The Energy Implications of Drones for Package Delivery: A Geographic Information System Comparison

Drones, if used to deliver small packages, will compete with traditional trucks that are currently responsible for deliveries, including handling of larger items and managing difficult delivery situations. Because drones and trucks use different amounts of energy and are suited to very different routing strategies, this raises the question of how such a shift might be expected to change the overall energy consumption required for package delivery. This report provides a simple simulation of the total energy-use impact of shifting the most suitable (lightest total weight) 20 percent of the United Parcel Service (UPS) package delivery stops in Minneapolis from traditional UPS trucks to delivery drones. The reduced number of stops would allow for a smaller truck fleet delivering to fewer service areas. This preliminary study uses a very limited data set derived from a National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) study of conventional and hybrid delivery vans in Minneapolis (Lammert and Walkowicz, 2012). While the numbers and calculations in this preliminary study are rough, the analysis supports the idea that the energy requirements for truck and drone delivery for small packages are of the same order of magnitude and, thus, shifting some deliveries to drones would not have a major impact on the energy intensity of package delivery. However, it would shift this energy from diesel-burning trucks to electric drones, which might have a beneficial impact on the carbon footprint of package delivery until the delivery truck fleet can be converted to lower-carbon fuels.

• Record URL:
  https://doi.org/10.7249/RR1718.1
• Record URL:
  https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR1700/RR1718z1/RAND_RR1718z1.pdf
• 
• Summary URL:
  https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1718z1.html
• Corporate Authors:

  RAND Corporation

  1776 Main Street, P.O. Box 2138
  Santa Monica, CA  United States  90407-2138
• Authors:
  • Gulden, Timothy R
• Publication Date: 2017

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; Maps; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 23p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Delivery service; Drones; Energy consumption; Greenhouse gases; Package service
• Subject Areas: Aviation; Energy; Environment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01648444
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Oct 14 2017 4:34PM