Driverless multipurpose vehicles (DMVs) are an emerging vehicle concept for urban heavy-duty transport. However, little is known about their effect on urban road transport systems. Thus, the aim of this study is to analyse the total fleet energy consumption of DMVs for specific transport operations in urban logistics compared to heavy- duty battery and combustion vehicles. A novel electric vehicle routing problem was used to simulate in total 96 case-studies of operations with varying network and vehicle fleet properties. We found that the combustion vehicle fleets consumed significantly more energy for the same operation compared to the electric vehicle fleets. Although the DMV fleet and battery electric vehicle fleet showcased similar energy consumption for most case-studies, there were several operations where the DMV fleet consumed less energy and required a smaller fleet size. This study highlights the potential benefits of DMV fleets in urban logistics operations in terms of reducing total fleet energy consumption and fleet size.
QC 20240301