A review of collaborative strategies in last-mile logistics from an urban sustainability perspective

In recent years, globalization, technological developments, and the growth of e-commerce transactions have increased the demand for logistics activities. Increasing demands affect logistics activities at all stages of supply chains, particularly the final stage, where delivery to customers occurs in urban areas. This stage, known as last-mile logistics, is not only the most expensive and inefficient part of supply chains, but also causes many problems, including increased freight mobility in urban areas, traffic congestion, parking issues, air and noise pollution, and carbon emissions. Reducing these economic and environmental costs is important for sustainable urban development. The sustainability of a city depends on its economic self-sufficiency, the living standards of its population under equal and fair conditions, and sensitive practices in environmental and waste management. Today, in addition to the traditional last-mile logistics practices of delivering the package to the customer's home/office, there are many new practices (delivery via parcel locker, drone delivery, robot delivery, micro-depot usage, urban consolidation center usage, pick-up/drop-off point, click-and-collect, crowd-sourcing, etc.) to overcome the mentioned drawbacks and manage the process more effectively and efficiently. Collaborative applications for these novel delivery methods are increasing day by day in order to minimize the costs of logistics service providers, facilitate customers' access to service, and thus improve customer satisfaction. In this study, we investigate different novel last-mile logistics methods in the literature and in practice that have been implemented with collaborative strategies. Among the 43 studies reviewed, urban consolidation centers, parcel lockers, and PUDO points emerged as the most frequently considered collaborative models. The advantages of the collaboration strategies and the barriers to their development are presented, and researchers, practitioners, and city managers are guided in developing new policies and strategies.