The accelerating growth of urban populations, rapid city expansion, and inadequacies in transportation infrastructure have exacerbated traffic congestion and environmental burdens in metropolitan areas. These challenges have intensified the demand for sustainable mobility strategies, with electric vehicles emerging as a central component of urban decarbonization and efficiency initiatives. In this study, a structured multi-criteria decision-making framework was established to determine the most suitable electric vehicle for courier services. The framework was developed using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), which enables the systematic evaluation of both criteria and sub-criteria and provides a robust mechanism for prioritizing alternatives. To enhance reliability, the model was implemented and validated using Expert Choice software, allowing for consistency testing and sensitivity analysis. Three categories of electric vehicles—electric cars, electric scooters, and electric bicycles—were assessed against a comprehensive set of decision factors encompassing economic, operational, environmental, and infrastructural dimensions. The resulting preference weights indicated that electric cars (0.387) represent the most suitable option for courier services under the evaluated conditions, followed closely by electric scooters (0.316) and electric bicycles (0.297). The ranking highlights the relative advantages of electric cars in balancing load capacity, operational flexibility, and environmental impact, while also reflecting the growing feasibility of scooters and bicycles for last-mile delivery. By offering a transparent and replicable approach to alternative vehicle selection, this research contributes to the optimization of courier logistics and the promotion of environmentally responsible transportation systems in congested urban environments. The methodological framework developed in this study may be adapted for broader applications in sustainable transport planning and fleet management, supporting policy-makers and practitioners in achieving urban sustainability objectives.
Simović et al. (Fri,) studied this question.