State of the art - Automated micro-vehicles for urban logistics

The current discussion of automated vehicles mainly focuses on road-based passenger cars. However, automated micro-vehicles for delivery purposes might be more lucrative and even earlier available on the market. Until now, limited research is available about the global development of automated micro-vehicles for urban logistics. This paper conducts a market analysis on them to gain knowledge about the state of the art in respect to application, business model, and technical set-up. This study identifies 39 automated micro-vehicles. Their specific fields of application are still under test, but they focus on food/grocery delivery, post/parcel delivery, maintenance service, spare parts supply, delivery service for local shops, and mobile sales room services. We furthermore developed a classification dividing automated micro-vehicles by infrastructure (road, non-road), vehicle (delivery robot, bicycle) and human role. The analysis of the technical equipment shows, that the technical set-up between vehicle classes differs greatly due to different fields of application and infrastructure used.