Transportation Research Part E xxx (2017) xxx–xxx

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Transportation Research Part E

j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w . e l s ev i e r . c o m / lo c a t e / t r e

Assessing the impacts of collection-delivery points to

individual’s activity-travel patterns: A greener last mile
alternative?
⇑
Chengxi Liu a, , Qian Wang b, Yusak O. Susilo c,d
a
Division of Traffic Analysis and Logistics, Swedish Road and Transport Research Institute, Teknikringen 10, 100 44 Stockholm, Sweden
b WSP Analys & Strategi, Arenavägen 7, 121 88 Stockholm-Globen, Sweden
c Department of Transport Science, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Teknikringen 72, 100 44 Stockholm, Sweden
d
Division of System Analysis and Economics, Department of Transport Science, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Teknikringen 10, 100 44 Stockholm, Sweden

article info abstract

Article history: The transport impacts of collection-delivery points (CDPs), as an alternative to home deliv-ery, are rarely
Received 20 February 2017 studied. As e-shopping becomes increasingly popular, trips to collect deliv-eries at CDP, especially by car
Received in revised form 30 June 2017 travel, may generate a considerable amount of external effects, such as emissions. Therefore, this paper
Accepted 9 August 2017 Available online
analysed the ‘‘picking up/leaving goods” trips selected from the Swedish National Travel Survey and jointly
xxxx
modelled the individu-als’ mode choice and trip chaining decisions using a panel cross-nested logit model.
The roles of trip chain characteristics, individual socio-demographics and land use characteris-tics on each
Keywords:
trip chain and mode choice combination are investigated. The results indicate observed and unobserved
Collection-delivery trip
heterogeneities of trip chaining and mode choice decisions among populations. Young adults living with
Panel cross nested logit model
Mode choice partners/spouses, single adults with children and partnered adults with children have the preference of using
Trip chaining cars in collection-delivery trips compared to other life-cycle groups. A sensitivity analysis is carried out to
estimate the effect of distance to CDPs on vehicle kilometres travelled. The calibrated model is used to
estimate the VKT of collection-delivery trips in the greater Stockholm area. The results indicate a 22.5%
reduction of VKT from collection-delivery trips by relocating 5% CDPs from urban areas to suburban and
rural areas.

2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

The increasing internet shopping in the form of B-C and C-C commerce has boosted the manufacturing industry as well as the logistic
industry. It also leads to a growing amount of logistic delivery vehicles (e.g. trucks, vans) in residential areas, causing considerable congestion
effects and emissions. It is well-known that this last mile of home delivery in the whole logistic chain causes disproportionately high transport
costs for the logistic provider and also significant external effects to urban areas.

The collection-delivery points (CDPs) strategy has therefore emerged as an efficient alternative solution for home delivery failures (Browne,
2001; Browne et al., 2001; Boyer et al., 2009). By diverting the failed packages from carrier depots to CDPs, Song et al. (2009) found that
consumers’ travel costs in the UK were reduced by 90% and carrier’s processing costs were also significantly reduced. CDP as an alternative
method of collecting and delivering packages is relatively new compared to

⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: chengxi.liu@vti.se (C. Liu), qian.wang@wspgroup.se (Q. Wang), yusak.susilo@abe.kth.se (Y.O. Susilo).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tre.2017.08.007
1366-5545/ 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article in press as: Liu, C., et al. Assessing the impacts of collection-delivery points to individual’s activity-travel patterns: A greener last mile
alternative? Transport. Res. Part E (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tre.2017.08.007
2 C. Liu et al. / Transportation Research Part E xxx (2017) xxx–xxx

traditional home-delivery, and the network of CDP is growing rapidly in many European cities. Weltevreden (2008) studied the network of CDP
in Netherlands and found that only 18.5% of all sampled Dutch e-shoppers had used CDP in 2006. The French network has, from 2008 to 2012,
grown by 67% and CDP deliveries accounted approximately 20% of all parcel deliv-eries by 2012 (Morganti et al., 2014). Sweden is however an
exception since collecting/dropping off package at CDP has long been a common practice, presumably due to the high cost (mainly labour cost)
of last-mile home deliveries in Sweden. Sev-eral carriers have built their large and dense CDPs networks in Sweden (PTS, 2015). As the network
of CDP keeps growing, it is becoming more accessible and attractive for customers to collect and delivery packages at CDPs. However, the
number of trips to and from CDPs is therefore increasing considerably. In Sweden, nearly 57% of all packages transported by Postnord (one of
the largest Swedish carriers) are delivered to its CDPs (E-barometern, 2013).

There is a significant body of research in assessing the impact of e-shopping on personal travel and freight transport (Sim and Koi, 2002;
Bhat et al., 2003; Weltevreden, 2007). Nuzzolo et al. (2014) integrated e-shopping scenarios in the urban goods modelling and found that e-
shopping can limit the increasing car usage for shopping mobility. However, few studies have been made to reveal the transport effect from
collecting/delivering packages to/from CDPs. Gonzalez-Feliu et al. (2012) compared the traffic impact of traditional shopping, home delivery
and CDPs strategies in urban areas. Their simulation results showed a mix consisting of home delivery and proximity CDP is the best solution. In
the handbook of E-commerce and urban freight distribution BESTUFS (2001), both transport increasing and reducing factors by different
logistic solutions were summarized. Collecting/delivering packages to/from CDPs can reduce traffic if they are at a regularly visited location.
Meanwhile, more traffic can be generated if such trips induce an increasing car usage. Some have studied the transport impacts of CDPs as an
alternative to failed home deliveries and estimated the travel cost that is saved by travelling to CDPs instead of carriers’ depots. Many have
found that, if CDPs are located in the proximity of residential areas, an insignificant additional personal travel is needed to pick up a failed
delivery at CDPs (McKinnon and Tallam, 2003; Fernie and McKinnon, 2004; McLeod et al., 2006). Their results are based on the pick-up of
failed deliveries, and they assume all CDPs are close to residential areas.

However, there are still only individual studies that investigates the transport impact of the collection-delivery trips per se, i.e., how
individuals choose to drive or not drive to CDPs and to schedule or not schedule the collection-delivery trips with other trips. The stated
preference study by McLeod et al. (2006) revealed that 43% of their respondents preferred to travel by car to and from a CDP. The car share is
39% in the pilot study by Esser and Kurte (2006) and 80% of their respondents chained the collection-delivery trips with other trips. However,
most of those studies so far are limited to a descriptive level. It is expected that the individual’s socio-demographics and land use characteristics
near the CDPs etc. may also influence the individuals’ travel patterns. Several studies (e.g. Dong et al., 2012) have shown clear heterogeneity in
terms of mode choice of shopping trips over different socio-demographic groups and different types of land use. To what extent the travel
patterns of collection-delivery trips are influenced by those factors are to this day rarely studied and largely unknown. Moreover, the energy cost
and external effects by collection-delivery trips can be substantial and are mainly subject to the individuals’ tra-vel choices, e.g. the individual
may prefer to collect/deliver packages at CDPs by car. However, this part of externalities from the demand side is usually ignored in most studies
assessing last mile delivery strategies. It is important to estimate the energy cost and external effects by understanding and modelling the travel
patterns of collection-delivery trips since the benefit of CDPs (reducing the transport cost of logistic companies) can potentially be offset by
externalities generated from customers collecting/delivering packages at CDPs.

This paper therefore aims to develop a behavioural model in order to assess costumers’ travel choices for collecting/drop-ping off deliveries
at CDPs. Two major travel behaviour variables are modelled, mode choice and trip chaining. Using the selected collection-delivery trips from the
Swedish National Travel Survey, this study first presents the mode choice and trip chaining patterns under different conditions (e.g. individual
socio-demographic, departure time, etc.). Furthermore, the mode choice and trip chaining decisions are jointly modelled by a panel cross nested
logit model. The cross nested structure offers a more flexible covariance structure compared to a traditional nested logit model, by allowing the
alternatives to belong to more than one nest. The panel effect takes into account the fact that collection-delivery trips (outbound trip and
homebound trip) are made by the same individual. The model estimation provides several insights on the key determi-nants of joint mode choice
and trip chaining decisions. More importantly, the estimation results will be used for assessing the effectiveness of CDP network to lower the
energy cost and external effects of collection-delivery trips in Stockholm.

The next section describes the details of the datasets and the distribution of mode choice and trip chaining patterns. In Section 3, we present
the model framework and specification of panel cross nested logit model. In Section 4, the model esti-mation results and the marginal effects are
presented. In Section 5, a sensitivity analysis is conducted to examine the influ-ence of different location choices of CDPs to the mode share and
vehicle kilometres travelled (VKT). In Section 6, a case study is introduced to evaluate the VKT of collection-delivery trips in Stockholm
County. Finally, in Section 7, this paper is con-cluded by summarizing the findings from the previous sections.

2. The Swedish National Travel Survey

The data used in this study comes from the 2011 to 2013 Swedish National Transport Survey (NTS) datasets. The NTS data is a one-day
travel diary data, in which a trip is completed once an activity has been carried out at the travel destination. The datasets cover all major
municipalities in Sweden from all days of the week and from every week of the year. All trips taken by respondents on the observed days were
recorded, including the main travel mode, travel purpose, location of departure

Please cite this article in press as: Liu, C., et al. Assessing the impacts of collection-delivery points to individual’s activity-travel patterns: A greener last mile
alternative? Transport. Res. Part E (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tre.2017.08.007
 C. Liu et al. / Transportation Research Part E xxx (2017) xxx–xxx 3

and destination, departure and arrival time, etc., as well as individual and household characteristics (Algers, 2001). Trips with the purpose of
‘‘picking up/leaving things” and where the destinations are neither home nor the work place were selected for this analysis. Both outbound (go to
CDP) and homebound trips (back from CDP) are selected. The fact that the selected trips are not necessarily trips with the purpose of picking up
or leaving deliveries at CDPs is not relevant for our study. However, this analysis builds upon the assumption that the underlying key
determinants of travel patterns of collection-delivery trips are similar to those of other kinds of ‘‘picking up/leaving things” trips (e.g. picking up
a package from a friend’s home). In the following paper, the term ‘‘collection-delivery trips” will be used to refer to the sampled ‘‘picking up/
leaving things trips” in order to avoid misunderstanding.

In total, 1458 ‘‘completed” trips were selected from NTS dataset. The general descriptive statistics of those trips are shown in Table 1. The
corresponding profile of shopping trips and all trips are also presented.

Table 1
Profile of travellers analysed in this study (standard deviation in parenthesis).

Variables of interest Collection- Shopping All trips in

delivery trips trips NTS
Characteristics of the trips
Travel mode
Walking and cycling trips 23.0% 28.7% 31.8%
Car and car passenger trips 70.9% 64.6% 55.2%
Public transport trips 4.0% 5.6% 9.7%
Trips with other modes 2.1% 1.1% 3.2%
Departure time
Trips departure at morning peak 7:00–9:00 7.8% 2.4% 13.8%
Trips departure before lunch 9:00–12:00 23.1% 27.5% 17.0%
Trips departure in the afternoon 12:00–17:00 40.9% 47.2% 36.8%
Trips departure in the afternoon peak 17:00–19:00 17.5% 15.3% 15.4%
Trips departure in the night-time 9.7% 5.1% 14.8%
Travel distance (km) 11.58 8.79 18.2
(34.31) (21.80) (121.6)
Travel time (min) 18.29 16.53 27.38
(27.00) (22.87) (46.69)

Characteristics of the trip chaining

Trip chain types
Simple go-back trip chains with collection-delivery as main purpose 51.2% / /
Trip chains containing collection-delivery trip and the main purpose is go to/back from work 7.9% / /
Trip chains containing collection-delivery trip and the main purpose is routine or leisure (not 27.2% / /
including collection-delivery)
Chains containing collection-delivery trip and other trips while the main purpose is ‘‘collection- 13.7% / /
delivery”
Departure time of the trip chain
Trip chains departure at morning peak 7:00–9:00 13.3% 6.0% 17.6%
Trip chains departure before lunch time 9:00–12:00 29.4% 37.0% 21.7%
Trip chains departure in the afternoon 12:00–17:00 35.6% 39.0% 33.9%
Trip chains departure in the afternoon peak 17:00–19:00 13.1% 12.9% 14.2%
Trip chains departure in the night-time 7.5% 2.9% 10.4%
Travel distance of the entire trip chain (km) 35.0 32.9
(64.7) (135.6)

Characteristics of samples’ socio-demographics

Gender
Male 50.3% 45.8% 49.6%
Female 49.7% 54.2% 50.4%
Life cycle groups
Youth (age <17) 5.8% 7.5% 14.1%
Young adult single living (age 18–34) 8.1% 6.4% 7.1%
Young adult living with partner/spouse 17.1% 12.4% 15.1%
Adult (age 35–64) single living with child (age 0–18) 4.5% 2.5% 2.7%
Adult living with partner/spouse with child 20.4% 19.2% 22.1%
Adult single living without child 7.0% 8.9% 7.1%
Adult living with partner/spouse without child 13.2% 18.2% 16.4%
Older travellers (age >64) 23.3% 24.5% 14.6%
Household car ownership
Households with no car 7.8% 14.4% 11.5%
Households with only one car 52.1% 51.4% 48.4%
Households with more than one car 39.1% 34.2% 40.1%

Note: shopping trips refer to all kinds of shopping, e.g. grocery shopping and buying furniture.

Please cite this article in press as: Liu, C., et al. Assessing the impacts of collection-delivery points to individual’s activity-travel patterns: A greener last mile
alternative? Transport. Res. Part E (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tre.2017.08.007
4 C. Liu et al. / Transportation Research Part E xxx (2017) xxx–xxx

In Table 1, a trip chain is defined as a series of trips with the departure location of the first trip and arrival location of the last trip both at
home. Therefore, a simple go-back trip chain denotes two trips, outbound (go-) and homebound (-back), to/ from the CDP, while a work trip
chain with collection-delivery trip is a sequence of trips starting from home and traveling to work place and then back home with a collection-
delivery trip either on the way to work or on the way back from home. The main purpose of a trip chain is directly answered by the respondent
and recorded in the survey. If the respondent did not answer the main purpose, then the purpose of the trip with longest distance in the respective
trip chain will be adopted as the main purpose. As shown in Table 1, 70.9% of the sampled ‘‘picking up/leaving things” trips were completed by
car modes (either car driver or car passenger), while that number of all sampled trips are 55.2%. This indicates that car was even more preferred
in collection-delivery trips compared to ‘‘shopping” trips and trips with other purposes. 51.1% of the trips were simple go-back trips which
indicates that 51.1% of the trips were simply just to pick up/drop off packages. Those trips happened more often before lunch time and less often
in morning peak hours, compared to trips with other purposes. Among different socio-demographic groups, older travellers and young adults
living with partner/spouse had a higher share of ‘‘picking up/leaving things” trips than other travellers. This may imply that individuals from
these two life-cycle groups more frequently conducted such trips than other groups. Similarly, the share of ‘‘households without a car” in the
sample is 4% smaller than that of the entire sample. However, it is worth noting that the data does not contain any information regarding the
characteristics of deliveries, e.g. the weight of the delivery, which can significantly influence the mode and trip chaining choices. On the other
hand, some socio-demographic variables may indirect capture some of the effects of characteristics of deliveries. Further interpretation of the
effects of socio-demographic variables need to be done with caution.

3. Model formulation

This paper focuses on the individual decisions of trip chaining and mode choice of collection-delivery trips. Existing lit-erature illustrates a
close relationship between trip chaining behaviour and mode choice. For instance, private cars are the preferred mode in complex trip chains (Ye
et al., 2007). Therefore, a panel cross nested logit model is developed to jointly model trip chaining and mode choice behaviour. As discussed
above, simple go-back collection-delivery trips by car may be associated with high emissions as both the outbound trip and homebound trip are
generated just for collecting delivery. The cross nested structure belongs to the family of Generalised Extreme Value (GEV) model which relaxes
the IIA assump-tions of the traditional Multinomial logit model (MNL). In this study, the additional individual error term is added to com-
pensate for the panel effect since more than one trip (mostly two trips: outbound and homebound) were made by the same individual in the
sample data.

Four trip chain categories are defined as follows:

simple go-back collection-delivery trip

chaining collection-delivery trip with go to/back from work as the main purpose chaining
collection-delivery trip with routine/leisure as the main purpose
chaining non-collection-delivery trips with collect delivery as the main purpose And four

mode categories are defined:

slow modes (walking or cycling) car

driver or car passenger
public transport
other modes

Therefore, there are in total sixteen combinations of alternatives for trip chaining and mode choice (e.g. simple go-back collection-delivery
trip by car). Assuming that individuals can choose from these sixteen alternatives, the utility of individual n in choosing his/her trip t and his/her
collection-delivery trip in trip chain category ci and choosing mode category mj is then expressed as:

b d
Un;t;ci ;mj ¼ ci Xn;t;c þ cmj Xn;t;m þ ci ;mj Xn;t þ ln;t;ci þ ln;t;mj þ mn;ci ;mj þ en;t;ci ;mj ð1Þ

In Eq. (1), Xn;t;c , Xn;t;m, Xn;t denote the attributes/explanatory variables that are associated with the trip chain characteris-tics in trip t made
by individual n, the mode characteristics in trip t made by individual n and individual characteristics/des-tination characteristics which do not
depend on the trip chain and mode category. A list of attributes/explanatory variables for X n;t;c , Xn;t;m, Xn;t are presented in Table 2.bci , cmj and
dci ;mj are corresponding parameters associated to these three types of
explanatory variables. It is worth noting that b ci is invariant to the mode categories but variant to the trip chain categories. For instance, two
different bci will be estimated for alternative ‘‘simple go-back collection-delivery trip with car mode” and alternative ‘‘routine/leisure trip chain
with car mode” while bci for alternative ‘‘simple go-back collection-delivery trip with car mode” and alternative ‘‘simple go-back collection-
delivery trip with public transport mode” will be identical. Therefore, there will be 18 possible parameters to be estimated for b ci (3 trip chain
categories (the parameters of simple go-back trip

Please cite this article in press as: Liu, C., et al. Assessing the impacts of collection-delivery points to individual’s activity-travel patterns: A greener last mile
alternative? Transport. Res. Part E (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tre.2017.08.007
 C. Liu et al. / Transportation Research Part E xxx (2017) xxx–xxx 5

Table 2
Explanatory variable list.

Variable category Description

Trip chain characteristics in trip t made by individual n:

X n;t;c
Trip chain distance (C)
C_distance The travel distance of the whole trip chain
C_distance_square Square of the travel distance of the whole trip chain
Trip chain departure time (D)
C_morning_peak The first trip of the trip chain departs at morning peak 7:00–9:00
C_before_lunch (reference) The first trip of the trip chain departs before lunch time 9:00–12:00
C_afternoon The first trip of the trip chain departs in the afternoon 12:00–17:00
C_afternon_peak The first trip of the trip chain departs in the afternoon peak 17:00–19:00
C_night The first trip of the trip chain departs at night-time 19:00–7:00

Mode characteristics in trip t made by individual n: Xn;t;m Trip

distance (C)
M_distance Travel distance of the collect delivery trip
M_distance_square Square of the travel distance of the collect delivery trip
Trip departure time (D)
M_morning_peak The collect delivery trip departs at morning peak 7:00–9:00
M _before_lunch (reference) The collect delivery trip departs before lunch time 9:00–12:00
M _afternoon The collect delivery trip departs in the afternoon 12:00–17:00
M _afternon_peak The collect delivery trip departs in the afternoon peak 17:00–19:00
M _night The collect delivery trip departs at night-time 19:00–7:00

Individual/destination characteristics Xn;t

Gender (D)
Male (reference) The traveller is a male
Female The traveller is a female
Life cycle group (D)
Youth The traveller is a youth (age <17)
Single_young_adult The traveller is single living and is a young adult (age 18–34)
Partnered_young_adult The traveller is living with partner/spouse and is a young adult (age 18–34)
Single_adult_child The traveller is single living with child and is an adult (age 35–64)
Partnered_adult_child The traveller is living with partner/spouse and have child while he/she is an adult (age 35–64)

Single_adult_nochild The traveller is single living without child and is an adult (age 35–64)
Partnered_adult_nochild (reference) The traveller is living with partner/spouse without child and he/she is an adult (age 35–64)

Elder The traveller is an elder (age >65)

Household car ownership (D)
HH_no_car (reference) No car in traveller’s household
HH_one_car One car in traveller’s household
HH_more_cars More than one car in traveller’s household
Parking (C)
Parking_cost (sek) Monthly parking cost of the travellers, 0 if he/she does not have a car or has a free parking
Public transport card (D)
PT_card The traveller owns a public transport card
Population density (C)
Population_density The population density at destination municipality
Public transport density (C)
PT_density The public transport density index at destination municipality

Note: C in parenthesis indicates that variables in the corresponding variable group are continuous variables. D in parenthesis indicates that variables in the corresponding variable
group are dummy variables.

chain are fixed at zero for identification purpose) multiplied by 6 explanatory variables in Xn;t;c shown in Table 2). Similarly, cmj is invariant to
the trip chain categories but variant to the mode categories (also 18 possible parameters), while dci ;mj is
variant to both trip chain and mode categories (210 possible parameters, 15 categories multiplied by 14 explanatory vari-ables in Xn;t shown in
Table 2).
ln;t;ci , ln;t;mj , mn;ci ;mj and en;t;ci ;mj comprise the random part of the utility function. ln;t;ci is the random error term which cor-
relates the alternatives with the same trip chain category (e.g. alternative ‘‘simple go-back collection-delivery trip with car mode” and alternative
‘‘simple go-back collection-delivery trip with public transport mode”), and ln;t;mj is the random error
term which correlates the alternatives with the same mode category (e.g. alternative ‘‘simple go-back collection-delivery trip

Please cite this article in press as: Liu, C., et al. Assessing the impacts of collection-delivery points to individual’s activity-travel patterns: A greener last mile
alternative? Transport. Res. Part E (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tre.2017.08.007
6 C. Liu et al. / Transportation Research Part E xxx (2017) xxx–xxx

with car mode” and alternative ‘‘routine/leisure trip chain with car mode”). mn;ci ;mj is the random error term on the individual level which
captures the panel effect but is independent between alternatives. ln;t;ci , ln;t;mj and mn;ci ;mj are assumed normally distributed with zero mean and
unknown variance. en;t;ci ;mj is the random error term that is independent and identically dis-tributed, and is assumed Gumbel distributed. Note
that if either ln;t;ci or ln;t;mj is removed from the model formulation, the cross nested structure collapses to a nested structure. The illustration is
shown in Figs. 1. If ln;t;ci is removed, the model struc-ture will collapse to a nested structure with the upper level mode category (Fig. 1c), while
if ln;t;mj is removed, the mode
structure collapses to a nested structure with the upper level as the trip chain category (Fig. 1b).
Although the cross nested logit model has a closed form probability function, the panel cross nested logit model still requires integration over
the individual level’s error term ( mn;ci ;mj ), thus does not have a closed form probability expression. Therefore, in this paper, the panel cross
nested logit model is formulated as a special case of the panel error component model or panel mixed logit model and is estimated via the
maximum simulated likelihood approach. A detailed description of the maximum simulated likelihood approach can be found in Train (2009).

Let Vn;t;ci ;mj denote the utility part without the iid error term en;t;ci ;mj :
b d
Vn;t;ci ;mj ¼ ci Xn;t;c þ cmj Xn;t;m þ ci ;mj Xn;t þ ln;t;ci þ ln;t;mj þ mn;ci ;mj ð2Þ

Let fcti ; mtj g denote the chosen alternative for trip t of a given individual. The probability of having individual n’s observed choices fc1i;
m1jg fcTin ; mTjn g in his/her Tn observed collection-delivery trips can be expressed as:
þ1 Tn 0 þ1 þ1 e n;t;ci ;mj 1
V t t

Z Z Z f ðl Þf ðl Þdl dl
Pn ¼ 1 t 1B 1 1
eVn;t;ci ;mj n;t;ci n;t;mj n;t;ci n;t;mj
C f ðmn;ci ;mj Þdmn;ci ;mj ð3Þ
¼
Y
B ci C;mj M C
X
B 2 2 C
@ A
where f ð Þ denotes the probability density function. In this study, f ð Þ refers to the univariate normal probability density function. The log-
likelihood function of all observed individual i is then:
N
X

LL ¼log Pn ð4Þ
n¼1

Since the integrals in Eq. (3) do not have a closed form solution, they are approximated by taking draws from the distri-butions of ln;t;ci ,
ln;t;mj and mn;ci ;mj . 400 draws were sampled for each observation in this study. In principal, there are 249
parameters (18 bci , 18 cmj , 210 dci ;mj and 3 standard deviations of ln;t;ci , ln;t;mj and mn;ci ;mj ) that can be estimated given the model
formulation presented above. However, many parameters turned out to be insignificant in the preliminary MNL model specification. The MNL
model specification is the model without ln;t;ci ; ln;t;mj and mn;ci ;mj in Eq. (2). Those insignificant
parameters were eliminated and the panel cross nested logit model was estimated with parameters that are significant in the MNL model. Finally
79 parameters were estimated.
However, the estimated parameters are not directly interpretable, as they represent the variable effects on each utility function however not
the choice probability. Therefore, the marginal effects of each explanatory variable are presented. The marginal effect denotes the change in
probability of each alternative given one unit change of a given explanatory vari-able at the sample mean. The marginal effect and the
corresponding t-statistics were calculated through the following procedure.

Given the estimated parameters, the probability of choosing alternative fci; mjg for individual n in his/her observed collection-delivery trip t
is:

Fig. 1a. The model structure used in this paper.

Please cite this article in press as: Liu, C., et al. Assessing the impacts of collection-delivery points to individual’s activity-travel patterns: A greener last mile
alternative? Transport. Res. Part E (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tre.2017.08.007
 C. Liu et al. / Transportation Research Part E xxx (2017) xxx–xxx 7

Fig. 1b. The model structure if ln;t;mj is removed.

Fig. 1c. The model structure if ln;t;ci is removed.

Vn;t;c
þ1 þ1 þ1 i ;mj
e

Z Z Z P Vn;t;ci ;mj
Pn;t;ci ;mj ¼ 1 1 1 ci 2C;mj 2M e f ðln;t;ci Þf ðln;t;mj Þf ðmn;ci ;mj Þdln;t;ci dln;t;mj dmn;ci ;mj ð5Þ
Given the definition of marginal effect, the marginal effect of explanatory variable X k on alternative fci; mjg for individual n, trip t is:

MX k lim Pn;t;ci ;mj ðXk þ DÞ Pn;t;ci ;mj ðXkÞ 6

n;t;ci ;mj ¼ D 0 ð Þ

! D
where a small value is used for D. The integrals in Eq. (5) are evaluated through simulation using the same draws as in the estimation. The
marginal effect at the sample mean then takes the mean of MXn;kt;ci ;mj over all observations:
Mc ¼n Mn;t;c , 1 ð7Þ
i ;mj 1t 1 i ;mj n 1t 1
N Tn N Tn
Xk XX Xk XX

¼ ¼ ¼ ¼
The standard deviation of MXk , which is used for calculating t-statistics, is derived according to the delta method
c i ;mj
(Greene, 2003). For a set of explanatory variables X, the covariance matrix of M X takes the form of a sandwich estimator:
ci ;mj
T
@McX m @McX m
i; j

! i; j

RM ¼ @b Rb @b ! ð8Þ
where b denotes the vector of all estimated parameters. Rb denotes the estimated covariance matrix of b. The derivative
ð þÞ .
@Mc ;m
X
@McXk;m @
i
@bj
@
@b ð
X
Þ D
i j i j Pn;t;c Xk D
;m Pn;t;ci ;mj k

matrix @b in Eq. (8) is computed analytically given the draws. It is irrelevant that @b ¼
at sample mean, where @Pn;t;ci ;mj ðXk Þ is already available when evaluating derivatives of the log-likelihood function in the model
@b
estimation.
The next section presents the model fit information and the marginal effects at the sample mean of all explanatory vari-ables listed in Table 2
for all sixteen trip chain and mode choice combinations.

4. Model estimation results

The general model fitting information and estimated standard deviations of error terms are shown in Table 3. The mar-ginal effects of all
explanatory variables are presented in Tables 4 and 5 according to the mode categories. As shown in Table 3, both the error terms that correlate
trip chain categories and correlate mode categories are significant at 10% level,

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 8 C. Liu et al. / Transportation Research Part E xxx (2017) xxx–xxx

Table 3
Model information and estimated standard deviations (t-statistics in
parenthesis).

Estimated standard deviations

Trip chain level error term ln;t;ci 0.223 (1.66)
Mode choice level error term ln;t;mj 0.754 (2.96)
Individual level error term mn;ci ;mj 8.214 (10.55)
Model fitting information
Number of observations 1458
Number of individuals 614
Log-likelihood at converge 1412.8
Log-likelihood at zero 4042.4
Log-likelihood for alternative specific constants only 2829.44
Log-likelihood of MNL model 2127.22
McFadden’s rho relative to zero 0.651

indicating that a cross nested structure is more valid than a nested structure. Furthermore, the error term that correlates mode choice categories
exhibits a larger standard deviation compared to the error term in the correlation of trip chain cat-egories. The latter displays a stronger
correlation (nest) at the mode choice level than at the trip chain level. The individual level error term is highly significant, indicating a strong
variation among individuals. The McFadden’s rho reaches 0.651, indicating a reasonable model fit. The log-likelihood of the panel cross nested
logit model at converge is 1412.8 which is much higher than the log-likelihood of the MNL model at 2127.22. Hence, by considering the
correlation amongst alter-natives and the correlation amongst observations, the model fit is greatly improved.

In Tables 4 and 5, the number in each grid represents the marginal effect of a given explanatory variable on each alter-native, mode and trip
chain combination. For instance, in Table 4, given a unit increase (one kilometre increase) of total trip chain distance, the average change in
probability of being a simple go-back collection-delivery trip with a slow mode is, for all sampled trips 0.197% with a t-statistic of 17.9. Given
that there are sixteen alternatives, the results will be interpreted and assigned different mode categories. Special attention is paid to the car mode
which mostly influences the VKT and CO2 emissions.

In terms of trip chain characteristics, a one kilometre increase in the total distance of a trip chain is associated to a slight decrease in the
overall probability of choosing any of the slow modes by 0.025%, and an increase in the overall probability of choosing the car mode by 0.041%.
Trip chain departure time shows insignificant marginal effects on mode categories. The probability of collection-delivery trips being carried out
via slow modes in the morning and afternoon is 1.314% lower and 0.681% lower, respectively, than that just before lunch time. Lower for
morning and afternoon respectively. As expected, the probability of a commute trip chain is higher in the peak hour of the morning. It is worth
noting that the probability of picking-up/leaving delivery by car during the way to/back from work would increase a considerable amount,
11.53%, if the departure time of the trip chain is in morning peak.

In terms of mode characteristics, longer distance for collection-delivery trips as expected corresponds to an increasing probability of choosing
car modes and public transport modes but a decreasing probability of choosing slow modes. For each detailed trip chain category given the mode
category, increasing trip distance shows the largest marginal effect on simple go-back chains and then followed by non-commute chains given
the mode. In other words, those who choose simple go-back trip chain are most likely to change travel mode in response to an increase/decrease
of distance compared to those who do trip chaining. As for car modes, the probability of being a simple go-back car trip would increase by
2.602% given one kilo-metre increase in trip distance, while the probability of being a car trip within a commute/non-commute/collection-
delivery chain is only 0.453%/1.194%/0.648%. These marginal effects of trip distance on simple go-back car trip indicate larger carbon emission
impact if distance from home to CDP is further compared to those chained with other trips. For trip departure time, the probability of choosing
car modes is considerably higher in afternoon peak, 4.361%, than before lunch time, while the probability of choosing slow modes is
considerably lower, 2.731% and that of choosing public transport modes is slightly lower, 0.918%. There is no significant difference between
departing in morning peak and before lunch time.

Both the individual and destination characteristics show significant marginal effects on car modes, indicating that trav-ellers with different
socio-demographics in different land use environments have different preferences over trip chaining and mode choice, provided they have the
same trip distance and departure time. In the case of individual characteristics, women, as expected, have a slightly lower ( 3.269%) car use in
collection-delivery trips compared to men. For individuals in different life cycle groups, the youth, as expected, are less likely (12.64% lower
probability) to use car modes in collection-delivery trips compared to the reference group (adults living with partner/spouse without children).
However, for collection-delivery trips in commute trip chains, even the youth are slightly more likely (2.49% higher probability) to travel by car
com-pared to adults living with partner/spouse without children, presumably providing the partnered adults are passengers. This implies that
parents tend to achieve multiple activities in commute trip chains, such as picking up/dropping off their chil-dren as well as picking up/dropping
off deliveries in one commute chain.

Young adults living single have a lower car use ( 3.033%) than adults living with partner/spouse without children (ref-erence group). young
adults have a considerably high car usage (7.97%) when collection-delivery trips are chained in routine/

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 C. Liu et al. / Transportation Research Part E xxx (2017) xxx–xxx 9
Table 4
Marginal effects in percentage for slow modes and car drivers/passengers (t statistics in parenthesis).

Note: variables ‘‘C_night”, ‘‘M_night” and ‘‘Single_adult_nochild” are eliminated in the parameter selection procedure. Numbers in grey grid are not significant at 10% level.

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10 C. Liu et al. / Transportation Research Part E xxx (2017) xxx–xxx

Table 5
Marginal effects in percentage for public transport and other modes (t statistics in parenthesis).

Note: variables ‘‘C_night”, ‘‘M_night” and ‘‘Single_adult_nochild” are eliminated in the parameter selection procedure. Numbers in grey grid are insignif-icant at 10% level.

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 C. Liu et al. / Transportation Research Part E xxx (2017) xxx–xxx 11

leisure trip chains. This indicates a different trip chaining pattern of collection-delivery trips for those two life-cycle groups. Young adults living
with partner/spouse prefer to collect and deliver packages at CDP on the way to/from locations of routine or leisure activities, while adults living
with partner/spouse without children prefer to do that on the way to/from work places. For adult groups, adults living single with child have a
higher car usage, 19.02%, compared to any other groups. How-ever, the corresponding t-statistic is relatively low, 2.84. This is because only a
few adults living single with child exist in the data (and also in reality compared to adults living with partner/spouse) as well as collection-
delivery trip conducted by this group (though may be due to the sampling error). However, their mode choice and trip chaining patterns in
collection-delivery trips are quite different from the reference group. Similarly, adults living with partner/spouse with child also have higher car
use, 9.43%, than those without child. It is worth noting that adults living with partner/spouse with child use car more in simple go-back
collection-delivery trips, 13.27%, than other trip chain categories, showing that they are a potential target group. Older travellers as expected
have less car usage compared to the reference group.

It is no surprising that individuals from households with cars are more likely to use car and less likely to choose other modes compared to
those from households without a car, particularly for simple go-back trip chains. Equally self-explanatory, those with a public transport card have
a lower car usage, 11.76%, and a higher public transport usage, 17.44%. Increasing monthly parking costs seem to stimulate car usage. However,
this may be due to the self-selection effect, i.e. that those who pay a higher monthly parking fee are more likely to be active car users. Further
introducing a selection model on parking choice can better model the effect of parking cost. However, this is not included in this study due to the
limitation of the data. An increase in population density and public transport density at the destination induces a trend of decreasing car usage
and a trend of increasing public transport usage. Among trip chain categories with car modes, simple go-back trip chains are least preferred in
densely populated areas while chaining collect delivery trips in commute trip chains are slightly more preferred. This echoes the previous studies
(e.g. Schmöcker et al., 2010; Susilo and Maat, 2007; Dharmowijoyo et al., 2015) which found that in dense areas, such as London, Randstad, and
Jakarta, higher density is asso-ciated with more complex trip chaining.

5. Sensitivity analysis

One of the purposes of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of redistribution of CDPs on the vehicle kilometres travelled (VKT). It is
important to know how the mode share and VKT, which are the most important travel variables that influence CO 2 emissions, vary in response
to the variation in distance to CDP varies. Thus, a sensitivity study is conducted by varying the trip distance of the collection-delivery trips. Here
private car is considered the major source generating CO2 emissions so that car trips of different trip chain types are evaluated. Fig. 2 illustrates
the probability of choosing car modes at the sample mean as a function of travel distance from home to CDPs.

As shown in Fig. 2, if the distance to the CDPs decreases by 50% for all sampled trips, the overall probability/share of choosing car modes
decreases by 7% in probability, in which, those chained in routine/leisure trip chains decrease the most, around 3%, and then followed by simple
go-back trip chains. The fact that the probability of choosing car modes in commuter

3%

2%

1%

0%
Changes in probability

-1 %

-2 %

-3 %

-4 %
simple go-back car trips
chained in commute trip chains with car modes
-5 % chained in routine/leisure trip chains with car modes
chained in collect-delivery trip chains with car modes
all trip chain categories with car modes
-6 %

-7 %
-50 % -40 % -30 % -20 % -10 % 0% 10 % 20 % 30 % 40 % 50 %
Changes in travel distance

Fig. 2. Changes in probability of choosing car given the changes in travel distance.

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12 C. Liu et al. / Transportation Research Part E xxx (2017) xxx–xxx

trip chains decreases the least, not even 1%, indicates the insensitivity of distance to CDPs. This reflects the fact that individ-uals who choose to
pick up deliveries on their way to/from work rarely change their mode choice since commute trip is rel-atively stable over time (same destination
and mode choice every day in most cases) and a secondary trip within a commute trip chain would not substantially influence the mode choice of
that commute trip.
The relationship between trip distance and the probability of choosing to travel by car is almost linear when the distance decreases.
Increasing distance, however, corresponds to an increase of probability of choosing car modes, is of smaller mag-nitude in influencing the
probability of choosing car modes compared to a decreasing distance. 50% increase in trip distance would only lead to 3 percentages increase in
probability of choosing car modes. It is worth noting that the probability of simple go-back car trips would decrease given the increasing trip
distance. This may imply that simple go-back trip chains are less preferred, and chaining collect and delivery trips with other trip purposes,
routine/leisure for example, become effi-cient when CDPs become further away. It is also worth noting that the change in probability varies for
different socio-demographic groups and land use characteristic groups. For instance, the change in the probability of car use in urban areas,
where the distance to CDP is smaller than that in rural areas. Those effects are explicitly modelled as explanatory variables.

The estimated probability given the trip distance is also used to calculate the VKT per trip. The samples are weighted by individual weights
to represent the whole population. The VKT per trip at weighted sample mean is calculated according to the following equation:

ð Þ,
VKT ¼ n;t Pn;t;car Dn;t Wn;t n;t Wn;t ð9Þ

X X
Pn;t;car is the estimated probability of choosing car modes for individual n, his/her trip t. Dn;t is the trip distance and Wn;t is sample weights.
The VKT of collection-delivery trips at sample mean by different trip chain categories are presented in Fig. 3.
The results depicted in Fig. 3 are in general similar to the pattern that we have observed in Fig. 2. Among different trip chain categories,
simple go-back trip chains have the greatest slope, which means that VKT produced by simple go-back car trips would reduce the most given a
certain amount of decrease in trip distance. On the other hand, increasing trip distance indicates a slightly decreasing and step-wise trend of VKT
for simple go-back car trips. Again, decreasing trip distance would lead to a considerable amount of decrease in VKT, e.g. 50% decrease in trip
distance corresponds to around 5 km per trip decrease in VKT. On the other hand the increase in trip distance leads to only a small increase in
VKT, e.g. 50% increase in trip distance corresponds to 1.5 km per trip increase in VKT. The result suggests the benefit and potential of
increasing the density of CDPs.

6. Case study in Stockholm County

The calibrated model is used to assess the VKT of collection-delivery trips in Stockholm County. PostNord and DHL are the two of major
logistic service suppliers in Sweden and the geographical coordinates of their operating CDPs are provided. In

13
m
k
(

12 simple go-back trip chains

mean

chained in commute trip chains

chained in routine/leisure trip chains
11
chained in collect-delivery trip chains
all trip chain categories
sample

10

9
weighte

7
d

8
at

6
travelle
d

5
kilometr
es

4
Vehicle

3
1
2

0
-50 % -40 % -30 % -20 % -10 % 0% 10 % 20 % 30 % 40 % 50 %
Changes in travel distance

Fig. 3. Vehicle kilometres travelled per collection-delivery trip at weighted sample mean given the changes in travel distance.

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 C. Liu et al. / Transportation Research Part E xxx (2017) xxx–xxx 13

Fig. 4. The current distribution of CDPs in Stockholm County, overall figure and inner city (grids are traffic zones).

the current scenario, there are 199 DHL CDPs and 239 PostNord CDPs in service in Stockholm County. The spatial distribu-tions of those CDPs
are shown in Fig. 4. Stockholm County is partitioned into 1297 traffic zones which are the analysis unit, marked in Fig. 4. Most CDPs are
concentrated in the urban areas, especially the inner city and few are located in the outskirt, near the railway lines. Such clustering trend is
similar to Seine-et-Marne’s case (Morganti et al., 2014).
To assess the VKT of collection-delivery trips in Stockholm County, a synthetic demand for collecting and delivery pack-ages at CDPs is
generated. It is assumed in this case study that each individual (agent) would have 11 collection-delivery trips per year, which is based on the
statistics from reported E-barometern (2013). Therefore, the first step is to generate a syn-thetic population for traffic zones in the study area.
The synthetic population is generated by sampling individuals from the whole 2011 to 2013 NTS datasets according to the joint distribution of
age and gender in each traffic zone. The joint distri-bution is generated such that the desired marginal distributions of age and gender are
satisfied. However, since the zone information does not include other information, such as the proportion of residences with public transport card
and the pro-portion of residences that pay for the parking, the marginal distributions of that information are therefore not controlled but directly
taken from respondents in NTS datasets. 1.97 million individuals are generated for Stockholm County and assigned to each traffic zone.

In this study, it is assumed that customers in each traffic zone would choose to pick up deliveries at the closest CDP from their homes. The
distance is measured by the real road network between the CDP and the zone centroid. The distance matrix for each zone to its closest CDP is
derived from the google map API service (www.google.se). It is also assumed in this study that all collection-delivery trips departure from home,
although in reality people can collect-deliveries near their workplace. However, this assumption does not lose generality as only a small
proportion of sampled individuals (7.9%) choose to pick up deliveries on their way to/back from work (see Table 1). In fact, individuals’ choices
of CDPs can be treated as stochastic and can be modelled (e.g. individuals can choose the second closest CDP and or closest CDP to their work
place) by applying a destination choice part that predicts individuals’ CDP location choices. However, this is not included in the study.

Given the distance matrix and synthetic population, the model would predict the probability of choosing different modes within different trip
chain categories (totally 16 possible combinations), the expected VKT of each collection-delivery trip t made by individual n is calculated as:

X
EðVKTn;t Þ ¼ Pn;t;car;chaintypei Dt þ Pn;t;car;go backtrip 2Dt ð10Þ i

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14 C. Liu et al. / Transportation Research Part E xxx (2017) xxx–xxx

900 700

800
600
700
500
600

Frequency
500 400
Frequency

400
300
300
200
200

100 100

0 0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350
Zone level VKT (km) x 105
Zone level VKT per individual (km)
(a) Zone level VKT
(b) Zone level VKT per individual per year
Fig. 5. The histogram of zone level VKT and VKT per individual per year.

where i is the trip chain type index, Dt is the distance of the trip given the origin traffic zone and its corresponding CDP. Note that the probability
expression in Eq. (10) is different for different individuals in the zone as individuals in the synthetic pop-ulation have different characteristics,
e.g. age, household type, which affect their likelihood of choosing car and trip chaining. The first term is the part of VKT of go-trips for different
trip chain categories except simple go-back trip chain, while the second term is the VKT of both outbound and homebound trips for the simple
go-back trip chains assuming they take the same route. Therefore, for simple go-back trip chains it is calculated as both VKT from go trip and
back trip are counted while for other types of trip chains, only go trip is counted. The individual trip VKT VKT n;t is then aggregated into zonal
level to assess which traffic zone generates the high VKT. The histogram of zone level VKT per year is presented in Fig. 5.

(a) Base scenario (b) New scenario

Fig. 6. The spatial distribution of VKT per zone in base scenario and new scenario.

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 C. Liu et al. / Transportation Research Part E xxx (2017) xxx–xxx 15

Shown in Fig. 5, most zones are of small VKT (less than 25 km per individual per year, 2.3 km per trip). This indicates that the current
geographical distribution of CDPs seems to provide a good accessibility to the majority. However, the zone with highest VKT reaches 330 km
per individual per year (30 km per trip), indicating that customers in this zone have to drive long distance to their nearest CDPs. The VKT from
top 50 zones with highest VKT consists of 35% of total VKT in Stockholm County. This highlights the potential effectiveness of placing new
CDPs in those zones to reduce VKT. To provide a geograph-ical distribution of VKT, the zonal VKT is divided into 10 groups and displayed in
Fig. 6(a). Green represents a low VKT pro-duced in a zone and yellow a high VKT. Most of zones in the urban area (Stockholm municipality
and its surrounding municipalities) have low VKT while the zones producing high amount of VKT are mostly located in the suburban/rural area
as expected.

Due to the assumption that each traffic zone is served by its closest CDP, there are 25 CDPs in the urban area that are not associated with any
zone and treated as ‘redundant’. Therefore, a new scenario is created to relocate these 25 CDPs to the zones with high VKT, therefore keeping
the same total number of CDPs in the network. However, it is worth noting that the capacity of each CDP is not considered in this study due to
the lack of information of CDP flow. In reality, the ‘redundant’ CDPs may be of high demand since the package flow is high in the urban area.
Nevertheless, the purpose of testing the new scenario is to assess the effectiveness of adding new CDPs to the zones with high VKT, thus
calculating energy/emission gains for cost-benefit analysis of CDP planning. The proposed new CDP locations are generated according to the
sorting of corre-sponding VKT per zone. The top 25 traffic zones generating the highest VKT are the target zones. 25 new locations of CDPs are
proposed, marked purple in Fig. 6(a). The criteria of determining the specific locations of new CDPs is that the location must be close to a major
public transport hub or a grocery centre.

The VKT of new scenario is computed and the spatial distribution of VKT per zone is displayed in Fig. 6(b). A great reduc-tion can be
achieved in the new scenario compared to the current state. On the aggregated level, total VKT in Stockholm County decreases from 21,569,640
km (0.99 km per individual per trip) to 16,757,096 km (0.77 km per individual per trip), which is 22.5% reduction in VKT by relocating 5% of
total number of CDPs (25 out of 438 CDPs). The results suggest a great potential of a more sustainable collection-delivery strategy by relocating
or adding only a small proportion (5%) of existing CDPs from urban areas to suburban and rural zones in Stockholm County. This result echoes
the finding from Morganti et al. (2014) who found that CDPs are over-represented in urban area (93%) in comparison with the share of
population (83%) in Seine-et-Marne.

7. Conclusion

Collecting and delivering packages at CDPs is becoming popular as the growing network of CDPs. However, the travel pat-tern and transport
impact of collection-delivery trips made by individuals are rarely studied. Understanding individual’s tra-vel choices on collection-delivery trips
is vital for planning CDPs’ network in order to reduce external effects. This paper utilizes the selected ‘‘picking up/leaving things” trips from
Swedish National Travel Survey 2011–2013 and jointly models the trip chaining and mode choice, which are the two most important travel
behaviour variables that influence the VKT of collection-delivery trips. The descriptive data analysis reveals a considerable amount of trips that
are made by car modes, around 70%, while 50% of trips are simple go-back trips. The high share of car trips and simple go-back trips suggests a
con-siderable amount of CO2 emissions from collection-delivery trips. A panel cross nested Logit model was formulated to jointly model the
mode choice and trip chaining patterns. The cross nested structure has the advantage of capturing the unobserved heterogeneity among
alternatives and relaxing the IIA assumptions of traditional MNL model. Various factors including trip chain characteristics, trip characteristic,
individual socio-demographics and land use characteristics are investigated.

The estimation results are presented as marginal effects. Trip chain departure time exhibits only minor and mostly insignificant marginal
effects on mode choice. For trip departure time, the probability of choosing car modes is considerably higher in afternoon peak than before lunch
time, while the probability of choosing slow modes is considerably lower and that of choosing public transport modes is slightly lower in
afternoon peak. The results also reveal the significant roles of individual socio-demographics and land use characteristics, indicating
heterogeneities of trip chaining and mode choice decisions among populations. Young adults living with partner/spouse, adults living single with
child and adults living with partner/spouse with child have the preference of choosing car modes in collection-delivery trips compared to other
life cycle groups. Denser population and public transport network correspond to a decreasing probability of choosing car modes.

The sensitivity study reveals the potential effectiveness of redistribution or improving density of CDPs. In general, CDPs which are 50%
closer would lead to 7% decrease in probability of choosing car modes and 5 km decrease in VKT per trip, in which those in the routine/leisure
trip chains would decrease the most while those in commute trip chains would decrease the least. These trends also indicate that the calibrated
model can capture the realistic behaviour of costumers’ travel choices in their collect-delivery trips. The model is then used to evaluate the VKT
of collection-delivery trips in Stockholm County. The results suggest a great potential of a more sustainable collection-delivery strategy by
relocating only a small proportion (5%) of existing CDPs from urban areas to suburban and rural zones in Stockholm County.

However, one should also be aware of the limitation of this study. First, there is a lack of information in the data on the characteristics of
‘‘goods” being collected and delivered. It is plausible that the size/weight of goods can significantly affect individual’s mode choice and trip
chaining choice, although some of those effects may be captured in socio-demographic variables (e.g. those with children in their household may
often collect children’s products). Second, the analysis builds upon

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16 C. Liu et al. / Transportation Research Part E xxx (2017) xxx–xxx

the assumption that the underlying key determinants of travel patterns of collection-delivery trips are similar to those of other kinds of ‘‘picking
up/leaving things” trips (e.g. picking up a package from friend’s home). Although this assumption is conceptually plausible, there is a lack of
validation in the present study. Third, the departure time is treated ‘‘exogenous” in this study for simplicity, although departure time choice is
essentially a travel choice and should be modelled as individ-uals choosing from discrete time intervals or continuous time ranges (Habib et al.,
2009). Fourth, it is assumed a uniform demand (11 collection-delivery trips per individual per year) in this study. However, it is plausible that
this number varies between individuals living in different areas. For instance, those in urban areas may make more collection-delivery trips
because they have greater access to CDPs while those in rural areas may have fewer collection-delivery trips due to a self-selection bias.
Therefore, a model to predict the number of collection-delivery trips is needed. On the other hand, the model developed in this study can be
linked to other model components that predicts VKT of home delivery. An analysis considering the VKT from both passenger trips and logistic
trips will help achieving a greener last mile solution. These topics are well motivated directions for future research.

Acknowledgment

This work is supported by Trafikverket (the Swedish Transport Administration) under grant TRV 2014/8425, project-ID: 5888. An earlier
version of this paper has been presented in 14th World Conference on Transport Research, 10–15 July, Shanghai, China.

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Please cite this article in press as: Liu, C., et al. Assessing the impacts of collection-delivery points to individual’s activity-travel patterns: A greener last mile
alternative? Transport. Res. Part E (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tre.2017.08.007