Smart indoor logistics (SIL): technology, business, and acceptance

With the introduction of automated vehicles, new possibilities for safer, greener, and more efficient logistics emerge. This will have benefits not just for the logistics industry, but for society as a whole. Building the knowledge gained in the ACTED project (Autonomous and Connected Trucks for Electric Distribution), we realize that the main bottlenecks in delivery is the last mile, where benefits of scaling, aggregation, and bundling are not present. In addition, due to the limited scale, the business cases are less well understood. Combined, this leads to severe inefficiencies in the last mile of logistics. It is our hypothesis that automation can mitigate these inefficiencies, especially for large traffic generators (such as malls, hospitals, industrial zones, campuses, offices and large residential buildings).