Overview
Caused by increasing online shops and the tight networking of the business world, requirement for transportation of small goods grew in private sector and in the area of operations. Fast transports over short distances take an important part in B2B-sector. When talking about the private sector flexibility in delivery and pick up service attach much importance (e.g. required attendance). If the first attempt of delivery failed, the second one also is often not successful and that leads to deposition. This means an additional and unproductive traffic circulation with the equivalent environmental impact. Especially in (sub)urban areas the percentage of sustainable and active humans is quite high. Public transport like the Wiener Linien transport about 2,5 Mio passengers per day. 40% of transactions are done by public transport, 33% by foot or bike. These numbers show the potential using the daily, sustainable active form of mobility for transportation of small goods.
Goal: The project GutZuFuß wants to analyse if and under which conditions the already existing active and sustainable mobility is able to fuse with the need of transporting small goods.
The scenarios of implementation should be: Persons who are able to transport goods on their daily route have to register in a system. After that they can be located on selected routes or generate the best way via route planner. If a person wants to send a package, she has to insert the possible time frame and the favoured place for pick up in the system. Automatically the nearest person will be located, if the pick-up and delivery point is located on his route and a contact between this two people will be established. Next to the B2B services this system also works for the last mile. The target of the project GutZuFuß is to find out if the consumer demand for it is high enough and how such a system has to be assembled to work reliably.
Method: First, all scenarios for which the system can be used have to be defined (e.g. B2B services, delivery service at a special time directly home, delivery of daily shopping for people with constrained movement). The demand will be estimated by scientific methods of valuation. To learn of the personal experiences from operators of similar ongoing or failed projects, operators will be consulted. To offer an attractive, reliable service with a high demand, the customer´s interests have to be in focus. Private and business people will be interviewed about their needs and requests in relation to this service feature and about their acceptance to use such a system. Personal interviews for example in shopping centre and online interviews will be done. At once conversations with representatives of different professions will be hold.
Provider for transports also have to be contacted to get to know their requirements and willingness to develop an attractive reliable system. This will be detected via surveys and other methods like interviews with experts. The next step is the analysation of legal restrictions and problems that might occur. All these findings are important to estimate if the system is realisable and if yes, do define what has to be done to implement this project. The result and additional benefit of GutZuFuß is a clear statement, if a system of transporting small goods by using still existing, sustainable mobility in urban and suburban areas is realisable and if yes which frame conditions are necessary to specify the requirement of research and development.