Acceptance of crowd-sourced delivery tasks using diverse transportation mode options

The increase in E-commerce has led to substantial demand for parcel delivery across the world that courier companies have to deploy more dedicated delivery vehicles to satisfy the demand. The emission and congestion caused by these vehicles, especially in dense urban areas, exacerbate in the future if not dealt with timely. Crowd-Sourced Delivery (CSD) can be seen as a means to offset part of the delivery demand dealt with by commercial couriers. Within this system, the ordinary travelers are proposed to deliver a parcel during their pre-planned trips. In order to minimize the environmental footprint of parcel deliveries, it would be ideal for CSD tasks to be accepted while using active and public transportation. (Empirical) studies, so far, have mainly focused on one particular transportation mode when offering CSD tasks. This approach prevents identifying the relative potential of modes in the full mobility system. The aim of this study is therefore to broaden our understanding regarding potential of different modes in facilitating CSD adoption. For the operational feasibility of the service, we proposed to integrate CSD within Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) framework. In the context of CSD-MaaS integration, it is expected that potential crowd-shippers adopting different transportation modes exhibit varying preferences regarding CSD tasks they are being allocated due to distinct features associated with various modes. To understand the willingness of travelers to accept a CSD task across different transportation modes, and features of CSD tasks suitable for users of different modes, in this study a stated choice experiment was designed in which the respondents were allowed to simultaneously choose transportation modes and evaluate parcel delivery tasks. An error component mixed logit model was employed to assess the effects of various transportation and parcel related factors on travelers’ decisions while accounting for the correlation between transportation modes with similar features. The results indicate that the willingness to accept a parcel delivery task varies significantly across transportation modes. Car-based modes, particularly private cars, were the most preferred, while sustainable modes such as private (E-)bikes and public transport demonstrated notable potential. Conversely, emerging shared mobility modes were less favored as carriers in CSD. Additionally, delivery task characteristics, travel contexts, and socio-demographic factors significantly influenced the decision to accept a delivery task, with varying effects across transportation modes. These findings provide critical insights for transportation planners and transport operators, contributing to the development of more sustainable and efficient last-mile delivery solutions.