Take the bus, take the package with you – how crowdshipping is reducing the impact of millions of deliveries

With the growth of e-commerce, 161 billion packages were shipped worldwide in 2022, doubling in just four years. In Australia, more households are shopping online than ever before. In 2023, 5.6 million households made a monthly purchase online. This means that millions of packages are shipped each month.

High emission diesel powered vans or trucks almost everything last-mile or door-to-door parcel deliveries. In cities, these vehicles contribute to traffic jams, parking problems, carbon emissions and air pollution. So how can we reduce the environmental impact of all these deliveries?

Using low-emission vehicles, such as electric delivery vans powered by renewable energy sources, can certainly support. However, electric delivery vans and trucks are still sporadic. Their global share of sales in 2023 was just under 5%Increasing the number of car chargers powered by renewable energy will also take time.

To complement the transition to cleaner vehicles, short-term solutions could include optimizing delivery organizations as well as more groundbreaking ideas. One such idea is Crowdshipping.

The concept applies crowdsourcing to delivery services. Members of the public choose to deliver packages as they travel. In this way, crowdshipping integrates passenger and freight transport to improve urban traffic.

How does crowdshipping work?

Crowdshipping leverages the “crowd” to deliver packages. Instead of having dedicated couriers, we can connect people with packages destined for destinations that are close to where they are already headed, with minimal detours.

The concept uses existing transport capacity. Crowdshippers already travel privately in their own vehicles or by public transport, or even by bike or on foot. Through a service matching platform such as Roadie Or DoorDashCrowdshipping participants can receive compensation for transporting parcels along the way.

In cities with good public transport and high levels of employ, passengers can manually carry compact parcels through the network. Automatic parcel lockers installed at stations can serve as mini-distribution centres where passengers pick up and drop off parcels.

What are the benefits?

We modeled crowdshipping in Singapore. The city has an excellent public transport system that is used almost 60% of commuters.

Algorithms were developed to match parcel selection to available passengers based on origin and destination. The simulation used real data sets of daily parcel deliveries from Singapore’s road network and public transport journeys.

The simulation showed that crowdshipping can have many benefits. By outsourcing only 11% of package deliveries to crowdshippers riding public buses, the e-commerce carrier will need fewer delivery vehicles. Delivery vehicle distances are reduced by 20%, and emissions are reduced.

And even after paying crowdshipping participants, the carrier will benefit from the savings.

What practical obstacles must be overcome?

There are several practical issues to consider.

For starters, would passengers be willing to deliver packages? questionnaire potential crowdshipping participants received a positive response.

Motivated by the chance to earn some money while traveling, most passengers surveyed said they were willing to serve as crowdshippers. They were especially willing if they were paid one to two times more for the ride.

Next, could transporting parcels on public transport cause additional traffic jams or delays during rush hour? We should avoid adding more cargo to crowded buses or trains.

We have investigated limiting crowdshipping to off-peak hours and found good availability of potential crowdshippers to deliver packages. Many public transport systems tend to have excess capacity during these times, so using that to move packages is feasible.

Finally, there is a need to assure parcel senders, carriers and recipients that the service is reliable. The service platform should be designed to develop and maintain accountability and trust among users. The system would need to be able to verify identity and track the status of the shipment.

Crowdshipping using public transport would be ideal for cities with good public transport networks and high ridership. Similar to outsourcing to a logistics provider, carriers can explore using people movements to supplement their regular deliveries.

Cities need up-to-date solutions to make urban mobility sustainable. Integrating passenger and freight transport can make logistics operations in cities more capable. By conducting data-driven transport modeling and simulations, we can explore ideas like crowdshipping, design trials to test them, and bring them closer to reality.

This article is based on research conducted under the supervision of Dr Meijing Zhang of the Singapore University of Technology and Design.