Time to start a new adventure.... and time is flying by really fast.
Over the last 10 years, our world has changed dramatically. Many things are changing as technology evolves and our habits adapt which provide great benefits to us but can also have significant impacts in our communities and on our environment. We can't address and fix them all but we can focus on a few things to start making some changes.
One of the big changes has been the emergence of e-commerce. We don't go to the local stores and malls anymore, we buy everything online. The impacts on our local economies are huge. Stores are closing, including the big retail chains that had been around for decades, local media are suffering and public opinion is more influenced by social media than anything else.
Another impact of this evolution is on the transportation and logistics industry that have had to adapt fast over the last few years with the increase demand for deliveries coming from online shopping as well as the growing desire for immediate or same day deliveries (or as close to immediate as possible). We want everything now and on our doorsteps. Don't even need (or want?) to leave the house anymore. This has emphasized the challenges of Last Mile deliveries (from hubs to final destination - check definition on Wikipedia).
This has led to an increase volume of delivery vehicles which has contributed greatly to congestion in urban areas as well as increasing green house gas emissions. Associated with the desire for rapid delivery, this increase is seen at all times of day including during rush hours. Add ride sharing to the mix and the impacts on big cities has been tremendous.
Many solutions have been explored to try to address these problems such as alternate delivery methods (drones, bicycles), limiting delivery times, electric vehicles, pooling deliveries and forcing neighborhood depots for deliveries. Each community and city is coming up with new solutions to the problem but many of these solutions are looked at in silos and only apply locally.
This is the problem that we are addressing at Last Link Dynamics. How can we help alleviate the challenge that has been put by e-commerce onto local communities? The ideas and solutions are there and the technology exists to bring them together. That is our mission and our contribution to this rapid changing world.
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