Exploring the Relationships Between e-shopping Attitudes and Urban Freight Transport

Although the store shopping remains the predominant way to buy, internet is modifying the end consumer's behaviour. In fact, the advance of information and communication technologies have pushed more and more people to choose to shop on-line. This can have significant impacts on freight traffic in urban areas because purchases have to be delivered to customers (e.g. at homes) through delivery tours that cannot always be optimised. Besides, additional costs for repeated deliveries can occur. The paper begins focusing on demographic and socio-economic factors that mainly influence end-consumer purchase production and subsequent trips. Then, a new system of models for simulating shopping choices, including e-shopping, is presented. The models were obtained by using surveys carried out in Rome where about 800 households were interviewed. The system of models were used to assess the effects on shopping and goods delivering under future demographic and socio-economic changes in an urban area. The results indicate these effects can be significant and specific solutions have to be pointed out for improving city sustainability.