Internet shopping and its impacts on mobility

Paper by Jan Francke and Johan Visser for the 25th World Road Congress(PIARC), Seoul.

Internets hopping is one of the trends that are having an impact on both passenger and freight traffic in urban areas. The market share of Internet shopping is growing at the expense of traditional shopping. Online shopping is closely connected with express home deliveries and therefore has an impact on urban freight transport: more traffic is flowing towards homes, less towards shops.

Shopping trips are being substituted by home deliveries. If the Internet has an effect on people´s time and financial budget, it will change people´s behaviour directly or indirectly and internet shopping will affect the location of traditional retail facilities. In this paper we discuss a number of facts concerning internet shopping (B2C) and its impacts on both passenger and freight transport, in relation to shopping behaviour and home deliveries. We describe how the logistics and the impacts on the demand for transport related to home deliveries are changing.