Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives 16 (2022) 100708

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Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives

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research-interdisciplinary-perspectives

A drone hop from the local shop? Where could drone delivery as a service
happen in Europe and the USA, and how many people could benefit
from it?
Jean-Philippe Aurambout *, Konstantinos Gkoumas, Biagio Ciuffo
European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), Ispra, Italy

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The rapid technological and regulatory evolution in the field of autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV or
Drones drones) may soon open the way for their deployment in the last mile delivery of products. This has the potential
Last mile delivery to decrease delivery costs, reduce transport externalities caused by road traffic and reduce missed-deliveries. It
Access to service
could thus become a disruptor to the parcel delivery industry and for this reason several transport and delivery
Drone delivery as a service
UAV
companies are piloting experiments involving drones. Yet a detailed analysis of the market potential of this
system is still only partly available in the literature.
To bridge this gap, this paper tries to quantify the proportion of the population, both in Europe and the USA
that could benefit from drone-delivery services.
Results indicate that under the conditions considered drone delivery services could be financially viable in the
Europe and in the USA, where they could serve between 16 and 43% and between 32 and 60% of the population
respectively. These results indicate the viability of this industry in the near future, highlighting that the existing
geographical distribution of populations has a significant influence and will likely drive the choice of the first
deployments.

1. Introduction may help address or further exacerbate enduring transport problems in

Transport is one of the fundamental pillars of our society. It is
directly linked to economic growth, wellbeing of citizens, sustainable
urban development, etc. Transport systems have been always intrinsi­
cally complex systems that encompass an extensive series of physical
and organisational elements that can influence each other directly or
indirectly, linearly or nonlinearly, potentially with feedback cycles
(Cascetta, 2001). During the last decade, this complexity further
increased thanks to the widespread diffusion of Artificial Intelligence
(AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) applications. They have given rise to
various smart technologies, such as autonomous vehicles, intelligent
transport systems, and drones, which are bringing profound changes to
various aspects of urban life (Zhang and He, 2020). Air drones (also
known as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles - UAVs) in particular have the
potential to become a game changer for a wide range of smart city ap­
plications, helping to achieve many sustainable goals concerning the
improvement in the quality of life of citizens (Ren et al., 2022) Such
technologies add new levels of interaction with users and society, and
people mobility and freight transport services. To avoid that new
transport innovations bring new challenges rather than solutions,
several authors have pointed to the need to ensure their proper gover­
nance and the engagement of citizens in their co-design (Alonso Raposo
et al., 2019; Gkoumas and Tsakalidis, 2019).
In parallel, the increase in the accessibility to online platforms,
together with online and digital markets, led over the past years to an
increase of e-commerce. E-commerce experienced an additional boost
after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many businesses saw a strong
decrease in the number of customers visiting their sites while at the same
time online sells increased tremendously. In response to these trends,
many small businesses (supermarkets but also local groceries and pro­
ducers, and restaurants) started to offer online services and offer home
delivery for their goods. This has led to a strong increase in the need for
delivery services and delivery drivers. In the US, e-commerce sales in the
2nd quarter of 2020 (values adjusted for seasonal variation) accounted
for 204 billion dollars, an increase of 32 % from the prior quarter, and
43 % from the 2nd quarter of 2019. E-commerce in the 2nd quarter of

* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: jpaurambout@gmail.com (J.-P. Aurambout), Konstantinos.Gkoumas@ec.europa.eu (K. Gkoumas), Biagio.Ciuffo@ec.europa.eu (B. Ciuffo).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trip.2022.100708
Received 17 June 2022; Received in revised form 10 October 2022; Accepted 24 October 2022
Available online 2 December 2022
2590-1982/© 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
J.-P. Aurambout et al.
2021 accounted for 13.3 % of total retail sales, slightly down from 15.7
% in the same period in 2020 (when it peaked due to COVID-19) and
above the 2019 figure of 10.5 % (U.S. Department of Commerce, 2019).
Under this perspective, last mile delivery (referring to the movement
of goods from a transport hub to their final destination) has become
fundamental to this industry. This trend induced two additional prob­
lems. First, a common solution to last mile delivery today is to use road
vehicles, with strong negative consequences such as the increase of road
congestion, pollution and noise (Bates et al., 2018). Second (especially
in densely populated urban areas) this has led to the widespread adop­
tion of delivery services based on riders and the advent of the gig
economy, with all the ethical issues related to the lack of proper rights
for this new type of workers (Tassinari and Maccarrone, 2020).).
Given the high demand for parcel delivery and the complex chal­
lenges associated with the delivery of goods in urban areas, a growing
number of innovative solutions have been introduced within the concept
of smart cities to improve the efficiency of last mile delivery (Ghaderi
et al., 2022). Among the proposed solutions are automated (air) drones
and droids, that can lead to a more sustainable last mile delivery (Fig­
liozzi, 2020; Kirschstein, 2020). Drone delivery, together with other
novel technologies such as droid delivery (Garus et al., 2022), has been
extensively researched during the COVID-19 pandemic as a way to
mitigate its negative impacts (Shokouhyar et al., 2021). In addition to
the reduction of cost and delivery time (Koetsier, 2021), these tech­
nologies also allow to reduce the number of “contacts” with other
people.
Focusing on drones, many transport and delivery companies are
nowadays testing their suitability to deliver food, groceries and small
parcels in urban areas, something that could lead to a substantial switch
from van-based goods delivery to drone-based delivery (Ranieri et al.,
2018). The use of drones for last mile delivery has the potential to
decrease delivery costs, having no driver or rider costs, and eliminate
transport externalities caused by road traffic (Stolaroff et al., 2018).
Drones have also the potential to reduce missed-deliveries due to the
very short delay between item dispatch and delivery. A study by Lyon-
Hill et al. (2020) examined three representative metropolitan areas and
cities in the US with varying population densities and transport chal­
lenges, to assess the potential impact of drone delivery, including the
conditions (demographic, geographic, technical and policy) necessary to
realize benefits. Benefits are found in terms of time (or value of time)
saved for consumers, as well as in the generation of new sales for local
businesses, the reduction of traffic and CO2 emissions. The report con­
cludes that to achieve the described benefits, governments at all levels
will need to carefully design policy measures to protect the public in­
terest while enabling industry to offer viable services, and at the same
time, industry and government need to work together towards social
acceptance. More recently, Borghetti et al. (2022) evaluated the viability
of last-mile delivery using drones through a Stated Preferences analysis
that assessed the propensity of users to use drones, and a financial
feasibility analysis that evaluated costs and revenues for logistics oper­
ators. Results on a real case study in the city of Milan, Italy, showed that
end users would likely use drones for the delivery of goods and that this
service generates profit for the logistics operators after a few years of
operation. To this point, it should be added that European cities last-mile
delivery challenges are bigger due to the denser urban situations in
general and stricter limits on the use of large trucks in comparison e.g. to
the United States (Giuliano et al., 2013).
Considering the above, this paper aims to identify the viable market
potential of drone delivery services under a range of plausible hypoth­
esis, as a function of the density and geographical distribution of
reachable population (living at a density low enough to have access to a
private area i.e. driveway or private garden where parcels could be
dropped from drones). To this end, population distribution maps are
used to model the optimal location of drone delivery services under
different scenarios, quantifying also the proportion of the population
that could benefit from this activity. The paper extends and updates
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Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives 16 (2022) 100708
findings from a previous study by the same authors (Aurambout et al.,
2019) by considering a different business model, incorporating a more
in-depth economic analysis and comparing insights for both Europe and
the U.S.A.
This analysis provides results at a very high level of spatial resolution
and could be incorporated as a possible solution for specific cities as part
of further integrated decision support system methodologies (such as
proposed by Gatta et al. (2017) or Nuzzolo and Comi (2015)), as well as
for ex-ante policy evaluation (Le Pira et al., 2017), to help experts and
local authorities develop, evaluate and facilitate appropriate last mile
delivery plans for cities.
The paper is structured as follows: Section 2 provides the research,
market and policy background, including legislative issues. Section 3
describes the data inputs and modelling assumptions. Section 4 focuses
on describing the model, while, Section 5 provides the model outcomes
and Section 6 provides a discussion of the results and their implications.
2. Research, market and policy background
Research on drones has been thriving in the last years. Indicatively,
Hassanalian and Abdelkefi (2017) provide a taxonomy of drones and
propose and discuss solutions for different design challenges, including
the importance of swarm flight. Rao et al. (2016) present recommen­
dations on societal challenges from the implementation of drones, on
safety, security, privacy, ownership, liability, and regulation. De Miguel
Molina and Seggara Oña (2018) provide an overview of the drone in­
dustry in Europe, including data of manufacturers, revenues and fore­
cast. More recently, Ayamga et al. (2021) present a SWOT (Strength,
Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis of the current de­
velopments of agricultural, medical, and military drones, concluding
that key challenges are (i) the lack (or lack of awareness by users) of
enabling regulations, (ii) the further research on integrating drones into
existing transport systems and supply chains, and, (iii) the consideration
of cultural underpinnings for acceptance and adoption of drones, espe­
cially in developing countries.
Research focusing on drone goods delivery is also substantial and
includes several review papers. Kellermann et al. (2020) provide a sys­
tematic review of civil drone applications for transportation purposes
(parcel delivery and passenger transportation), concluding that there
are still technical and regulatory problems and barriers that hold up the
use of drones. Macrina et al. (2020) focus on routing problems with
drones for parcel delivery from an operations research point of view,
reviewing 63 articles. They state that only few papers address real
technological setting of drones (weight, speed, endurance, payload),
while the majority of papers rely on sensitivity analyses or fixed values
for many parameters. Moshref-Javadi and Winkenbach (2021), identify
use cases of drones for logistics, including retailing and e-commerce and
food and drink delivery. They review papers according to different
drone delivery models and propose a novel classification which accounts
for several factors, i.e., the number and capacity of supporting vehicles,
the number and capacity of primary vehicles, the number of depots, and
the sharing or not sharing of primary vehicles among depots or sup­
porting vehicles. More recently, the optimal fleet size and delivery fee
policies in drone-based delivery service operations were objects of
research, yet, these depend on drone technology (speed and payload)
and air traffic regulations (Chen et al., 2021).
Several major companies have been working on the development of
drone delivery systems such as UPS, Amazon Prime as well as Wing, in
cooperation with local aviation authorities such as the FAA in the USA or
Traficom in Finland. Some projects seem to have undergone setbacks
recently (Kersley, 2021; Shipper and Daleo, 2021). Others, such as
Manna Aero (2021), Wing (2021) or FLYTREX (2021), focusing in
particular on drone delivery as a service to other businesses (targeting
deliveries of daily goods ranging from food from restaurants and cafes,
to books, stationaries, electrical items, groceries, health and pharma­
ceutical products and even clothing), have already moved on from the
J.-P. Aurambout et al.
proof of concept stage into small scale commercial applications in
restricted locations in Ornamore, Ireland (Manna Aero) and in Helsinki,
Finland, Canberra and Logan, Australia and the Christiansburg, Virginia,
USA (Wing). Some of these companies are already developing plans to
expend activities both in Europe and in the USA (Reevel, 2021). Some
large retail companies, such as Walmart in the USA are now also starting
to see drone delivery as worthwhile solutions and are testing and
investing in drone flight service providers (Furner, 2021).
While these commercial operations are still at very limited scales and
unlikely to generate a profit (not fully automated and still requiring the
presence of personnel on the ground to insure no incident occurs), their
operators are already in the process of requesting large scale certifica­
tions in the European Union (EU), such as the EU light UAS operator
certificate (Healy, 2021), as well as in the USA allowing them to start
implementing solutions at larger scale.
From a Policy perspective, in Europe, the European Green Deal
(European Commission, 2019, 2020) indicated as necessary a 90 %
reduction in transport emissions by 2050 in order to achieve climate
neutrality. To address this challenge, the European Commission intro­
duced its Sustainable and Smart Mobility strategy (European Commis­
sion, 2020). It highlights that multimodal logistics within and beyond
urban areas are crucial for greening of cargo operations, and urban lo­
gistics plans should include the cargo dimension, also for the deploy­
ment of zero-emission solutions already available, including drones
(unmanned aircraft). Similarly, the 2021 European Urban Mobility
Framework (European Commission, 2021) suggests that drones and
other automated delivery solutions should be considered in urban lo­
gistics where appropriate.
To achieve this vision, in 2021 the European Commission adopted
three regulations, the Implementing Regulation (EU) 2021/664 of 22
April 2021 on a regulatory framework for U-space, the Implementing
Regulation (EU) 2021/665 and the Implementing Regulation (EU)
2021/666 to complement the regulatory regime on U-space. This was an
essential step to define a U-Space, which is the set of services designed to
ensure that drones can operate in airspace safely and efficiently.
On this basis, the European Commission further developed the reg­
ulatory framework for drones and unmanned aircraft, including U-
Space, by adopting a Drone Strategy 2.0 in 2022 (European Commission,
2022). The strategy highlights that drone services and the industry
behind them will act as enablers of economic and social life, and will
contribute to the post-COVID-19 recovery and the future resilience of
the EU economy, supporting also the European twin transition to green
and digital economy. At the same time, the strategy will highlight the
need for testing the use of drones for civil applications in Europe in order
to contribute to creating the related market and economy.
From an operational perspective, already in 2015, the European
Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) developed a proposal for a drone
regulatory framework, establishing three categories of operations
(‘open’, ‘specific’ and ‘certified’) with different safety requirements,
proportionate to the risk (EASA, 2015). Delivery drones will likely
require authorisation under the “specific” category. Since then, EASA
published a regulatory framework for drone service deliveries and a
guidance that explains the process for the design verification of drones
in the ‘specific’ category (EASA, 2021).
In the U.S., the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA) issued in 2016 rules for small unmanned aircraft
operations that cover a broad spectrum of commercial and government
uses for drones weighing less than 25 kg (Federal Aviation Adminis­
tration, 2016). These rules did not permit operations at night or over
people without a waiver. FAA very recently introduced new rules that
will require the remote identification of drones and allow operators of
small drones to fly, under certain conditions, over people and at night
(FAA, 2020) (FAA, 2020), effective since April 2021. These rules address
safety and security concerns for the integration of drones into the
airspace and facilitate drone operations such as the delivery of goods.
What emerges from the above is the strong interest from the
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Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives 16 (2022) 100708
academic community, the industry and the policy makers to future so­
lutions using drones for last mile delivery.
3. Data and modelling assumptions
This study uses the method described in detail by Aurambout at al.
(2019) to (1) identify the number of inhabitants within the delivery
range of potential drone delivery sites and (2) calculate the costs and
returns associated with delivering a parcel to each individual. This
model is applied both to the EU+ (27 EU Member States plus
Switzerland, the UK, Norway and Iceland) and the continental United
States. It implements a series of input data and assumptions that are
provided below.
3.1. Input data for Europe
Population data for Europe, including the EU27 + were obtained
from the JRC-GEOSTAT 2018 100 m grid provided by the European
Commission Joint Research Centre. To identify location potentially
suitable for drone take off sites, the 100 m LUISA Base Map 2018 was
used (Pigaiani and Batista e Silva, 2021), accessible via https://jeodpp.
jrc.ec.europa.eu/ftp/jrc-opendata/LUISA/EUROPE/Basemaps/2018/
VER2021-03-24/). In order to exclude locations where not enough space
may be available and to be consistent with the approach applied to the
USA (see below), only those cells associated with industrial and com­
mercial locations that did not overlap with populated cells (“Land-use
1210: industrial or commercial units”) were used.
3.2. Input data for the USA
Population data for the USA was obtained from the CONUS 100 m
gridded population described by Huang et al. (2020) (available for
download at 10.7910/DVN/DLGP7Y), covering the continental United
States. To identify potential locations suitable as drone delivery take off
sites (most likely commercial and industrial sites), a combination of the
2016 30 m NLCD Land Cover (CONUS) dataset accessed via
(https://www.mrlc.gov/data?f%5B0%5D=category%3Aland%
20cover&f%5B1%5D=year%3A2016) and Tiger secondary roads was
used, together with Railroads and Military Installations (from https://
www.census.gov/cgi-bin/geo/shapefiles/index.php).
To identify locations potentially suitable, in a first step, land-use cells
that intersected with the Tiger vector layers described above (which
were converted into 30 m grid cell) were excluded. From the generated
raster, values for Category 24 (corresponding to Developed, high in­
tensity) were extracted and the layer was resampled to match 100 m
resolution. Then this layer was intersected with the population layer,
excluding all populated cells, thereby retaining only unpopulated loca­
tions of high-density development not overlapping with transport or
military infrastructures.
3.3. Modelling assumptions
The performed analysis is based on the following sets of assumptions
regarding delivery drones:
- Drones used for delivery are similar to the Manna (Manna Aero,
2021), Flytex (Flytrex, 2021), Flirtey (Flirtey, 0000) and Wing
(Wing, 2021) models requiring a surface of “open space” (i.e. garden
or personal driveway) on which to drop packages using a string,
without landing on the ground (Fig. 1). As a proxy to estimate the
presence of mostly suburban residential areas where such open space
would likely be available, a population density threshold of 115
person/ha was used. This threshold is identical to the one used by
Aurambout et al. (2019). To help exclude unsuitable locations with
high building density but relatively low population (such as in old
J.-P. Aurambout et al. Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives 16 (2022) 100708

Fig. 1. Manna (Healy, 2021) and Wing (Tole, 2008) drones currently being used in trial deliveries. Both drones deliver packages by lowering them down to the
ground using a string and they do not need to land.

city centres in Europe), populated cells classified as high density
urban fabric by the LUISA base map (value of 1111) were excluded.
- Drones are allowed to fly in straight line above residential area and
cities, meaning that no legislative block is imposed. This is in line
with the uncertainty concerning future legislation and possible
amendments that could focus on the creation of drone networks. No
exclusion zones such as around airports or military installations were
taken into consideration.
- Delivery would occur directly from the drone take off site to the
customer, meaning that no multiple deliveries are foreseen. This
assumption follows the Manna delivery model but differs from the
Wing model which may incorporate both pickup from vendors and
delivery to customers. The time and cost associated with transferring
the goods from the provider (supermarket, restaurant, assumed to be
in direct vicinity) to the drone take off site was not included in our
approach.
The drones can travel a maximum distance of 20 km (10 km one
- The second step identifies the pixels with the highest economic re­
turn and allocates drone nest sites to these locations. It also removes
the population “served” by these warehouses from the map used as
input in the next iteration of step 1.
The two steps are described in detail below.
4.1. Step 1 - estimation of the population in range of maximum return
from deliveries
For each cell of suitable land-use (raster pixel of one hectare), the
Euclidean distance to populated cells (falling below the chosen
threshold) within a specified buffer distance is calculated. Then, the
population within range PR (formula 1) is summed up and the potential
economic return of a delivery to each person is calculated (formula 2).
∑
n
PR = Pi (1)
i=1

way). This distance is in line with the technical specifications reported

by Wind (Wing, 2022;Block, 2020) and Manna but exceeds the initial where:
delivery distance of 2 km radius used by Manna at its trial site (Manna
Aero, 2021). - n is the number of populated cells within a radius equal to the DRR
Regarding the drone take-off sites (nest) specification, the following around the target industrial cell.
assumptions are made: - Pi is the number of people living in a specific populated cell i.
∑ n ( ( ))
DCi
- Only pixels of land-use classes corresponding to commercial/indus­ Return = Pi * DP − BC − MEC* (2)
DRR
trial and abandoned commercial/industrial sites are suitable to host
i=1

potential drone sites so as not to compete with the residential market
and to benefit from higher accessibility (commercial/industrial sites
are often located near major roads).
- The necessary building permit is granted for the construction of
drone nests (regardless of surrounding land-uses or building zones).
- A one-hectare pixel would be large enough to accommodate a drone
take off site (no need of multiple adjacent pixels).
In order to allow for easy comparison between the USA and EU +
results, all prices are referred in Euro.
4. Description of the model
The modelling approach is derived from Aurambout et al. (2019) and
it is divided in two steps, which are run in sequence multiple times.
- The first step creates a continental scale spatial dataset, which as­
sociates to each pixel of commercial / industrial land-use (in the EU
dataset) and developed / high intensity land-use (for the USA), (1)
the total population located within the drone delivery distance, and
(2), the potential economic return resulting from the delivery of a
fixed-price item to this population.
where:
- DP is the fixed price charged for each delivery. It is assumed to be
equal to 3 euro, based on information by Manna for deliveries in
Ornamore Ireland (Manna Aero, 2021).
- BC is the cost of delivery boxes associated to each parcel.
- MEC is the maximum cost of energy necessary to make a delivery if
the drone travels the maximum distance. It is assumed to be equal to
1 euro.
- DRR is the maximum distance for which of the drone can make a
delivery (and return to its nest).
- DCi is the Euclidian distance separating the populated cell of interest
i from the target industrial cell.
Fig. 2 illustrates the modelling approach, which sums-up the
maximum potential return for each pixel of industrial land-use assuming
it could deliver parcels to all people within the specified drone delivery
distance.

4
J.-P. Aurambout et al. Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives 16 (2022) 100708

⎡⎛ ⎞⎤
FT
⎢⎜PR*MP* 60 ⎟⎥
DN = ⎢⎝ ⎠⎥
⎢ WD*WH ⎥
⎢ ⎥

where:

- PR is the total population reachable by drone departing from the

drone nest
- MP is the market penetration, corresponding to the proportion of the
population within range that is likely to make use of drone delivery
on a yearly basis.
- WD is the number of days that deliveries by drone can occur (=365
days)
- FT is the time needed for the drone to fly from the drone nest to the
customer, deliver the parcel and return back to the nest
- WH is the number of hours per day when drone delivery can occur
(=8 h) (corresponding to the Friday, Saturday and Sunday delivery
schedules reported by Manna in the Ornamore trial site (Manna
Fig. 2. Illustration of the computational approach.
Aero, 2021) (viewed in July 2021).

4.2. Step 2 - Identification of optimal drone nests location and update of - ⌈.⌉ represent the mathematical notation for the ceiling function (for
the population input map example the ceiling of 1.1 being 2).
Estimations of the number of staff needed (SN) to operate the drone
The allocation of drone nest follows a “selfish” approach, where each delivery service (drone loading and monitoring) where based on the
individual site (located in pixels described as commercial / industrial hypothesis that a fleet of 20 autonomous drones can be monitored by a
land-use) maximises its own benefit (rather than the system benefit). single operator (as described by Reevel (2021), Scott (2021)). It was
This behaviour, which is considered as the most realistic, was modelled calculated, using the following formula:
for each feature of an spatial optimisation layer,1 corresponding to the ⌈ ⌉ ⌈
DN DN × DLT
⌉
intersection of Functional Urban Areas (FUA) (OECD, 2013) and NUTS2 SN =
20
+
FT
level for Europe, and, FUA and US States for the USA, combined with the
return map created in step 1, through the following steps: where:

- Identification of the point of highest return within each feature of the
optimisation layer (for one FUA and NUTS2 / US state at a time). It is
assumed that drone nests with the highest economic return “settle”
first and remove the population within their delivery radius from the
accessible pool of customers for other potential sites. In case the
buffer overlaps (small FUA / NUTS2 / US state), only the nest with
the highest return (within that specific FUA) is kept and used for a
second round of optimization.
- Deletion from the population map used in step 1 of populated pixels
within a radius equal to the DRR around identified nests. The
updated population map is then used as input in step 1 during the
successive iteration of the process.
- DLT is the time to load item into the drone (estimated to 1 min)
- ⌈.⌉ corresponds to the Ceiling function returning the closest integer
from the calculated value
NB: this calculation of staff needed matches the model developed by
Manna where the loading of parcels is done on site. The costs of setting
up a warehouse (WC) from which the drones could be dispatched was
calculated based on the following formula:
WC =
WP100 × DN
100
Where:

Steps 1 and 2 were run for both the EU and US dataset for 20 suc­
- WP100 corresponds to the building costs for a warehouse that can
cessive iterations (a threshold beyond which no additional nests serving
host 100 drones and for which a linear function with the number of
more than 100,000 people were identified in Europe).
drones is assumed.

4.3. Step 3: Estimation of infrastructure needs, operating costs and The initial investment (II) needed to setup the drone nest was
financial viability calculated based on the formula below

The iteration of step 1 and step 2 described above produced 20 II = DN × (1 + BF) × DC + WC

separate point features, corresponding to optimal drone nest locations
(one per each feature of spatial optimisation layer), associating to each
point the computed values of PR and Return. These features were then
merged into one unique point features which was used to derive the
following variables for each identified drone take-off nest locations:
Identification of the number of drones needed (DN) to deliver to
customers was computed as follow:
Where:
- BF corresponds to the percentage of extra drones that should be
purchased to cover potential technical problems and to cover peak
time (assumed to be 30 %)
- DC corresponds to the cost of a drone = 9000 euros (taken from
(Flytrex, 2018))

1
this optimisation layer extent differs from (Aurambout et al., 2019), who
only used FUA as it allowed for the potential identification of drone nests
service more rural localities.
To identify the potential return on investment and the capacity of
drone delivery business services to repay interest rates (in case the
business would apply for a bank loan for example), the compound

5
J.-P. Aurambout et al.
growth rate over a 10 year period is calculated based on the following
formulas:
TYC = DN × (1 + BF) × DC + WC + SN × S × 12 × 10
( √̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅ )
10 ((Return) × MP × 10 ) − TYC
TYR =
II
where:
- TYC corresponds to the cost to run the drone delivery business for 10
years.
- S corresponds to the average monthly salary of the drone nest
operating staff.
- TYR is the return on investment obtained after a 10 year period.
4.4. Definition of plausible business scenarios
To identify the implication of different choices of variables on the
viability and spatial distribution of drone nest facilities, four different
scenarios were investigated (varying two parameters: MP and BC). These
scenarios were assessed based on their expected annual average interest
rate over a 10 year period, excluding sites expected to generate less than
3 % interest rate (assumed to be the minimum level below which banks
would not backup loans).
Arguably, the most important variable in the model is MP, the pro­
portion of the population within range that is likely to make use of drone
delivery service on a yearly basis, as it directly impacts the demand for
deliveries. Since accessing such information from industry is problem­
atic, possible MP values were derived from a news article relative to
Manna drone delivery service in Ornamore (IE) indicating that (i) it had
reached around 30 % of the town’s households (Reevel, 2021) and (ii)
some households ordered items to be delivered by drones at least once a
week while other ordered “once every few weeks” (which was inter­
preted as once per 3 weeks) (Healy, 2021). These numbers are aligned
with hypothesis of drone delivery usage from Lyon-Hill et al. (2020) in
their study of the potential effects of drone delivery on businesses in
selected US areas. By incorporating average household size in the EU
(2.3 person per household in in 20192) and in the USA (2.5 in 20193) MP
values were derived for both ordering frequencies (see Table 1) using the
following formula:
( )
0.3 OPW
MP = × × 52
HS 7 Wing (2022)) and Manna but beyond the
where:
- HS is the average household size for the considered study areas.
- OPW is the number of time a household places an order in a week.
Considering the similarities in MP values for the EU and USA
Table 1
MP for different frequency of ordering assuming 30% of households are using
drone delivery services.
EU
MP order once per week 0.96
MP order once per 3 weeks 0.32
2
https://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?dataset=ilc_lvph01
&lang=en.
3 WD
https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/families/househol
ds.html.
Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives 16 (2022) 100708
(Table 1), it was decided to use the thresholds MP values of 0.9 (for once
a week ordering) and 0.3 (for once every 3 weeks) in the considered
scenarios.
The use of a custom delivery box (such as the aerodynamic box from
Wing) or a default package provided by the provider of the goods to be
shipped (such as shown in Manna promotional videos) may add to the
− 1
expenses and impact the long term financial viability of drone delivery
services. To take this element into account, 2 potential BCs were
investigated: 0 and 0.5 euro (estimated price from a large recyclable
food container) (https://www.catering24.co.uk/browse-by-business/n
o-2-white-food-container-51 oz.html#tab-tfmp8d4).
Common parameter values used across the four scenarios are pre­
sented in Table 2:
The estimated parameters for FT, WD and WH implied that 13 drones
would be needed to achieve 150,000 deliveries per year. This choice of
values is consolidated by insights from (Reevel, 2021) who reported that
around 10 drones would be sufficient to serve 150,000 customers.
5. Qualitative model validation
Considering drone delivery as a service is in its infancy and that only
a few companies currently offer such a service in trial commercial
phases, formally validating the approach and the parameters of this
study against existing data is impossible.
However, using publicly available information on the current loca­
tion of operating drone delivery activities from company websites and
social media posts, it was possible to compare the predicted locations
from the model against the location of Manna drone delivery sites in the
towns of Oranmore and Balbringgam (Ireland). Both sites operate from
parking lots located next to Tesco supermarkets and deliver within a 2
km radius.
Using a 2 km flight distance (against 10 km used in this study) the
model identified possible drone delivery sites with distance of less than
250 m for Oranmore and less than 100 m for Balbriggan (Fig. 3 shows
the model predictions and the actual delivery drones take off sites in
both locations) with populations within range of 5500 for Oranmore and
Table 2
Variable with fixed values across scenarios.
Variable Estimated value Rational
DRR 10 km Half of maximum travel distance of
drones reported by Wing Block (2020),
initial delivery distance of 2 km radius
used by Manna at its trial site (http
s://www.manna.aero/). This distance is
also within the range of the majority of
drones used for retailing and
e-commerce, postal service and food and
drink delivery reported by
Moshref-Javadi and Winkenbach
(2021).
FT 15 min This variable was estimated to 15 min,
by dividing the DRR by a drone flight
speed of 80 km per hour (reported
setting by Manna = 50mph while Wing
reported 104 km per hour). This was
USA assumed realistic if the time for take-off
and delivery at customer site is taken
0.89
into account.
0.297
WP100 1 million euro for 100 drone This figure was estimated as “best guess”
capacity or 10 000 euro per relative to published number which, for
drone a surface of 10,000 m2, vary between
72,000 euro (for a standard warehouse
Statista (2018)) to 24 million euro (for
Amazon’s most expensive fulfilment
centre Coombs (2018))
S 4000 euro
365
WH 8
6
J.-P. Aurambout et al. Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives 16 (2022) 100708

Fig. 3. Model projection of possible sites in the two locations where the Manna service operates in Ireland.

19,100 for Balbriggan. The picture on the left refers to Oranmore, while value of 0.9 where fewer sites (1050 vs 1630) would allow to cover a
the picture on the right to Balbriggan. In both pictures, the red square greater proportion of the US population (about 60 %) than the EU total
indicates the modelled location of potential drone delivery site (using a population (about 43 %). On average, drones sites in the US would
2 km flight distance), while the green triangle indicates the Tesco su­ therefore work at a higher rate than in the EU. From an economic
permarket wherefrom Manna drones operate. While the model also perspective, higher MP values (0.9) would generate more sites and more
identified other locations in Ireland as more profitable than these two income in the EU than in the US.
specific sites (possibly because these activities are still in the trial phase From a geographic perspective (illustrated in Figs. 4 and 5), viable
and that smaller scale, more isolated sites are safe locations where po­ drone delivery take off sites would likely be clustered around areas of
tential issues can be identified and resolved prior to full commercial sprawling dense suburban residential areas mostly composed of indi­
scale up), these results suggest that the approach and the data used in vidual single-family houses. In the USA, clusters of such “house + gar­
relation to population distribution and the location of industrial sites den/driveway” residential areas were found at the highest density in the
wherefrom to select sites is sound. states of California, in particular along the Los Angeles – San Diego
coastline and between San Francisco and San Jose; in Texas around the
6. Results cities of Houston and Dallas and in Florida along the coast between
Miami and West Palm Beach.
Results are presented below for the two scenarios considered (BC = In Europe, clusters of typical “row house with garden” residential
0 and BC = 0.5). suburbs in the UK were modelled as most suitable for drone delivery
activities particularly in the areas surrounding London. Germany
showed the second highest suitability particularly along the axis linking
6.1. Zero box cost (BC = 0) Bonn, Cologne, Dusseldorf and Dortmund. France showed the third
highest suitability particularly in the areas forming a doughnut around
Under a scenario where the delivery box would be provided by the Paris.
provider of the good being delivered (i.e. BC = 0, similar to the approach While other states/EU countries also provided locations suitable to
used by Manna and Flytrex), numerous locations both in the EU and the drone delivery activity (such as around Chicago Illinois, or around
USA were identified where drone delivery activity would generate a TYR Milan, Italy), their numbers and cumulated annual returns are expected
(Ten Year Return On Investment) exceeding 3 % and could therefore be to be significantly lower.
considered financially viable. The majority of drone delivery sites would be concentrated in FUA
The results aggregated at EU and US level for both MP scenarios are for MP values of 0.3, while for MP values of 0.9, 30 % of sites in Europe
presented in Table 3. and 23 % in the USA would be located outside FUA. The implications of
For an MP value of 0.3, the number of viable sites is comparable these results are that drone delivery activities in more rural locations
between the EU and USA (a bit less than 400) and they would generate would require more frequent purchases form the local population
similar total returns (35 million for Europe and around 45 million per (higher MP values).
year for the USA). However, this number of sites would allow to cover Focusing on viable drone delivery activities and population within
almost 40 % of the US population while it would only cover about 21 % range at European country or US state level (Figs. 6 and 7), some sig­
of the EU population, indicating that on average US population would nificant differences can be observed. In terms of annual return for both
likely benefit more from drone delivery than EU population. This can be MP thresholds, the UK, Germany, France Italy and the Netherlands in
explained most likely due to the sub-urban pattern of the US population. Europe, and California, Texas and Florida in the USA, appear as the
This trend was also apparent, although to a lower extent, for an MP states most likely to generate the highest annual income (above 2
million) from drone delivery.
Table 3 With an MP value of 0.3, the EU + countries whose populations
Number of viable drone delivery sites, percentage of the population that could would benefit the most from drone delivery coverage are Iceland and
be covered by the service and economic return at the EU and US level under the Cyprus (with more than 50 % of the population covered in all scenarios)
considered MP scenarios assuming a BC = 0.
followed by the UK, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Belgium (with
MP Geographic Number of Population of EU + Total annual more than 30 % under both scenarios). In the USA, the state of Nevada
area Viable sites covered (%) return (million would benefit the most (with more than 70 % of the population poten­
euro)
tially covered), followed by CA, NJ, MD, AZ, TX, UT and FL with more
0.3 EU+ 379 21.3 % 36.1 than 50 % of the population potentially covered under both scenarios.
USA 395 40.7 % 45.0
However, drone delivery activities would not be viable in Malta in the
0.9 EU+ 1630 42.6 % 266.1
USA 1050 59.8 % 245.7 EU + and in the states of ME, MS, MT, VT, WV and WY in the USA.

7
J.-P. Aurambout et al.
Fig. 4. 10 year compound annual compound growth rate box = 0, MP = 0.3.
Increasing the MP to 0.9 (Fig. 7) would allow more than 50 % of the
population to have access to drone services in the Netherlands, the UK,
Switzerland, Belgium and Germany, Cyprus and Iceland and to 21
additional US states, including: RI, CO, CT, NH, OR, WA, IL, OH, VA, PA,
MI, MA, MN, IN, GA, ND, DE, LA, KS, ID and IA.
However, this frequency of purchase would still not be sufficient to
reach more than 20 % of the population in Romania and Spain in the EU
+ and the states of Vermont and Main in the USA.
6.2. BC = 0.5 euro
Under a scenario where the delivery box would be provided by the
drone delivery service (similar to the approach used by Wing) at a cost of
0.5 euro, numerous locations have been identified both in Europe and
the USA where drone delivery activity would generate a TYR exceeding
3 % and could therefore be considered financially viable.
8
Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives 16 (2022) 100708
The results aggregated at EU + and US level for both MP scenarios
are presented in Table 4.
The decrease in revenues associated with BC led to an overall
decrease in the number of viable sites both across the EU + and the USA,
compared to the previous scenario. In the EU+, under a MP value of 0.3,
EE, IS, LU and SK were no longer suitable to host drone delivery activ­
ities, while in the USA 12 states (rather than 6) do not appear as can­
didates for viable drone delivery activities.
Under this conditions, more sites in overall would be viable and more
profitable in the USA than in the EU + under a MP of 0.3, while the
reverse would be true under an MP of 0.9.
While the impact of this additional cost is relatively high on the
potential economic return (around − 45 % both in the EU + and USA for
a MP of 0.3 and − 35 % for a MP of 0.9), it has a smaller impact on the
proportion on the population potentially having access to the service
(<-25 %). This is more evident in the USA where the decrease for a MP
J.-P. Aurambout et al.
Fig. 5. Annual compound growth rate for no box MP = 0.3.
value of 0.9 is merely 7 % (compared to − 12 % in the EU + ).
From a geographic perspective, the overall trends in terms of coun­
try/state suitability and location of drone sites remains similar to the
previous scenario, with high return sites still present while less profit­
able disappearing, particularly outside FUA.
7. Discussions and conclusion
Previous work looking at the effect of drone delivery in the USA
(Lyon-Hill et al., 2020) assumed that the increase in convenience and
speed at which delivery can be performed by drones could increase
business activity, leading to more sales and thus higher revenues and
therefore provide additional indirect economic benefits. Consequently,
while the economic returns generated directly by the drone delivery
industry would likely be higher in Europe (due to the higher number of
drone delivery sites) than in the USA, particularly for higher Market
Penetration (MP) values, it overall impact across the economic sector
maybe more nuanced.
The scenarios considered for Market Penetration explored a narrow
range of possibility and a sensitivity analysis conducted on MP values
(see Table 5 and Fig. 7) indicate that drone delivery coverage could be
limited for MP values <0.2 both in the EU + and the USA.
Fig. 8 reports the number of economically viable drone delivery nests
as a function of the market penetration for the EU and USA. For higher
MP values and up to MP = 1.5, a quasi-linear relationship between MP
values and the number of viable sites in the EU + can be observed, while
a levelling off in the USA indicates that higher intakes would benefit the
EU more than the USA and that market saturation would be reached
much later.
To identify the impact of potential customer overestimation
9
Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives 16 (2022) 100708
associated with the choice of a proxy of 115 person/ha for characterising
suitable delivery locations, the same analysis was performed using a
more conservative threshold of 80 person/ha, evaluating the sensitivity
of the model response to such threshold. Such setting, leads to the
exclusion of dense suburban areas as well as potentially problematic
high-density residential buildings surrounded by open areas.
Using the threshold of 80 person/ha compared to 115 (correspond­
ing to a 30 % decrease), had a more pronounced effect on the number of
viable sites in Europe (− 28 to − 40 % for a MP of 0.3) than in the USA
(− 3 to –4 % for a MP of 0.3) and this impact was more pronounced for
lower MP values and higher box costs (Fig. 9). The impact of these
changes is more pronounced on the population potentially covered by
these services, but it is negligible on the location of drone nest sites.
The performed sensitivity analyses show that the spatial distribution
and population density in the USA makes them less sensitive to input
uncertainty and would represent, for lower market penetration values, a
more certain market for drone delivery activities. However, for higher
market penetration values, the EU + market would exceed that of the
USA despite potential uncertainties.
At local level, a small number of visual inspections of the precise
locations identified for drone take off sites (i.e. by exporting point
location to Google Earth) highlighted one of the limitations of the cur­
rent approach. While some sites identified were located in the vicinity of
existing supermarkets, shopping centres and restaurants and therefore
represented plausible sites, other locations identified were within large
industrial warehouses, and university campuses with no other busi­
nesses present within visible range and therefore unlikely, at least in the
short term to find sufficient businesses (restaurants, pharmacies, su­
permarkets, cafes) that would use their services. While the location of
current retail businesses is often selected based on the customer travel
J.-P. Aurambout et al.
Fig. 6. Proportion of the population in coverage and expected annual return for a MP = 0.3 and box cost of 0.
time (rather than assuming a trip on a straight line), as the drone de­
livery service industry grows it is possible that new businesses converge
together in drone access “hotspots” to leverage the potential increased
access to customers. This could lead to the development of “dark stores
or restaurants” providing mostly delivery service rather than on site.
The use of population data downscaled from top down exercises to
estimate potential market for drone delivery is another limitation. The
use of more advanced approaches combining industry data on online
customers, demographic and socio-economical characteristics and
advanced remote sensing to identify suitable parcel drop-off sites, would
likely increase the applicability of the model at a local level. Identifi­
cation of suitable take off sites could also be improved by the use more
disaggregated land use input data differentiating between industrial and
commercial areas, as well as industry data related to the precise location
of commercial activities. However, such data are currently not easily
available, and regardless it is safe to assume that results regarding
overall market size and potential coverage of the population would
likely remain similar.
10
Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives 16 (2022) 100708
At a local level, other considerations, not currently incorporated in
our approach, would have an impact on the specific needs and economic
viability of individual drone take off sites. These include the presence of
potential no fly zones around airports that would require drones to
modify their flight path; the incorporation of local wind or weather
conditions; the use of local economic parameters (taxes, salaries, energy
prices, land prices, etc.) or potential limiting factors to the establishment
of drone take off sites (such as population acceptance, delivery of
building permits, etc.).
Concluding, the findings in this study support that a substantial
market exists for the delivery of everyday “low value” items both in the
USA and Europe, with the potential to benefit a significant part of urban
population, and at the same time, contribute towards decreasing
congestion in cities, reducing emissions, save time and improve business
opportunities. This is particularly important since drone delivery would
reach typical sub-urban areas that are often completely dependent on
individual cars and therefore provide a relatively quick and easy way to
partially decrease car dependence while other more structural solutions
J.-P. Aurambout et al. Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives 16 (2022) 100708

Fig. 7. Proportion of the population in coverage and expected annual return for a MP = 0.9 and box cost of 0 euro.

Table 4 Table 5
Number of viable drone delivery sites, percentage of the population that could Number of viable drone delivery sites for lower MP values.
be covered by the service and economic return at EU and US level under the Geographic BC Number of sites Number of sites Number of sites
considered MP scenarios, assuming a BC of 0.5 euro. area for MP = 0.06 for MP = 0.1 for MP = 0.2
MP Geographic Number of Population of EU + Total annual EU 0 4 28 170
area Viable sites covered (%) return (million EU 0.5 0 10 106
euro) USA 0 8 44 217
0.3 EU+ 236 16.1 % 19.0 USA 0.5 1 20 134
USA 268 32.9 % 25.1
0.9 EU+ 1200 37.4 % 164.1
USA 851 55.9 % 159.4 versa. Early developers of this technology may grow very quickly if they
are allowed to get the technology right and receive support early on
allowing them to scale up solutions quickly.
(electric cars, densification of housing combined with the development Beyond the specific context, in the current post Covid-19 economic
of public transport) get implemented. situation drone delivery could provide a boost to economic retail activity
The spatial distribution of the US population is such that a larger and fulfil the need for fast and efficient delivery in cities. At the same
segment of it is likely to benefit from drone services compared to the EU time, any asymmetric effects on different actors in the supply chain
+. The UK would be by far the most profitable country for drone de­ should be considered. However, legislation allowing to expend these
livery. At the same time, both markets are relatively similar and tech­ activities beyond the test phase, the ironing out of technological limi­
nology developed in the EU is likely to be applicable in the USA and vice tation and most of all customer expectance will be key.

11
J.-P. Aurambout et al. Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives 16 (2022) 100708

Fig. 8. Number of economically viable drone delivery nests as a function of MP for the EU and USA for a box cost of 0 and 0.5 euro.

Findings from this study are relevant, among others, to researchers,
policy makers and practitioners in transport and logistics planning and
operations, who can understand better the potential of last mile drone
delivery. Interdisciplinary scientists looking into drone delivery services
from different perspectives (technological, societal, etc.) can use these
finding as a projected baseline to support future planning strategies (e.g.
based on the modal split of last mile delivery services), to tailor the
analyses in specific contexts or to implement more advanced
approaches, focusing on specific issues and parameters. In fact, future
research pathways could focus on identifying how to maximise the
benefits of this technology while limiting potential negative impacts. For
example, considering most drone delivery activities are likely to occur
above residential areas, future research should include efforts to mini­
mize impact to residents in terms of noise and flight trajectories, which
could represent hindrance to the acceptance of this technology.

Fig. 9. Percentage change in the number of viable sites and population within range resulting from a change of density threshold from 115 to 80 person/ha.

12
J.-P. Aurambout et al.
Declarations
Availability of data and material: The datasets used and/or analysed
during the current study are available from the corresponding author on
reasonable request.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Data availability
Data will be made available on request.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Filipe Batista e Silva and Cristian
Pigaiani for their help and input on the LUISA Base Map and EU popu­
lation map. The views expressed here are purely those of the authors and
may not, under any circumstances, be regarded as an official position of
the European Commission.
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