mile
delivery as consumers prefer home delivery over all other options (United Nations,
2020). Meituan Dianping (China’s food delivery leader) witnessed an increase of 400%
in grocery deliveries in 2020 compared to 2019 and Tesco increased its available
delivery slots per week by more than 45% (Cook et al., 2020; Nguyen, 2020).
The recent growth of e-commerce and the new normal have drastically amplified the
complexity of the last mile delivery (Viu-Roig and Alvarez-Palau, 2020). Consumers are
not only ordering more online and expecting faster deliveries but also expecting more
flexible delivery methods (Bauer et al., 2020). Furthermore, the delivery experience must
be at a satisfactory level to bring back the consumers for more orders (Hufford, 2019). As
a result, last mile delivery has become a must-have component for businesses, although it
was once considered a support capability rather than a critical element in the business
model (Bauer et al., 2020). Last mile delivery, nevertheless, is globally considered the most
pollutant, inefficient and costly component of the supply chain (Boysen et al., 2020;
Mangano and Zenezini, 2019). The expensive and inefficient nature of last mile delivery
coupled with the unprecedented demand for home deliveries is anticipated to engender
numerous problems relating to traffic congestions and carbon emissions. To illustrate,
Figure 1 was constructed.
Given the current situation, the need for in-depth understanding and comprehensive
assessment of the impact of last mile delivery has become evident (Oliveira et al., 2017). The
recent trend in the literature shows that the number of contributions to last mile delivery is
steadily increasing over the years; suggesting that researchers and practitioners have noticed
these challenges. Nonetheless, the area of last mile delivery is still incoherent and fragmented
owing to different disciplines and standpoints contributing to it (Olsson et al., 2019). This is
detrimental to the future development of the last mile delivery discipline, particularly during
the COVID-19 pandemic and increased e-commerce activities around the world. The last mile
 Last mile
delivery in
logistics

1139

Figure 1.
The impact of last mile
delivery on the future
of cities

delivery industries are facing immense difficulty due to the worldwide rise of e-commerce as
well as disruptions caused by COVID-19’s travel restrictions (Srivatsa Srinivas and Marathe,
2021). These challenges have overwhelmed delivery capacity and imposed considerable
pressures on last mile delivery (Mitsui and Co. Global Strategic Studies Institute, 2021). In that
perspective, the need for a comprehensive and expanded literature review has become
apparent and is of uttermost importance and highly desirable (Lim Stanley Frederick et al.,
2018; Mangiaracina et al., 2019). For that reason, this study focused on examining and
answering questions on the current status of research, future trends and specifically
endeavors to answer the following questions:
RQ1. What are the frequent types of research designs and research methods employed to
scrutinize the practice of last mile delivery?
RQ2. What are the different components and features of last mile delivery addressed/
observed in the literature?
RQ3. How have the themes publishers, geographic locations, university, author
affiliations, industry and theory usage transformed throughout the years?
Resolving these research questions will contribute valuable insights regarding the potential
gaps and future research direction to the literature. Therefore, this research has emphasized
the following objectives:
(1) To provide an overview of the current research landscape of last mile delivery.
(2) To develop a research framework that provides direction for future work in
addressing sustainability challenges in the last mile delivery.
(3) To identify the research gap and provide future research avenues.

Keeping the objectives of the RQs in mind, this paper is structured as follows: Section 2
features the adopted research method. Section 3 discusses the current theoretical background
of last mile delivery, while Section 4 presents the results. Section 5 highlights the key
theoretical and practical implications as well as discusses the main findings of the paper,
while Section 6 concludes by underlining opportunities for further research and the
limitations of this structured literature review.
BIJ 2. Methodology
30,4 2.1 Prelude to literature review
The first step for any research papers was to examine and review the contemporary literature
(Akbari and Do, 2021; Nagariya et al., 2021). A literature review is regarded as a method to
educate oneself in the chosen topic area and analyze the available information to engineer a
landscape that conveys knowledge and ideas that have been established by the authors
(Jafari, 2015; Schryen et al., 2015). Numerous authors considered the review of the
1140 contemporary literature as the most significant stage of any research project (Rousseau et al.,
2008; Tranfield et al., 2003). In this vein, an examination of the available literature is included
as the first step in this study.

2.2 Steps followed for reviewing the literature

This paper adopted the five-step approach (see Figure 2) based on the work of Akbari
(2018), Akbari et al. (2022) and Belinski et al. (2020), including any of the following
keywords in title and/or abstracts: “Final delivery,” “Final delivery solution,” “Final mile,”
“Final mile logistics,” “Final mile solutions,” “Last mile delivery,” “Last mile logistics,”
“Last mile transportation,” “Last mile fulfillment,” “Last mile operation” and “Last mile
distribution.”
Step 1: The range of examinations is a 15-year period, starting from 2005 to 2020. It should
be noted that the authors did not predetermine the time range as to not limit the scope of
the paper. Instead, the time horizon was set after the collection and exclusion of papers.
The authors began from the earliest date, and, through our criteria, the selected items were
gradually excluded from the list until we reached the current result.
Step 2: The articles were accumulated from six prominent databases such as (1) Emerald
Insight (www.emeraldinsight.com), (2) Science Direct (www.sciencedirect.com), (3) Taylor
and Francis (www.tandfonline.com), (4) Springer (www.springer.com), (5) MDPI
(www.mdpi.com) and (6) IEEE (www.ieee.org). Additional search was performed on
Google Scholar, Scopus and EBSCOHost to ensure the completeness of the collected data.

The articles were then subjected to a list of criteria in order to find only the most relevant
articles (see Table 1).
Step 3: The words “Final delivery,” “Final delivery solution,” “Final mile,” “Final mile
logistics,” “Final mile solutions,” “Last mile delivery,” “Last mile logistics,” “Last mile
transportation,” “Last mile fulfillment,” “Last mile operation” and “Last mile distribution”
were individually searched in the title and/or abstract of the above databases using
Advanced Search. After the search, the initial sample we obtained was 615 articles. The
sample was then checked to see if there were any duplications or irrelevant articles. The
final sample size was 281 articles.
Step 4: As a next step, all identified articles were carefully read through by the authors and
selected articles were classified and analyzed in Microsoft Excel under classifications such
as “Journals and Publishing place,” “Geographic location,” “Year of Publication,”
“University and Author Affiliation,” “Themes and Sub-themes,” “Theory,” “Research
Design, Methods and Areas” and “Industry Involvement.” In this step, the authors
adopted and expanded the “Themes and Sub-themes” classification of Olsson et al. (2019)
to acquire a deeper view of the current literary landscape.
Step 5: As the last step, there were three important outcomes acknowledged: (1) research
gaps, (2) significant findings and (3) limitations and future directions for researchers.
 Last mile
delivery in
logistics

1141

Figure 2.
Source(s): Adapted from Akbari (2018); Akbari, Ha & Kok (2022); Belinski et al. (2020) The five-step approach
BIJ 2.3 Existing literature on last mile delivery
30,4 After a comprehensive review of the current last mile delivery articles, this research
incorporates information and data from academic journals and examines publishers,
geographic location, year of publication, university and author affiliation, themes and
sub-themes, theory, research design, methods and area, and industry involvement in the
review and discussion sections. In that vein, the review discovered that twenty-one literature
reviews on last mile delivery have been published. A summary of these twenty-one available
1142 literature reviews is organized in Table 2. With the increasing attention to sustainable last
mile delivery, an inclusive structured literature review is timely and desirable. This
structured literature review seeks to investigate the development of last mile delivery articles
published from 2005 to 2020.
Lastly, through the utilization of NVIVO software (version 12), 3D cluster and word cloud
analysis have been performed to identify the key patterns (see Figure 3). The analysis shows
that the majority of the past research concentrates on the last mile delivery as the main topic.

3. Theoretical background of last mile delivery

3.1 Definition of last mile delivery
The root of “last mile” can be traced back to the early era of Cable TV and the establishment of
Internet (Klinger, 2018). In this context, the meaning of last mile was not recognized in the
same way as it is today. The term last mile was mainly used by the telecommunications
industry (Phuong, 2020) and initially refers to the final hurdle of delivering
telecommunications services to end-users (Barton, 2016). Overtime, with the development of
the business landscape and globalization of supply chains (Akbari et al., 2017), last mile
becomes prevalent in the field of logistics and supply chain management (LSCM)
representing the final stage of the supply chain where the goods are delivered to
end-customers (Aljohani and Thompson, 2020; Zeng et al., 2019). In the context of LSCM, last
mile delivery can be generally understood as the final step of transiting orders to the right
customers (Akbari and Ha, 2020). The exact definition and scope of last mile delivery,
however, remain unclear owing to different perspectives in the literature (Olsson et al., 2019).
To illustrate, the definitions of last mile delivery can be looked at in different viewpoints such
as business-to-business (B2B), business-to-consumer (B2C) and consumer-to-consumer (C2C)
(i.e. Tipagornwong and Figliozzi, 2014; Allen et al., 2007; Gevaers, 2013). Furthermore,
Motavallian (2019) posited that a common terminology referring to last mile delivery was not
adopted by past studies. For instance, Schliwa et al. (2015) used the term last mile supply
chain to refer to last mile delivery, while Guo et al. (2017) utilized the term last kilometer
instead of last mile delivery. The need for a more rounded definition of last mile delivery is
evident. In that vein, the paper adopts the following definition of last mile delivery introduced
by Motavallian (2019); this definition was selected as it emphasizes on the delivery element
while entirely encompasses B2B, B2C and C2C.

Inclusion Exclusion

1 Peer-reviewed journals Books and conference proceedings

2 English language Any language other than English
3 Keywords in title, abstract and keywords: “final delivery,” “final Studies focusing on
deliver solution,” “final mile logistics,” “final mile solution,” last telecommunications networks
Table 1. mile delivery,” “last mile logistics,” last mile transportation,” “last
A list of inclusion and mile fulfillment,” last mile operations,” “last mile distribution”
exclusion criteria Source(s): Adapted from Akbari et al. (2022), Olsson et al. (2019), Viu-Roig and Alvarez-Palau (2020)
 Numbers of Years
paper of
Title Author Journal Aim review focus Method

Identifying design criteria for urban Harrington et al. Production Planning & Presenting an approach to designing and N/A 2016 Introduces a conceptual
system ‘last mile’ solutions – a (2016) Control evaluating last mile solutions, framework to identify design
multi-stakeholder perspective incorporating social and economic criteria for urban system last mile
interests, tradeoffs and perspectives of solutions from a multi-stakeholder
key stakeholders within a specified urban perspective
system
Enabling a freight traffic controller Allen et al. (2017) Transportation Research Aiming to propose a new concept N/A 2017 Proposes the “freight traffic
for collaborative multidrop urban Record controller” (FTC) concept
logistics: Practical and theoretical
challenges
City logistics, urban goods Cardenas et al. Competition and Contributing to organize the current and 90 2017 Introduces a framework and a
distribution and last mile delivery (2017) regulation in network future thought in the field of urban typology concerning the topic of
and collection industries logistics city logistics, urban goods
distribution and last mile logistics
Sustainable vehicles-based Oliveira et al. Sustainability Identifying main types of vehicles 26 2013– A systematic literature review
alternatives in last mile distribution (2017) addressed could be used in the last mile of 2016 focuses on sustainable vehicles-
of urban freight transport: A urban freight distribution to increase the based alternatives in last mile
systematic literature review sustainability of this type of operations distribution
Real-time decision making in first Banyai (2018) Energies Developing real-time scheduling 231 1998– A systematic literature review
mile and last mile logistics: How optimization model focusing on energy 2018 focuses on energy efficiency in
smart scheduling affects energy efficiency of last mile delivery operations logistics and supply chain
efficiency of hyperconnected supply
chain solutions
New shades of the vehicle routing Mandziuk (2018) EEE Transactions on Presenting an overview of recent 200 2015– A systematic literature review
problem: Emerging problem Emerging Topics in advances in the field of the vehicle routing 2017 focuses on recent advances in the
formulations and computational Computational problem field of the vehicle routing problem
intelligence solution methods Intelligence
An innovation diffusion perspective Wang, X et al. The International Conceptualizing and validating the N/A 2018 Introduces a conceptual
of e-consumers’ initial adoption of (2018) Journal of Logistics consumers’ adoption behavior of APS framework for examining e-
self-collection service via automated Management from a synthesized view of innovation consumers’ initial adoption of self-
parcel station diffusion and attitude theories collection service
A review of last mile logistics Ranieri et al. Sustainability Examining how recent innovative 23 2013– A systematic literature review
innovations in an externalities cost (2018) strategies could reduce the externalities 2016 focuses on last mile logistics
reduction vision produced by last mile logistics innovations

(continued )
logistics

1143
delivery in

previous literature
Detailed summary of
Last mile

Table 2.

review articles
 BIJ
30,4

1144

Table 2.
Numbers of Years
paper of
Title Author Journal Aim review focus Method

Consumer-driven e-commerce: A
literature review, design
framework, and research agenda on
last mile logistics models
Decision framework for selecting
last mile delivery performance in
Indian e-commerce companies
Electric vehicles in the last mile of
urban freight transportation: A
sustainability assessment of postal
deliveries in Rio de Janeiro Brazil
Innovative solutions to increase last
mile delivery efficiency in B2C
e-commerce: A literature review
Framework of last mile logistics
research: A systematic review of the
literature
Crowdsourced delivery: A review of
platforms and academic literature
On integrating crowdsourced
delivery in last mile logistics: A
simulation study to quantify its
feasibility
Decision support for sustainable
and resilience-oriented urban parcel
delivery
Lim Stanley International Journal of Designing a framework to contributes to 47 2000– A comprehensive literature review
Frederick et al. Physical Distribution & last mile logistics design practice 2017 focuses on last mile logistics
(2018) Logistics Management models
Datta (2018) International Journal of Increasing efficiency of logistics through N/A 2018 A comprehensive literature review
Information and adoption of best possible delivery method focuses on introducing a
Decision Sciences to reduce delivery period framework to select the most
effective last mile delivery
practices
de Mello Transportation Research Proposing a method to assess alternative 26 2007– A systematic literature review
Bandeira et al. Part D strategies for last mile delivery, in terms of 2016 focuses on electric vehicles in the
(2019) social, environmental, and economic last mile transportation
impacts
Mangiaracina International Journal of Proposing a framework of main factors 75 2001– A comprehensive literature review
et al. (2019) Physical Distribution & main factors affecting last mile delivery 2019 focuses innovative solutions that
Logistics Management cost and of viable innovative solutions can increase the efficiency of last
that may be implemented to increase mile delivery in the area of B2C e-
efficiency commerce
Olsson et al. Sustainability Proposing a framework to categorize the 155 2001– A systematic literature review
(2019) last mile logistics literature 2019 focuses on last mile logistics
Alnaggar et al. Omega Identify key elements of crowdsourced N/A 2019 Reviews the operations research
(2019) delivery systems that distinguish them (OR) literature on the topic of
from other transportation systems crowdsourced delivery
Guo, X et al. Journal of Cleaner Reducing last mile logistics costs by N/A 2019 Introduces a conceptual
(2019) Production incorporating crowdsourced delivery as a framework to facilitate last mile
supplement to the conventional delivery city logistics transition adopting
network the multilevel sociotechnical
transition theory as the basis
Leyerer et al. EURO Journal Aiming to increase the sustainability in 41 2001– A comprehensive literature review
(2019) on Decision Processes the last mile delivery 2019 to develop a decision support
system for sustainable feet
planning

(continued )
 Numbers of Years
paper of
Title Author Journal Aim review focus Method

Drone-aided routing: A literature
review
Urban freight last mile logistics—
challenges and opportunities to
improve sustainability: A literature
review
City logistics: Towards a
blockchain decision framework for
collaborative parcel deliveries in
micro-hubs
Electric light commercial vehicles:
Are they the sleeping giant of
electromobility?
Characterizing urban last mile
distribution strategies in mature
and emerging e-commerce markets
Macrina et al. Transportation Research Providing insights into current research 63 2015– A comprehensive literature review
(2020) Part C trends in the application of operations 2020 focuses on drone-aided routing
research techniques to solve routing problems in the parcel delivery
problems with drones
Bosona (2020) Sustainability Identifying major challenges of urban 42 2010– A comprehensive literature review
freight last mile logistics and 2019 focuses on sustainability
opportunities for intervention challenges and opportunities in
last mile logistics
Hribernik et al. Transportation Research Examining the existing blockchain N/A 2020 Introduces blockchain decision
(2020) Interdisciplinary decision frameworks in the literature to framework for collaborative parcel
Perspectives develop a new framework deliveries in micro-hubs
Tsakalidis et al. Transportation Research Aiming to reduce environmental negative N/A 2020 Provides a comprehensive
(2020) Part D: Transport and externalities from last mile delivery analysis of the recent eLCV
Environment deployment and future prospects
in the EU
Janjevic and Transportation Research Comparing different last mile distribution 195 1999– Introduces an integrated
Winkenbach Part A: Policy and strategies and highlighting variables 2019 conceptual framework for
(2020) Practice impacting the choice of network design characterizing urban last mile e-
decisions commerce distribution strategies
logistics

1145
delivery in
Last mile

Table 2.
BIJ
30,4

1146

Figure 3.
3 3D cluster and
word cloud

The last transportation of a consignment in a supply chain from the last dispatch point to the
delivery point where the consignee receives the consignment. Motavallian (2019, p. 106)
Based on the above definition, it is only logical to establish that there does not exist a fixed
and definitive last mile delivery structure. Based on the positions of order preparation point,
last dispatch point, and delivery point that are in the examination, many different last mile
delivery structures can be generated. For example, Motavallian (2019) developed up to 40
distinct last mile delivery structures. Nonetheless, Figure 4 presents a general and simplified
last mile delivery.

3.2 The benefits of last mile delivery

Since the beginning of e-commerce, customers have been searching to buy products online
rather than the traditional brick-and-mortar stores (Skiver and Godfrey, 2017). Consequently,
e-commerce is experiencing robust and steady growth globally; amounting to nearly $3.46
trillion in 2019 and estimated to reach more than $6.5 trillion by 2023 (Oberlo, 2020). The
boom of e-commerce, in turn, is pressuring supply chains to change their business models and
logistics processes to compete in the market (Harrington, 2019). Many brick-and-mortar
stores start to engage in click-and-mortar; a trend that is unlikely to be reversed in the future
(Escursell et al., 2021).
With leading companies such as Amazon and Walmart offering multiple different
delivery options such as same-day delivery or even 2-h delivery, customers are given a lot of
choices to choose from. Customers now demand every business to deliver products and
services rapidly, accompanied by a seamless user experience (Argyropoulou et al., 2022;

Figure 4.
Last mile delivery
structure
Source(s): Adapted from Castillo and Jain (2019); Motavallian (2019)
Markovitch and Willmott, 2014). Customers are much more likely to stop shopping with a Last mile
business again after a bad experience (Hufford, 2019). Therefore, the customers’ delivery in
post-purchase experience is now as important as their pre-purchase experience (Deloitte,
2020b). In this regard, the favorability of the brand by customers is directly related to their
logistics
positive experience (Raza and Govindaluri, 2021; Shipton et al., 2017). Companies that could
provide customers with a great last mile delivery service would benefit significantly (Convey,
2018). For instance, the statistics reveal that a majority of customers would share their
positive experiences with their friends and family and more likely (word-of-mouth) to try new 1147
offerings as well as increase their future spending with the business (see Figure 5).

3.3 The costly last mile challenge

In an environment where free delivery and short lead-times have become the norm, costs are
rapidly mounting, resulting in very little margin on delivery (Deloitte, 2020a). Last mile
delivery is the most inefficient and costly activity of the supply chain (Boysen et al., 2020).
Statistics estimate that the last mile delivery accounts for 13–51% (with some estimations
reaching 75%) of total supply chain cost, depending on different factors (Millar, 2016; Skiver
and Godfrey, 2017). Thus, last mile delivery imposes a heavy burden on the bottom line of
companies as they have to keep up with the expectations of customers while keeping their
costs down (ShipHero, 2019). The reason for the high cost is that there are many challenges
that the last mile delivery service has to face. For this reason, an Ishikawa Diagram (aka
Fishbone Diagram) was built to illustrate the causes and effects of these challenges (see
Figure 6).

3.4 Sustainability in the last mile

The concept of sustainability is increasingly important in many industries in today’s global
market (Akbari and Hopkins, 2019; Schinckus et al., 2019). While no consensus has been
reached on the definition of sustainability (Moldavska and Welo, 2017; Feil and Schreiber,
2017), the most often cited definition in the literature is the one that the Brundtland Report
defined as the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability
of future generations to meet their needs (Aras and Crowther, 2013). Nonetheless, authors such
as Little (2014) and Johnston et al. (2007) argued that this definition is vague as many
damaging and destructive practices can be sustained within timeframes, comparative to the

82%
73% 74%

58%
53%

Purchase paid Share posi ve Willing to try new Increase future Share their
membership for feedback on offering spending with the posi ve Figure 5.
delivery social media business experiences with The benefits of good
friends and family last mile delivery
services
Source(s): Adapted from Jacobs et al. (2019)
BIJ Operaons
Challenges
Infrastructure
Challenges
Delivery
Challenges
30,4 Fast & Many
Load & Incorrect or Invalid
Traffic
Different Customers’
Unload Time Congesons
Delivery Opons Addresses

Insufficient Parking
Maintenance, Fuels Customers’ The and
Places in Dense
& Labor Costs Unavailability Pilferage
Urban Areas

1148
Return, Refunds or Sophiscated Cancellaon
Replacements IT Systems of Orders
The most Polung,
Insuficient and
Expensive Part of
Low Truck Ulizaon Supply Chain
Air & Noise
or Unconsolidated
Poluons
Deliveries

Sudden Changes in Fuels to Miles Greenhouse Gas

Delivery Routes Inefficiency Emissions

Unopmized Cold Storage

Rounng Deliveries

Logiscal Environment
Figure 6. Challenges Challenges

Fishbone diagram of
the costly last mile
delivery
Source(s): Adapted from Aljohani, Khalid and Thompson, Russell G. (2020)” as “Adapted
from Aljohani et al. (2020)

individual human life span, are indefinite. Having said that, the literature seems to agree that
sustainability revolves around the concept of the triple bottom line (TBL) (Kwarteng et al.,
2016; Kane et al., 2022; Sharma, 2021).
From the perspective of last mile delivery, the sustainability concept is receiving full
attention from scholars and practitioners alike (Ignat and Chankov, 2020). The last mile
delivery’s economic sustainability mainly deals with three main categories: delivery options,
cost and speed (Nguyen et al., 2019). The environmental sustainability of last mile generally
deals with air pollution, emission of greenhouse gases, noise pollution and product packaging
(plastic waste not returnable packaging) (Demir et al., 2015; Freitag and Kotzab, 2020).
Regarding the social sustainability of the last mile delivery, Ignat and Chankov (2020) attest
that it could be analyzed from two perspectives: the carrier drivers’ viewpoint and the public’s
standpoint. From the carrier drivers’ viewpoint, social sustainability is often related to
employment, working conditions, and benefits (Shishiteva cited in Ignat and Chankov, 2020).
From the public’s perspective, social sustainability is often related to traffic congestion,
accident and extended waiting time in public transport (Ducarme, 2019; Laghaei et al., 2016).

3.5 Potential research gaps and contribution of the study

Before the boom of e-commerce, last mile delivery was already considered the most polluting,
inefficient and costly component of the supply chain (Boysen et al., 2020). With the
ever-growing trade volumes of e-commerce, the number of delivery vehicles in circulation also
increased to bridge the last mile towards the consumers (Schwerdfeger and Boysen, 2020). This
progress, in turn, exacerbated traffic congestions and traffic accidents, air and noise pollution
and greenhouse gas emissions (Savelsbergh and Van Woensel, 2016; Demir et al., 2015).
Consequently, the negative externalities of the last mile delivery have become much more Last mile
problematic (Patella et al., 2021). The work of Ignat and Chankov (2020) and Janjevic et al. (2019) delivery in
suggested that last mile deliveries have become unsustainable on all three elements of
sustainability: economic, environmental and social. Savelsbergh and Van Woensel (2016)
logistics
stated sustainability would be the future focus of last mile delivery.
The field of last mile delivery, however, is still relatively incoherent and fragmented due to
different disciplines and standpoints contributing to it (Olsson et al., 2019). The fragmentation
is detrimental to the future growth of the last mile delivery discipline in general, and the area 1149
sustainable last mile delivery in specific. Therefore, it is of great importance to have a holistic
and coherent overview of last mile delivery and explore the current direction of studies that
focus on sustainability in the current literature. This study aims to contribute to the research
gap by performing a systematic literature review of the current last mile delivery.

4. Literature landscape
This section includes a summary of the reviewed data and approach for this paper. The
results of the review are shown in the following figures and tables to verify and validate the
sources for later discussion.

4.1 Distribution by publishing source

Figure 7 displays the distribution of journals that were sourced from major identified
publishers. In total, 281 encompassed last mile delivery research. Science Direct yielded the
most number of publications (114) this is followed by Emerald Insight (37), Taylor and
Francis (28) and IEEE (16). This demonstrates the participation of high-quality publishers in
the current body of knowledge in the discipline of last mile delivery. Remaining 18 publishers
with one article are not included in the figure.

4.2 Distribution by year

Timeline analysis of the 281 published articles reviewed in this study is displayed in Figure 8,
which depicts an ascending trend in the number of publications in the area of last mile
delivery. Of note is the significant increase in the number of publications over the period of

INFORMS Sage American Chemical Society Vilnius Gediminas

Hindawi Inderscience 2% Technical University
2% 2%
2% 2% 2%
Wiley
3% Science Direct
Springer
41%
4%
MDPI
5%

US Na onal
Research
Council
6%

Ins tute of Electrical

and Electronics
Engineers
Figure 7.
6% Taylor and Francis Emerald Insight Publishing source
10% 13%
BIJ
30,4 100
104

80

1150 63

60

45

40

22
20 14
11
4 5 6
Figure 8. 3 1
1 1
Number of 0
publications by year 2006 2008 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020

2018–2020 which saw 212 publications, accounting for 75% of all publications reviewed in
just 23% of the time. This indicates and significant growing interest in the area of last mile
delivery which aligns with the general increase of publications in the LSCM fields. It is worth
considering that the sudden growth could potentially correspond with the increase of
omnichannel retail activity, increasing consumer adoption of online purchasing and
urbanization increasing the requirements for a greater understanding of last mile logistics.

4.3 Distribution by industry

Figure 9 reflects the journal publications that had a specific industry focus. Transportation
was the most published industry (174) in comparison with other areas which focused on last
mile delivery. According to the reviewed literature, e-commerce (33) and technology (28) were

180 174

160

140

120

100

80

60

40 33
28
21
20
6 6 3 3 2 2 1 1 1
0

Figure 9.
Industry distribution
of publications
the next prominent industries for publication in last mile delivery. This supports the Last mile
consideration that growing publications in the years 2018–2020 are being driven by the delivery in
increase of omnichannel retail (e.g. Mahadevan and Joshi, 2021) and the increased adoption of
internet-based purchasing. Humanitarian aid is noticeably significant (21) indicating the
logistics
growing interest in understanding last mile logistics in altruistic domains, for the example
case of an earthquake in Haiti by Salam and Khan (2020). Other industry sectors researched
included retail (6), food and beverage (6), online retailing (3), information technology (3),
manufacturing (2), energy (2), tourism (1), electronics (1) and food and agriculture (1) as shown 1151
in Figure 7.

4.4 Publication focus on themes and subthemes

Figure 10 represents the themes and subthemes which were the focus of the publications
researched. Operational optimization was predominately the area of focus, with them
accounting for 41.99% of all publications researched. Indicating a strong interest in
understanding last mile logistics for the need for optimization and efficiency, which is in line

Figure 10.
Publications by themes
BIJ with expectations. Within this theme, routing was the most predominant (73) followed by
30,4 transport planning (23), scheduling (14) and facility location (8). The theme of emerging
trends and technologies accounted for 25.62% of all publications, which is still a significant
level, indicating a healthy interest in understanding emerging technologies and their impacts
on last mile delivery. Within this theme, innovative vehicle solutions were the more prevalent
(22) followed closely by good reception solutions (20), emerging business models (18), new
perceptions on collaboration (11) and emerging trends and technologies (1). The theme of
1152 supply chain structures and performance measurement accounted for the remaining 15.30%
and 14.59% respectively, indicating the focus of interest in the area of last mile delivery
shifting away from traditional structures in favor of optimization and technology, which
would fall in line with expectations considering the key objective of supply chain
management would be the optimization and efficiency across supply chain functions. Within
the theme of supply chain structures, logistics, and supply chain design was predominant (15)
with network design following (10) which suggest more interest and weight placed on the
design of supply chain networks, this is followed by urban freight terminals (9), urban freight
structures (6) and urban planning (3). The theme of performance measurement was
dominated with customer-focused performance garnering the most attention (20),
environmental performance following (13), economic performance (6) and environmental
performance/economic performance closing out at the end (3). While the theme of policy with
its single subtheme of the same classification had the least focus at 2.49% with seven
publications. In contrast to the other categories, evidence suggests that policy is still an
unexplored domain about last mile delivery, with research focusing on expecting areas such
as routing, transport planning, innovative vehicles, receiving goods and focus on
performance from the lens of customer service, with each subtheme mentioned garnering
at least 20 publications.

4.5 Country of focus

The analysis of last mile delivery studies by country indicates the level of attention from
different geographical locations. Figure 11 shows the country distribution across the 281
published papers, comprising 37 countries around the world. Figure 11 indicates that out of
281 publications, most publications focused on the discipline in general rather than
specifically in any given country or region accounting for 136 or 48% of all publications. This
is followed closely by China (34, 18%), the United States (25, 13%), and the United Kingdom
(14, 8%). Apart from the aforementioned countries, Brazil, Haiti, Singapore, Australia,
Germany, Italy, Austria, Spain and Turkey have also been countries of focus. This indicates

18%
16%
14%
12%
10%
8%
6%
4%
2%
0%
China

Germany

Estonia

Switzerland
UK
Brazil

Austria
Spain

Turkey

Austria
Africa

India

Portugal

Serbia
France

Australia

Indonesia

Jordan
USA

Sweden

Ireland

Netherlands
Singapore

Italy

South Korea
Bangladesh
Belgium
Canada
Caribbean

Greek

Norway

Republic of Colombia
Hai

Figure 11.
Publication country
of focus
that while major economic superpowers such as China, the United States and United Last mile
Kingdom justifiably remain the focus on studies in the area of last mile delivery; other delivery in
countries are also showing focus, indicating the increased importance of last mile delivery in
these regions and the growing need to understand the discipline.
logistics

4.6 Research design and method

The review reveals that the last mile delivery research incorporates a diverse research design 1153
and methods. The collected 281 articles were categorized into five research designs, following
the work of Akbari et al. (2022):
(1) Desk qualitative
(2) Desk quantitative
(3) Empirical qualitative
(4) Empirical qualitative
(5) Empirical triangulation
Figure 12 presents the current distribution amongst the published articles based on the
abovementioned five research design methods. In this perspective, desk quantitative had the
largest practiced research with 116 out of 281 published papers signifying the popularity of
the research design. The second most popular research design is the empirical triangulation
with 99 papers following by empirical qualitative with 25 papers, empirical quantitative with
21 papers, and finally, desk qualitative with 20 papers.
In-depth analysis and investigation of each article showed that all of the research articles
focused on surveys, interviews, mathematical and conceptual modeling, case study,
simulation and field experiments. A considerable number of published papers focused on
mathematical models (130), followed by survey method (33), case study (29), conceptual model
(26), simulation (17) and interviews (16) (see Figure 13).

8% 7%
9% 41% Desk quantitative
Empirical triangulation
Empirical qualitative
35% Empirical quantitative
Desk qualitative
Figure 12.
Research design

Mathematic Model
Survey
Case Study
Conceptual Model
Case Study + Mathematic Model
Interviews
Simulation
Survey + Interviews Figure 13.
Research method
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50%
BIJ 4.7 Applied theory in published papers
30,4 The result of the review discovers that the majority of articles in last mile delivery do not
employ any explicit theory. Figure 14 demonstrates that 88% or 248 out of 281 reviewed
articles did not employ any explicit theoretical lens in their contents. Only 12% or 33 out of
281 reviewed articles utilized theoretical lens in their research. Especially, the three most
common theories identified in these papers were: fuzzy set theory (5), game theory (4), and
graph theory (3).
1154

5. Proposed framework
We propose a framework to address the sustainability aspect in the last mile delivery
literature. The framework is built on five interconnected components: last mile delivery, last
mile transportation, last mile operations, last mile distribution and last mile logistics (see
Figure 15).
First, last mile operations and two central components such as last mile transportation
and last mile delivery made up the central part of the framework. The literature in these
components is operational. Second, the central part of the framework is consolidated under
last mile distribution, which has a tactical characteristic. In turn, last mile distribution
coalesces with last mile logistics, which is strategic. Finally, all components are under the
umbrella of the three sustainability pillars: economic, environmental and social. In the
following section, a description of the framework components and identified themes were
provided.

5.1 Sustainability in the last mile

Our literature review shows that sustainability challenges in last mile delivery have been
increasingly recognized by researchers and practitioners. A rapid growth in recent years in
the number of academic articles that focused on tackling sustainability issues of the last mile
had been observed. Sustainability in the last mile covered three elements that are economic,
environmental and social. The economic pillar was most frequently covered followed by
environmental and social. Most articles focusing on the sustainability concept were mostly
concentrated on the operational level with last mile delivery receiving the most
contributions. Nonetheless, our review also showed that the sustainability concept
touched and could be found at all levels of the last mile, from operational to strategic.
The key to developing a sustainable last mile concept is the balanced establishment

12%

88%

Figure 14.
Theoretical lens in last
mile delivery Articles without Applied Theory Articles with Applied Theory
 Last mile
delivery in
logistics

1155

Figure 15.
The conceptual
framework of
sustainable last mile

amongst all the stakeholders’ needs (Siegfried and Zhang, 2020). It is therefore
recommended that future work focus not only on the implementation of sustainable
practices from an operational point of view but should also include the concept of
sustainability from a strategic and tactical point of view.

5.2 Last mile logistics

Last mile logistics can be defined as planning and controlling the transport and storage of
goods, from the last dispatch point to the delivery point. The total number of last mile
logistics articles is 38 out of 281 in the reviewed literature, and it focused on diverse topics
such as emerging technologies and innovations, supply chain structures, performance
measurement and operational optimization. Although there were articles focused on
operational optimization, the number of contributions in this category was only 10 out of 38.
The bulk of the last mile logistics articles have been leaning toward aspects such as horizontal
collaboration (Allen et al., 2017), emerging business models such as crowd logistics (Frehe
et al., 2017), logistics networks design (Wollenburg et al., 2018) and the design of last mile
logistics models (Lim Stanley Frederick et al., 2018). One study also examined how emerging
technologies such as drones would impact the logistics networks (Perera et al., 2020). The
literature under last mile logistics tackles strategic, long-term planning concerns and
BIJ analyzes the interaction between the logistics network and its environment, suggesting that
30,4 last mile logistics is strategic (Melkonyan et al., 2020).

5.3 Last mile distribution

Last mile distribution concerns managing products from the last dispatch point to the
delivery point through different channels. Last mile distribution is received by 40 out of 281
1156 contributions, with most of the articles focusing on Operational optimization. The literature
confirmed the tactical characteristics of this component (Melkonyan et al., 2020). Some
examples of the literature include decision support systems (Fikar et al., 2018), route
optimization (Liu, 2020) and bin packing problem (Santos et al., 2019). The second-largest
share focuses on supply chain structures, particularly network design. Some examples
include last mile distribution strategies (Janjevic and Winkenbach, 2020), comparison of
different distribution configurations (Vanelslander et al., 2013) and supply network
configuration (Lim and Srai, 2018).

5.4 Last mile operations

Last mile operations refers to the activities in the last stage of the supply chain, where the
products will be delivered to the end customers. On the basis of this definition, it can be
proven that this term is often used interchangeably with last mile delivery. Last mile
operations have received only 6 out of 281 posts in the reviewed literature. The reviewed
literature confirmed this component’s operational and short-term planning horizon nature,
and it covered themes such as goods reception solution, innovative vehicle solutions,
logistics, supply chain design, urban freight terminals, customer-focused performance and
environmental performance. Despite the small number of contributions, the term last mile
delivery and last mile transport in the literature are used instead of the last mile operations.
For instance, Nathanail et al. (2016) used the term last mile operations in the article title, yet
they used the definition of last mile transportation to explain the last mile instead. Thus, the
lack of papers in this component does not necessarily match the lack of attention from
researchers and practitioners.

5.5 Last mile transportation

Last mile transportation concentrates on moving goods from a central hub to a final
destination and can be conducted through different transportation modes such as electric
vehicles, bicycles and drones, to name a few. Last mile transportation received only 5 out of
281 contributions in the assessed literature, covering topics such as operational optimization,
supply chain structures and performance measurement. The majority of the articles have
concentrated on operational optimization, especially transportation planning.

5.6 Last mile delivery

Last mile delivery can be defined as the last transport of a consignment in a supply chain from
the last dispatch point to the delivery point where the consignee receives it. Based on the
literature, the term final mile delivery is also considered a last mile delivery; therefore, these
two terms will be combined into this section. Last mile delivery receives the most significant
contribution of 194 of the 281 articles. The reviewed literature confirmed the operational and
short-term planning horizon of this component (Melkonyan et al., 2020). Largest portion of the
contributions focused on operational optimization (83 articles), particularly routing. Some
examples of routing literature include studies of routing with trucks and drones (Moshref-
Javadi et al., 2020), traveling salesman problems (de Freitas and Penna, 2020), multimodal
delivery (Perboli et al., 2018), crowd navigation (Wang, F et al., 2019) and other routing Last mile
problems (Alcaraz et al., 2019; Zhou et al., 2016). delivery in
The second-largest share focuses on Emerging technologies and innovations covering
topics such as goods reception solutions, innovative vehicle solutions and emerging business
logistics
models. Some examples of literature include studies of collection and delivery points
(Morganti et al., 2014), unattended delivery (Xu et al., 2008), self-service technology models
(Jiang et al., 2020), smart lockers systems (Refaningati et al., 2020), electric vehicles (de Mello
Bandeira et al., 2019), drones (Swanson, 2019) and crowdsourcing (Devari et al., 2017). 1157

6. Discussion and research gaps

6.1 The need for balanced attention
While the concept of sustainability has many facets, the literature seems to agree that
sustainability revolves around the three elements namely economic, environmental and
social (Arowoshegbe et al., 2016; Kane et al., 2022; Reddy and Thomson, 2015). This viewpoint
is also known in the literature as the three pillars of sustainability: people, planet, and profit or
the triple bottom line (TBL) of sustainability (Brockhaus et al., 2013; Kwarteng et al., 2016).
The review results show an imbalanced focus of articles regarding the three aspects of the
TBL. Economic-focused articles are the most common with a total number of 262 papers,
followed by environmental-focused articles with 65 papers, whereas social-focused articles
are the least common with a total of 43 papers. The results showed that previous calls to
address research gaps were not adequately answered. Therefore, further research with a
focus on environmental and social sustainability in last mile delivery is indicated.
Results have been, however, expected since the economic-focused point of view is the most
prominent in the literature compared to social and environmental (Gao and Bansal, 2013).
Businesses must concentrate on making profits to keep the company from going bankrupt,
which explains why the inherent focal point in the TBL approach to sustainability has always
been economic performance (Ducarme, 2019). Consequently, the environmental and social
pillars are often deemed complementary to the economic pillar, with some even looking at
these dimensions from a trade-off perspective (Van der Byl and Slawinski, 2015).
Nevertheless, this does not have to be the case as new research shows that customers
expressed a more favorable standpoint when brands take initiatives towards sustainability
(White et al., 2019), leading to our next point.

6.2 Opportunities to drive the concept of sustainability in last mile delivery

With the remarkable growth in demand for delivery in recent times, negative externalities
such as congestion, traffic accidents, air and noise pollution as well as global warming could
no longer be disregarded (Capell
an-P
erez et al., 2019; de la Torre et al., 2021). Customers are
now expecting convenience, speed and sustainability from their deliveries at the right price
(Accenture, n.d.). While customers are increasingly becoming aware of the negative
externalities, Ipsos (2019) established that the consumers are not willing to bear the weight
alone, with 67% of the respondents demanding that the corporations should also share the
responsibility. The same report from Ipsos (2019) also revealed that 40% of respondents
expressed a more favorable standpoint when the brand takes initiatives towards
sustainability. The aforementioned phenomenon suggests that organizations can no longer
concentrate solely on the economic performance of the supply chain (Tseng et al., 2019).
Undoubtedly, last mile delivery imposes heavily on businesses’ bottom lines since
customers are expecting faster and more frequent deliveries (Boyer et al., 2009). An increase in
delivery volumes and speed negatively affects the overall profitability of businesses (Jacobs
et al., 2019). However, recent research from Ignat and Chankov (2020) revealed that customers
BIJ are willing to wait longer, pay more or select a less convenient location in exchange for a more
30,4 environmentally or/and socially sustainable delivery. The findings of Ignat and Chankov
(2020) also found that once the benefits of sustainability have been made clear to customers,
they are more willing to make economic sacrifices in the name of the greater good: the planet
and society. Accenture (n.d.) also noticed that the last mile delivery had become greener
during the COVID-19 pandemic. This evidence suggests that sustainable last mile delivery is
not a myth. It is time to rethink the traditional concept of last mile delivery and now is a good
1158 opportunity to drive sustainability in last mile delivery.

6.3 Opportunities to understand customers’ preferences and the impact of policies

It should be noted that no single entity can enable sustainable last mile delivery; it takes all
supply chain actors in the ecosystem working together to do so (Accenture, n.d.). As
mentioned earlier, if the benefits are clear, the customer is willing to choose a green delivery
option. Yet, the work of Ignat and Chankov (2020) indicates that researchers and practitioners
have not looked at this from the customer perspective. Expectedly, our review showed that
there were only 22 out of 281 papers that focused on customer preferences.
The review also showed that there were only 6 out of 281 papers focused on the policy
dimension and how policy affects the last mile delivery. In these papers, 5 of them focused on
government-level policies and examined the gaps hindering the current development of
sustainable last mile delivery (Aljohani and Thompson, 2019; Aljohani and Thompson, 2020).
It was noted that public policies were not always aligned with the last mile delivery systems
(Viu-Roig and Alvarez-Palau, 2020). To reduce the negative externalities engendered by last
mile delivery, businesses are experimenting with more environmentally friendly
transportation modes such as electric vehicles (EVs), robots and drones (Doi et al., 2021;
Crandall, 2020). However, most of these initiatives often increase operational costs and
require both financial and non-financial incentives from the government agencies, which
were not sufficiently provided (Aljohani and Thompson, 2019; Arroyo et al., 2019).
Furthermore, these initiatives are often hindered by the current governmental legal
framework, as observed in the work of Hoffmann and Prause (2018). For example, Estonia
has adapted its traffic laws for the shared use of space between humans and robots while
other countries such as the United States are still hesitating (Hoffmann and Prause, 2018). It is
not always easy for policymakers, as seen in the research of Aljohani and Thompson (2020).
Their work on businesses’ participation in the receivers-led delivery consolidation policy
found that each of the industries involved had different levels of willingness. It seemed that in
the literature, not much is known about this level of involvement to support policymakers in
effectively designing instituting strategies and policy procedures. Therefore, the need for
collaboration between the different stakeholders such as manufacturers, logistics services
providers, citizens and the public sectors was observed (Viu-Roig and Alvarez-Palau, 2020).
In summary, the findings revealed that the customers’ preferences, and the impacts of
chosen policies on the last mile delivery are not well understood. Therefore, future research
focusing on the customer and government perspectives is highly recommended.

6.4 The need for applying theory in last mile delivery research
It is without a doubt that theory is crucial for the development of research in all fields since the
use of theory can address and lessen the complexity and intricacy of the research area it is
focused on (Clifford Defee et al., 2010; Touboulic and Walker, 2015). While researchers must
put more emphasis on the application of theory as suggested by Olsson et al. (2019), the
outcomes of this review revealed that 248 out of the total 281 or 88% of the last mile delivery
research papers were constructed without any explicit theoretical lens. The result is aligned
with the research of Olsson et al. (2019), suggesting that the research area is yet to reach the
maturity stage and researchers are still forming directions for future works (Lim Stanley Last mile
Frederick et al., 2018). Nonetheless, the paper noticed that while from 2006 to 2019 there were delivery in
only 18 out of 158 papers (roughly 12%) that used theory in their work, the year 2020
witnessed 15 out of 89 papers (roughly 17%) that applied theory. The number of papers that
logistics
applied theory in 2020 alone is equal to 84% that of all papers from 2006 to 2019 combined.
This trend indicates that while the number of theory-based papers is still very low compared
to the overall number of papers, the call for more applied theory in last mile delivery research
might have been heard by researchers and practitioners alike. The result suggests that this 1159
trend would likely continue to rise in the future. This prediction is, however, not definitive and
more research into this matter is necessary. In the meantime, it is recommended that
researchers should put more emphasis on the development and application of relevant theory
to the research area.

7. Conclusions, limitations and future direction

This paper offers a summary of the research into last mile delivery covering the past 15 years
(2005–2020). The outcomes of this systematic review made it possible for us to highlight the
current trends, opportunities, challenges, and future ideas for last mile delivery by answering
all four research questions. To this end, the paper conducted a comprehensive review of 281
articles published from 2005 to 2020 covering 127 distinctive peer-reviewed journals.
The presented findings of this systematic literature review will play an important part
especially during the post-COVID-19 recovery period, and the authors anticipate that this
timely review can assist industry practitioners, to better prepare for the implementation of
the sustainable last mile delivery concept in their supply chains.
This review presents and examines an overview of the literature and attempts to facilitate
the discussion on developing the concept of sustainable last mile delivery. Nevertheless, the
results of this systematic literature review indicates that more research is needed, in
particular in the continuous evaluation of the proposed framework, particularly through
multidisciplinary research.
Furthermore, by delving deep into the current last mile delivery literature, the paper was
able to identify the essential gaps in the literature as follows:
(1) Further emphasis on the development and application of relevant theory to the
research area is indicated.
(2) Future work should converge toward the environmental and social pillars of
sustainability instead of solely focusing on the economic pillar.
(3) More attention on understanding customers’ preferences and intentions when
offering sustainable last mile delivery options and more focus on how governmental
policies could impact the development of sustainable last mile delivery.
It is well acknowledged that this review is subject to limitations despite the meticulously
applied methodology. First, this systematic literature review focused only on last mile delivery
articles containing the words “Final delivery,” “Final delivery solution,” “Final mile,” “Final
mile logistics,” “Final mile solutions,” “Last mile delivery,” “Last mile logistics,” “Last mile
transportation,” “Last mile fulfillment,” “Last mile operation” and “Last mile distribution.”
Second, this study also limits the search for these articles in online databases such as Emerald
Insight, Science Direct, Taylor and Francis, Springer, MDPI and IEEE. Third, this study only
considers papers from high-quality, peer-reviewed journals and excludes other academic
sources such as books and conference papers. Furthermore, the study is also limited to
English-language papers, where articles published in other languages might potentially be
relevant. Thus, it is probable that relevant studies might have been overlooked and excluded
BIJ by the keywords, databases and the choice of English-only-language papers. Additional focus
30,4 on last mile delivery concerning numerous other well-known databases/websites, books, book
chapters, conferences and doctoral/master theses as well as studies written in other languages
for future research would also be desirable.

7.1 Implications for research

1160 The rapid growth of e-commerce and disruptions caused by COVID-19’s travel restrictions
(Srivatsa Srinivas and Marathe, 2021), put more pressure on last mile delivery. In line with
recent calls for a more comprehensive study of last mile delivery (Lim Stanley Frederick et al.,
2018; Mangiaracina et al., 2019), the proposed framework extends the current knowledge with
this area in sustainable LSCM discipline.
This systematic review offers valuable insights and presents a picture of state-of-the-art
research in the field of last mile delivery. It contributes to the existing body of knowledge by
extending the understanding of last mile delivery through the lens of sustainability in LSCM.
The main contribution of this review is the proposed sustainable last mile delivery
framework which presents all facets of last mile delivery and its interconnected components.
In particular, this review identifies five main dimensions of last mile delivery: (1) last mile
delivery, (2) last mile transportation, (3) last mile operations, (4) last mile distribution and
(5) last mile logistics. Each of these dimensions is interrelated and possess their own
characteristics (operational, tactical and strategic). Last mile operations, last mile
transportation and last mile delivery are considered operational, whereas last mile
distribution is tactical, and last mile logistics is strategic.
Additionally, the results indicate the sustainability concept can be incorporated into all
levels of last mile delivery, from operational to strategic. Most of the published articles
focusing on the sustainability concept were concentrated on operational levels with last mile
delivery receiving the most contributions. Thus, it is recommended that future work should
not only focus on implementing sustainable practices from an operational perspective but
should also consider strategic and tactical perspectives.

7.2 Implications for managers

From a managerial standpoint, this review summarizes research work pertaining to last mile
delivery and strengthens the knowledge in this area. The proposed framework of this study is
beneficial for practitioners in understanding the characteristics and interconnections of last
mile delivery and its related components. Furthermore, the analysis of the report showed that
current literature focused heavily on the operational level of last mile delivery, yet it is possible
to implement the sustainability concept at all levels of the last mile, from operational to
strategic. Therefore, the findings of this paper provide a fresh outlook for practitioners and can
provide support in their decision-making processes regarding their last mile delivery functions.

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Appendix
The Appendix is available online for this article.

About the authors

Nghiep Tuan Ha is an undergraduate student in business administration (major in logistics and supply
chain management) at the School of Business and Management (SBM), RMIT University, Vietnam. His
research interests are in the areas of logistics and supply chain management, advanced technology,
outsourcing, third-party logistics, sustainable development, operations management and warehouse
management.
Mohammadreza Akbari is a Senior Lecturer (Logistics and Supply Chain Management) at James Cook
University, College of Business, Law, Governance. He worked in academia for more than 9 years in
different institutions. In addition to his academic experience, Mohammadreza worked in numerous
industries over a 13-year span in Information Technology (IT), Commercial Construction, Retail
Management, and Senior Officer Management in Education. His research interest includes a broad range
of disciplines including logistics and supply chain management, integrated, reverse and green logistics,
sustainable development, corporate social responsibility (CSR), emerging Industry 4.0 technologies,
operations management, strategic outsourcing, business process reengineering (BPR), pollution
reduction, anywhere working and smart cities. He is also an editorial member of the Operations
Management Research journal and an active reviewer for well-known international academic journals.
Mohammadreza Akbari is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: mohammadreza_akbari@
yahoo.com
Bill Au is a lecturer, course coordinator and program manager at the University of RMIT Vietnam. He
specializes in business information systems and logistics and is an experienced professional with over
14 years working as a business analyst, consultant, academic and online educational developer.
A futurist and champion of technology, Bill is passionate about digital innovation, education and has
published in the areas of social media, logistics and technology application in education.

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