Zhang, S; Anciaes, Paulo; Chaniotakis, Emmanouil; (2025) The future of urban deliveries? Perceptions and intentions about delivery robots and drones in Europe. In: Melkonyan-Gottschalk, Ani and Li, Yanying, (eds.) Urban Logistics Transformation - E-Commerce and Circular Economy Approaches. Springer: Cham, Switzerland. (In press).

Text Zhang et al 2025 The future of urban deliveries - perceptions and intentions about delivery robots and drones in Europe.pdf - Accepted Version Access restricted to UCL open access staff Download (398kB)

Abstract

Autonomous vehicles are a possible solution to meet the increased demand for home deliveries in urban areas. However, despite the possible efficiency and en-vironmental gains, it is still uncertain whether customers will adopt these new technologies at a scale that would make them commercially viable. The impact on demand for deliveries and for passenger trips is also unclear. This chapter ad-dresses these questions by analysing perceptions about delivery robots and drones, intentions to make online orders delivered by these vehicles, and poten-tial impacts on delivery and travel behaviour. We use results from an eight-country survey, a smaller survey in the United Kingdom, and a demonstration of a delivery robot in the Netherlands. We found only a modest interest in the use of these vehicles, with participants expressing concerns about possible delivery problems, such as security. However, observing a real delivery robot mitigates some of those concerns. There were also considerable differences in perceptions and intentions across countries. Age was consistently associated with more nega-tive perceptions and intentions.

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