Last-Mile Delivery and Urban Air Pollution: A Systematic Literature Review

The rapid growth of e-commerce has intensified last-mile delivery (LMD) activities in cities; however, LMD’s contribution to urban air pollution remains insufficiently quantified compared with broader traffic studies. This systematic review, reported in accordance with the PRISMA 2020 statement, examined 25 peer-reviewed studies published between 2016 and 2026 and indexed in the Web of Science, Scopus and PubMed databases, and presents them in an original synthesis. This synthesis highlights environmental injustice through socio-spatial analyses and simulation studies, while presenting the advantages of electrification within the framework of innovative models and operational processes. Furthermore, this study highlights the inadequacy of assessments focused solely on air pollution and presents the reader with literature outputs and original interpretations related to key targets under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs 3, 9, 10, 11, 13, and 17). Additionally, it draws attention to gaps in the literature and offers recommendations. These shortcomings are particularly significant for rapidly urbanizing economies like Türkiye, where the growth of e-commerce has outpaced the development of logistics infrastructure. The synthesized findings indicate that multimodal, systematically restructured delivery networks—rather than electrification alone—tend to emerge as a promising and effective path toward sustainable urban logistics aligned with SDG 11.