Reject or Embrace Electric Cargo Bikes? An investigation of the Sustainability Effects of a Transition from Electric Vans to Electric Cargo Bikes in Last-Mile Delivery

In the recent period, there has been a massive increase in e-commerce. This has vastly changed Norwegian customers' shopping behavior and provided an increase in last-mile delivery. Simultaneously, the focus on sustainability has become more significant, and the Bergen Municipality is looking for ways to reduce traffic in the city center. This thesis investigates how a transition from e-vans to e-cargo bikes will affect sustainability in a city center. Both the Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) and the Traveling Salesman Problem have been used to solve the route optimization problem, where it is assumed that all deliveries are made with either e-vans or e-cargo bikes. A mathematical model was developed from the beginning, but due to the large number of addresses, each address was assigned to a cluster. Then, Google OR-Tools was used to solve the VRP. The mathematical model and the Google OR-Tools model proved to perform equally well when compared using a small number of addresses. The main findings show that sustainability in a city center will be positively affected by a transition from e-vans to e-cargo bikes in last-mile delivery. This is because the social, environmental, and economic sustainability pillar will be positively affected due to lower noise levels, lower environmentally harmful emissions, and the potential for lower costs. The sensitivity analysis shows, however, that the number of meters traveled with e-cargo bikes increases faster than for e-vans when the demand for parcels increases. We believe that our findings will apply to cities with the same characteristics as Bergen, such as population and the size of the city center.