The e-commerce boom has increased the complexity of last-mile logistics operations in urban environments. In this context, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), also known as delivery drones, and ground autonomous delivery devices (GADDs) show great potentialities. The objective of this paper is to provide strategic insights to adequately match these autonomous technologies with some given characteristics of cities and help define relevant decision variables. Using continuous approximation equations, the operations costs as well as the externalities induced by a) GADDs in association with an urban consolidation center (UCC) and b) truck-launched UAVs are estimated. Then, the developed mathematical formulations are applied in two different use cases: a part of the Paris suburbs (France) and the historical center of Barcelona (Spain). In less dense and larger service regions such as the Paris suburbs, truck-launched delivery drones seem more suitable to reduce the carriers’ operations costs. In denser neighborhoods such as the Barcelona historical center, GADDs are expected to be more economically profitable. In both use cases, GADDs would generate less externalities. Finally, considering the high uncertainty of some input parameters, a sensitivity analysis of the models is done.

电子商务的蓬勃发展增加了城市环境中最后一英里物流业务的复杂性。在这种情况下，无人驾驶飞机（UAV）（也称为交付无人机）和地面自主交付设备（GADD）具有巨大的潜力。本文的目的是提供战略见解，以使这些自主技术与城市的某些给定特征充分匹配，并帮助定义相关的决策变量。使用连续逼近方程，可以估算运营成本以及由以下因素引起的外部成本：a）与城市整合中心（UCC）相关的GADD和b）卡车推出的无人机。然后，将开发的数学公式应用于两个不同的用例：巴黎郊区的一部分（法国）和巴塞罗那的历史中心（西班牙）。在密度较低且服务区域较大的地区（例如巴黎郊区），卡车发射的交付无人机似乎更适合降低运营商的运营成本。在诸如巴塞罗那历史中心之类的人口稠密的社区中，GADD有望带来更多的经济效益。在这两种用例中，GADD都会产生较少的外部性。最后，考虑到某些输入参数的高度不确定性，对模型进行了敏感性分析。