The increased demand for fast deliveries of goods have led to more costly and less environmentally friendly transports since many of the delivering trucks are not being fully loaded. The inefficiencies of deliveries have created a need for development of new freight systems. One alternative vehicle that has gained increasingly interest is usage of UAVs (unmanned arial vehicles), also known as drones. Several drones in varying sizes and configurations are being developed and applications within transports of both people and goods is seen as promising areas for the future. The study aims at investigating the performance of drone deliveries regarding time, cost, and environmental impact and to see what parameters are important for the performance. This have been made by comparing a UAV to two different vans (electric and HVO) for parcel deliveries in four chosen missions in both urban and rural settings. The evaluation takes a future perspective and are based on information received through both literature review and a market investigation.  The result from this study indicates that UAVs are likely to be a competitive future option for parcel deliveries regarding time and cost. This is concluded since the results shows significant savings in both costs and delivery time and these results are not changed by the sensitivity analyses. The result regarding environmental performance shows that the UAVs competitiveness depends on the vehicle of comparison. The drone has a better environmental performance than vans with fossil-based propellants but given the energy intensity of the UAV, it is not favourable compared to an electric van. The energy requirement of the drone is one of the most important factors affecting the performance. The energy requirements per km for the UAV increases when the routes become shorter since different phases of the flight have different energy intensity. The most demanding phase is lifting and when the distance between the stops is reduced this phase becomes more prominent. Another important factor is the possibility to reduce the travelled distance by taking the straight path with the UAV compared to being bound by the road infrastructure. The shorter distance for the UAV contributes both to reduced time but also reduced energy requirements which in its turn affect both environmental and economic performance. The distances and energy requirements are thus not the most important factor for the economic sustainability but rather the cost of staff. Since the drones are unmanned, several UAVs could be controlled by the same operator contributing to reduced cost of staff. The low energy requirements for the UAV in the longer and more rural cases makes this type of applications the most beneficial regarding environmental performance. Urban missions are instead the most preferable regarding cost and time, since a bigger share of the distance can be saved and the difference in speed between the UAV and the van is larger.

Le contexte technologique et socioéconomique favorise la croissance des volumes de colis échangés en France et particulièrement l'augmentation des livraisons dans les villes. Livraisons qui se complexifient sous l'effet des contraintes urbaines, des injonctions de durabilité, des évolutions des attentes des clients. Les prestataires de la distribution urbaine de colis doivent relever les défis économiques, organisationnels, environnementaux et politiques que représente cette mutation de la distribution du dernier kilomètre. Replacer la ville et son organisation spatiale au centre de la création de nouvelles organisations de la distribution et rapprocher l'analyse spatiale des outils et des techniques de gestion du transport de marchandises en ville (TMV), et notamment de la modélisation, peut permettre d'innover. La thèse va développer cette posture, jusque-là délaissée par les recherches en TMV. Une analyse détaillée de la nature des relations entre forme urbaine, organisations spatiale et TMV va être proposée. A partir de ces résultats, les premiers éléments d'une modélisation spatiale du TMV au service de la création d'un outil d'aide à la décision capable de segmenter la ville en zones différenciées en fonction de leurs caractéristiques spatiales, socioéconomiques et politiques et d'adapter les solutions de livraison par zones seront proposés. / With the spread of new technologies and the advent of economic and social changes, the volume of parcels has grown in France. Parcel deliveries in cities have similarly experienced an important increase. Deliveries have become more and more complex because of changing client patterns, urban constraints and cities' concerns for sustainability. The growing complexity of the ‘last mile' delivery poses economic, organizational, environmental and political challenges to parcel providers. Putting the spatial organization of cities back at the heart of the creation of new logistics organizations and integrating spatial studies to urban logistics techniques and tools, in particular in modelling, can be means of innovation. Until now spatial studies have been largely under-used in UF. This study will provide an in-depth analysis of the relationships between urban spatial organization, urban form and UF. Based on those results, the thesis provides the first elements of a spatial urban freight modelling approach. The modelling approach will enable the creation of a decision support tool able to identify homogeneous urban zones based on urban form, economic and political characteristics in order to offer the most suitable delivery solution to each zone of a city.

Den svenska marknaden för paketleveranser är en marknad i ständig expansion. Med e-handelns tillväxt har antalet varor som skickas från företag till privatpersoner ökat explosionsartat de senaste åren, samtidigt som konsumenternas preferenser ändrats. Ökningen har ställt helt nya krav på leveransföretagen, samtidigt som den inneburit möjligheter för nya företag att etablera sig på marknaden. Syftet med detta arbete är att analysera marknaden för paketleveranser till privatpersoner i Sverige. Vi riktar in oss på e-handlares prissättning på leveranser och konsumenters möjlighet att välja olika leveransalternativ. Analysen görs utifrån Structure-Conduct-Performance-modellen. Genomförandet består av tre olika metoder. Vi gör en kartläggning av leveransföretagen och deras olika leveransalternativ, en egen undersökning av pris och valfrihet samt en enkätundersökning till olika aktörer på marknaden. Vi drar den huvudsakliga slutsatsen att det råder informationsasymmetrier på marknaden som gör att e-handelsföretag har möjlighet att ta ut överpriser på leveranser gentemot sina konsumenter. Vi drar också slutsatsen att konsumenters valfrihet av leveransalternativ är begränsad – trots att antalet leveransföretag är större än någonsin. Vidare konstateras att det råder stark avtalsintegration på marknaden och att flera faktorer talar för att leveransföretagen såväl som e-handelsföretagen besitter marknadsmakt. På grund av detta identifierar vi en risk att konkurrensen och därmed valfriheten försämras på sikt.