Journal of Cleaner Production 184 (2018) 727e739

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Journal of Cleaner Production

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro

A fuzzy multi-criteria model for evaluating sustainable urban freight

transportation operations
Renata A.M. Bandeira a, b, *, Marcio A. D'Agosto b, Suzana K. Ribeiro b,
Adriano P.F. Bandeira a, George V. Goes b
a
Graduate Program of Transportation Engineering Military Institute of Engineering, Praça General Tibúrcio 80, Praia Vermelha, Rio de Janeiro, 999074,
Brazil
b
Program of Transportation Engineering COPPE/UFRJ. Technology Center, Building HeRoom 117, University CityeRio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro 999074,
Brazil

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The growing number of studies to measure sustainability in transportation highlights the importance of
Received 7 June 2017 this research topic. Nonetheless, these studies do not address or even consider the sustainability of urban
Received in revised form freight transportation, such as the results of a systematic literature review conducted on the theme
10 January 2018
indicate. However, urban freight transportation has long-term impacts upon sustainability. Consequently,
Accepted 20 February 2018
it is important that freight transport companies operate in more sustainable manners. In this context, we
Available online 27 February 2018
address in this paper the challenge for transport operators in how to evaluate and select sustainable
configurations for urban freight transportation. We present a fuzzy multi-criteria decision making
Keywords:
Urban freight transportation
approach for selecting alternative configurations for the distribution chain in urban areas in terms of
Sustainability sustainability. Fuzzy multi-criteria is used to aggregate scores for sustainability assessment and selection
Indicators of the best alternative, considering thus not only different weights but also uncertainty. An application of
Indices the proposed framework to the assessment of alternative courier operations in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is
Fuzzy logic presented to demonstrate its applicability. A sensitive analysis is also carried out to determine how
Multi-criteria model different weights assigned to input parameters might impact the final priority ranking, and thus the final
decision. The framework presented is simple, flexible and wide useful, besides its practical applicability.
Companies and transportation operators could address to such tool to evaluate their distribution chain
and identify more sustainable configurations for their urban deliveries.
© 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction cooperative in making UFT more sustainable, while operators argue

Urban freight distribution (UFT) supports most city-based ac-
tivities, being an important source of employment and facilitator of
economic growth (Lindhome and Behrends, 2012). Nonetheless, it
has significant long-term impacts upon sustainability, such as
increased noise, air pollutants and greenhouse gases (GHG) emis-
sions, traffic congestion and accidents (Mckinnon et al., 2012).
Local authorities try to address such challenges through policies,
such as pricing initiatives, licensing and regulation, and parking
and unloading incentives (Rai et al., 2017). However, they often
complain that transport operators are not being innovative nor
* Corresponding author. Graduate Program of Transportation Engineering Mili-
tary Institute of Engineering, Praça General Tibúrcio 80, Praia Vermelha, Rio de
Janeiro, 999074, Brazil.
that, due to such policies, local authorities make it impossible for
them to organize UFT efficiently (Quack, 2012).
Transport operators focus in delivering and picking up goods at
the lowest cost with high-quality transport and short lead-times to
satisfy users’ expectations in the best way possible (Russo and
Comi, 2016). Consequently, they traditionally concentrated on
economic issues. Nevertheless, the growing environmental concern
among consumers and most governments around the world is
forcing them to operate in more sustainable manners (Macharis
et al., 2014).
A wide range of operators-led initiatives could enhance the
sustainability of UFT, mainly based on logistics organization or by
technical improvements in their vehicles or information and
communications systems (Quack, 2012). Some alternatives are:
freight consolidation; increasing vehicle load factor; off-hours de-
liveries; eco-driving; use of cleaner energy sources and alternative

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.02.234
0959-6526/© 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
728 R.A.M. Bandeira et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 184 (2018) 727e739
propulsion systems; information systems; and routing optimiza-
tion (Arvidsson et al., 2013; Oliveira and D'Agosto, 2017).
From this list of potential initiatives, operators seek for those
able to reduce the impact of their activities, while bringing internal
economic advantages (Browne and Allen, 2011). Arvidsson et al.
(2013) stress that understanding these initiatives and their im-
pacts is crucial to determine how to operate more efficiently.
Therefore, from the perspective of transport operators, selecting
initiatives to implement is a complex decision-making process. It
involves a diversity of quantitative and qualitative criteria to
measure the social, environmental and economic impacts of each
alternative, enabling thus a comparative analysis to determine the
initiative with the most potential in terms of sustainability.
Measures and concepts for more sustainable UFT have been
previously addressed in the literature, although most of them treat
this subject in a broader approach (i.e. Munuzuri et al., 2005; Kin
et al., 2017), applied on one city or region (i.e. Dablanc, 2007). Be-
sides, these studies focus on public policies (i.e. Munuzuri et al.,
2005; Russo and Comi, 2016; Kin et al., 2017), and do not address
these initiatives in the managerial level, more specifically, to the
transport operator.
Beyond that, the perspective of operators is distinct. Public au-
thorities focus mostly on social and environmental outcomes, while
transport operators mainly focus on economic outcomes; in other
words, on the economic power for sustaining an activity or oper-
ation (Mihaiu et al., 2010). These specificities make the decision-
making process from the perspective of the operator unique and
thus we aim to address the following research questions: (i) which
criteria should transport operators assess to select the most indi-
cated initiative to increase their level of sustainability?; (ii) is there
a composite index that enables this analysis?; (iii) which are the
steps to be followed to develop a composite index for evaluating
sustainable UFT from the perspective of transport operators?
To address the first two research questions, we conducted a
systematic literature review (SLR) to identify previous papers that
propose sustainable transport indicators (STI) for UFT, and if they
proposed a composite index for the evaluation. We address the
third research question by proposing a framework that can be used
by operators to analyze and compare, in terms of sustainability,
alternative configurations for their distribution chain in urban
areas. For that purpose, we develop a fuzzy multi-criteria model for
evaluation and selection of sustainable UFT, considering not un-
certainty but also different weights for various indicators,
addressing thus a literature gap previously pointed out by Reisei
et al. (2014) and Santos and Ribeiro (2013). We opted to use fuzzy
logic due to its capacity of converting human knowledge and its
decision-making ability into rule-based frameworks and mathe-
matical formula (Rajak et al., 2016), besides the fact that some input
parameters could not be determined analytically, requiring expert
knowledge (Awasthi et al., 2011).
Moreover, we present an application of this methodology to
assess alternative strategies to the distribution process of a postal
company in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The current distribution process
is considered the base-line, and an alternative scenario with the
adoption of electric tricycles is proposed for a comparative
assessment. The relevance of this particular case study is justified
due to the importance of the last-mile of parcel deliveries. The cost
of global parcel deliveries, which are a key step for postal systems,
express mail, private courier companies and less-than-truckload
shipping carriers (Dennis, 2017), amounts to 70 billion euros, and
the last mile's share in this total reaches 50% (Joerss et al., 2016).
Furthermore, e-bikes and e-tricycles are sustainable alternatives to
urban mobility due to its potential of reducing environmental ex-
ternalities and traffic disturbance, outperforming conventional
modes on almost all environmental metrics (Cherry et al., 2009).
Nevertheless, research has assessed their use mainly applied to
passenger transportation rather than for UFT (Melo and Baptista,
2017), stressing another innovative character of this study.
The paper is structured as follows: Section 2 presents a litera-
ture review on STI. Section 3 proposes a set of sustainable indicators
for UFT, and Section 4 presents the proposed methodology for
evaluating sustainable UFT. In Section 5, we apply the methodology
to two alternative operations in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and analyze
the results. Section 6 provides the conclusions and steps for future
work.
2. Literature review on STI
Indicators are specific variables suited for quantification and
analysis (Litman, 2008). They must provide reliable information in
a simple and objective way, besides being easily understandable. In
general, indicators are useful for decision-making, measuring
progress and benchmarking (Egilmez et al., 2015).
In this context, indicators can be a powerful tool to monitor
transport sustainability (Hagshenas and Vaziri, 2012) and conse-
quently to help operators to evaluate sustainable UFT. STI have
already been proposed in the past by different researches, but these
studies did not consider UFT. For confirming such assumption, we
followed the methodology proposed by Thome
et al. (2016) to
develop a SLR to identify previous papers on sustainable indicators
for UFT, and if they propose a composite index for this evaluation.
The research method adopts a SLR approach due to its purpose in
developing a holistic conceptualization and synthesis of an
emerging topic (herein sustainable indicators for UFT), providing
results to reinterpret previous researches or a first step for further
research on the topic (Seuring and Gold, 2012).
The search was structured according to the following combi-
nation of keywords (sustainab* AND urban freight transport* AND
(index OR indicator)) restricted to the title, abstract and keywords
in the Scopus database. It resulted in only seven papers, which were
excluded because they did not directly propose sustainable in-
dicators or an index for UFT, confirming thus the lack of studies on
this topic.
Therefore, we broadened the scope of the literature review,
considering any publication on STI. We excluded the restriction on
papers that only considered UFT, and extended it to publications on
sustainable indicators for any type of transportation, aiming to
identify a list of STI that could be adapted to assess sustainability in
UFT. This result would support the sustainable indicators proposed
for UFT.
Earlier studies on STI gave priority to the environmental
component of transportation sustainability, and only recent studies
present more balance among environmental, economic and social
indicator (Santos and Ribeiro, 2013). Haghshenas and Vaziri (2012)
analyzed 17 studies, from 1999 to 2010, on STI, grouping them in
three categories: economic, environmental and social. However,
none of them was related to UFT.
Recent studies have not considered UFT in their proposal of STI
either. Awasthi and Chauhan (2011) presented an integrated
decision-making approach based on Analytical Hierarchy Process
(AHP) for analyzing how transportation measures, such as mode
sharing or multi-modal transport solutions, impact city sustain-
ability, using a index composed by nine criteria. However, none of
them concerns UFT and the paper do not evaluate transport oper-
ations per se, but transport measures. Aggregating uncertainty to
this decision-making process, Awasthi et al. (2011) used fuzzy
TOPSIS for assessing from the perspective of transportation plan-
ners the sustainability of urban transportation systems, such as
carsharing and park-and-ride. Nevertheless, the criteria and alter-
natives considered did not include UFT either.
 R.A.M. Bandeira et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 184 (2018) 727e739
Shiau and Liu (2013) proposed a set of indicators for helping
local governments to measure transportation sustainability at city
level. They initially categorized 21 indicators into four aspects
(economy, environment, society, and energy), but only two of them
were related to UFT, that is ‘truck loading’ and ‘effect of public depot
on freight transshipment’. AHP was applied to select ten key in-
dicators to measure sustainable transportation strategies to be
implemented in Taipei, Taiwan, but this final list did not include
indicators or strategies related to UFT.
Reisei et al. (2014) used principle component analysis/factor
analysis (PCA/FA) for developing a composite sustainability index to
assess transport sustainability for statistical local areas, allowing a
comparative assessment that would help transport planning in
Melbourne, Australia. The proposed index is based on nine in-
dicators, but none of them was related to UFT. The same occurred in
the study of Haghshenas et al. (2015) when developing an urban
dynamics model to evaluate different transportation development
scenarios.
Rajak et al. (2016) presented a fuzzy based approach to evaluate
urban transportation sustainability performance, based on 60 at-
tributes. However, only one out of these attributes is related to UFT
(freight ton-miles). Ignaccolo et al. (2016) proposed a methodology
to evaluate an indicator of “Transportation Energy Dependence” of
an urban area, which consists of geographically-based socio-eco-
nomic data and demand flows according to the travel purpose at
the traffic zone scale, and an energy model, to characterize the
vehicle categories. But UFT was not considered either.
Table 1 summarizes STI proposed in previous researches that
can be adapted to UFT, as well as their frequency of use.
Eventually, it is important to stress the limited number of
studies that aggregate individual indicators in a single composite
index, such indicated by Reisei et al. (2014) due to the difficulty of
measuring sustainable transportation directly. In fact, only four
papers from Table 1 proposed a transportation sustainability index
(Zito and Salvo, 2011; Awasthi et al., 2011; Haghshenas and Vaziri,
2012; Reisei et al., 2014). Nevertheless, Zito and Salvo (2011) and
Haghshenas and Vaziri (2012) attributed equal importance for the
different indicators, which may not be the case. Reisei et al. (2014)
overcame this limitation using PCA/FA. However, we cannot
compare the weights of different indicators calculated by this
method since they do not measure indicators’ theoretical impor-
tance. Awasthi et al. (2011) used fuzzy TOPSIS to overcome this
limitation and to aggregate uncertainty to the decision-making
process. Nonetheless, the index proposed in these researches
focus on the perspective of local authorities, aiming to help in the
process of urban and transport planning, but do not consider
criteria or alternatives related to UFT. Moreover, none of these re-
searches focused on analyzing alternative UFT from the perspective
of the transport operator, as the scope of this paper.
From the SLR, we could not identify in the literature indicators
or a composite index that transport operators could assess to
evaluate the sustainability of alternative UFT. Therefore, based on
this analysis on STI, we propose on Section 3 a set of sustainable
indicators for UFT.
Campos et al. (2009) listed the main impacts that can be asso-
ciated with urban transportation for the three dimensions of sus-
tainability: (i) in the environmental aspect: air pollution, noise and
natural resources consumption; (ii) in the social aspect: health,
equality and justness of opportunities; (iii) in the economic aspect:
urban economy, transports costs, competitiveness and subsides.
Based on such impacts and on the list of possible STI that can be
adapted to UFT (Table 1), we selected ten sustainable indicators that
can be used to assess UFT alternatives and classified them according
to the triple bottom line of sustainability.
729

UFT environmental performance indicators: UFT contributes
to 40% of air pollution in European cities (Lindhome, 2010). The
air pollutants of local impact, and thereby with greater impacts
in urban areas, more common in the transportation sector are
CO, NOx and PM. Vehicles that run on diesel predominantly
contribute to the emission of NOx and PM, while cars and mo-
torcycles, that run on gasoline or ethanol, are mainly responsible
for the emission of CO (D'Agosto and Ribeiro, 2009). Therefore,
the indicator to measure such impact is ‘emission intensity of air
pollutants (CO, NOx, and PM)’ (in g/t.km). Since there is a high
correlation between fossil energy consumption and the emis-
sions of greenhouse gases, we opted to use only the indicator
‘fossil energy consumption’ (in TEP/t.1000 km) to measure the
impact on natural resources consumption. It is important to
reinforce that UFT is more polluting than long distance freight
transportation due to short trips and stops required in urban
distribution. Besides, UFT also accounts for a significant part of
ambient noise in cities, causing discomfort to people. The indi-
cator to measure such impact is noise from the transportation
system (in dBA). The indicator ‘products transported per m2’
indicates the impact of the operation in the public space, a
system that can transport a higher volume (or weight) in less
space occupies less public space and therefore tends to have less
impact. However, in UFT, loads tend to be more voluminous than
heavy, so the load capacity in volume is usually used as a per-
formance indicator in addition to the use of loading capacity in
weight (tons) (Schoemaker et al., 2006), so the indicator is
measured in volume (m3) per square meter.

UFT economic performance indicators: Although UFT consti-
tutes a small proportion in the total freight transportation
length, it invokes a high proportion of the transportation costs,
accounting for 28% of total transportation costs, mainly due to
access restrictions (delivery windows and vehicle restrictions)
(Schoemaker et al., 2006). Transportation costs are standardized
per the momentum of transport (t.km) to be compared through
the indicator ‘transportation cost per t.km’. The ‘load factor’
(occupancy rate) is also an economic indicator that reflects the
efficiency of transportation operations and hence is associated
to their competitiveness. The ‘average operational speed’ (in
km/h) is also considered an economic indicator that is related to
traffic congestion, in which UFT plays a key role, decreasing
operator productivity, besides causing major disturbance to
urban population.

UFT social performance indicators: Accidents in UFT impacts
traffic flow, both by the difficulties in removing the vehicle and
the loads, increasing congestion. The indicator ‘fatality and
injured of traffic accidents per vehicles’ is used to measure the
system's safety, and thus is related to the impact on health. This
indicator is calculated through the ratio between the number of
injured and the total of vehicles of the fleet in this operation. To
measure the impact of the operation to the lives of the local
population, we use the indicators ‘Income generated per t.km’
and ‘tax generated per t.km’ (in US$ per t.km), which captures
the total amount of labor and money reverted to the local
population by the distribution operation.
Table 2 presents a list of sustainable indicators for UFT, which
were selected from previous researches on STI or were developed
according to criteria identified in the SLR. We recommend the use
of such indicators, but adjustments may be required according to
the circumstances of the case assessed. These indicators can be
aggregated in a social, an economic and an environmental index, as
presented in section 4.
 730
Table 1
Sustainable transportation indicators from previous studies that can be adapted to UFT.

Categories Indicators Author/year Number of times

it appears in the
OECD Appleton Litman Pitfield Joumard Litma Toth- Kim and Awasthi and Awasthi Haghshenas Santos and Shiau Reisei Hagahshenas

R.A.M. Bandeira et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 184 (2018) 727e739

studies
(1999) and Davies (2008) and Castilo et al., n Szabo Han Chauhan et al. and Yaziri Ribeiro and Liu et al. et al. (2015)
(2008) (2010) 2011 (2008) et al. (2011) (2011) (2011) (2012) (2013) (2013) (2014)
(2011)

Environment Emission intensity of X X X X X X X X X X X X X X 14

GHG (CO2eq)
Emission intensity of X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X 15
air pollutants (CO NOx,
PM10)
Noise emission (dBA) X X X X X X X X X X X 11
Fossil Energy X X X X X X X X X X X X 12
Consumption
Economic Alternative and X X X X X X X X X X X X 12
renewable energy
consumption
Reciclying of used tires X X 2
Reciclying of end of use X X 2
vehicles
Loading factor X 1
Total transportation X X X X X X X 7
cost
Time spent in traffic X X 2
Productivity X 1
Quality of service X 1
Social Fatality and injured of X X X X X X X X 8
traffic accidents
Benefits to economy X 1
(labor employment
resource use)
 R.A.M. Bandeira et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 184 (2018) 727e739 731

Table 2
UFT sustainable indicators.

Categories Indicators Units

Environment Emission intensity of air pollutants (CO, NOx, PM10)/km g/t.km

Noise emission dBA
Fossil Energy Consumption TEP/t.1000 km
Volume transported per m2 m3/m2
Economic Load factor %
Total transportation cost per t.km US$/t.km
Average operational speed km/h
Social Fatality and injured of traffic accidents Person injured/vehicle
Total income per km US$/t.km
Taxes per km US$/t.km

3. Developing the sustainable urban freight transportation
composite index
This section presents the steps for the development of a com-
posite index for evaluating and selecting sustainable UFT. This in-
dex measures multi-dimensional aspects of sustainability that
could not be completely addressed by individual indicators alone.
Nonetheless, a single index cannot address every question, and thus
we use multiple indicators. We propose an environmental, a social
and an economic performance index for UFT, based on the ten
sustainable indicators proposed in Section 3. These indices are then
aggregated in a composite index. For indicator quantifications, we
propose a fuzzy multicriteria model, considering different weights
and uncertainty.
Fuzzy logic enables converting human knowledge and its deci-
sion making ability into a mathematical formula, which is hard to
achieve by conventional analytical techniques (Rajak et al., 2016).
Hence, we opted to use fuzzy logic to develop a sustainable index
for UFT since several input parameters require expert judgments to
be determined. Along these lines, we proposed a five-step frame-
work for evaluating sustainable UFT.
their type and linguistic terms, as presented in Table 3.
The input parameters are converted into linguistic variables, in
the fuzzification process, using fuzzy sets (Filippo et al., 2007). For
each indicator (Table 3), a fuzzy set must be determined from
specialist opinions and then modelled as trapezoidal membership
functions.
3.3. Development of the fuzzy network architecture
Fig. 1 summarizes the variables and presents the fuzzy network
architecture used for calculating the sustainability index for UFT,
which has 16 linguistic variables and six inference blocks (IB1 to IB6
in Fig. 1). The sustainability indicators inference blocks (at the
lowest tier) are aggregated into intermediate tiers that provide the
impact performance indices, which range in a scale from 0 to 10.
Clustering these indices gives the sustainable UFT composite index
in a scale from 0 (low level of sustainability) to 10 (high level of
sustainability).
3.4. Inference procedure and defuzzyfication

The defuzzyfication process results in four output parameters:

3.1. Characterization of the operation of urban freight
the social, economic and environmental performance indices and
transportation

In this step, we present a list of important structures for the

distribution process to be characterized for assessing the sustain-
ability of UFT, that is: the surrounding area; the characteristics of
the vehicle, route and terminals used; the type of cargo and the
processes of loading, unloading and control).

3.2. Defining and treating inputs

We recommend the use of the sustainable UFT performance

indicators, proposed on Table 2, as input variables in model.
Nonetheless, it is important to analyze if all ten indicators are
representative to the case assessed. Otherwise, adaptations are
necessary. The selected input variables are defined according to Fig. 1. Fuzzy network architecture.

Table 3
Fuzzy variables.

Input Variable Type Linguistic Term

Emission intensity of air pollutants per km Quantitative Low Medium High

Noise emission Quantitative Low Medium High
Fossil Energy Consumption per km Quantitative Low Medium High
Products transported per m2 Quantitative Low Medium High
Load factor Quantitative Low Medium High
Total transportation cost per km Quantitative Low Medium High
Average operational speed Quantitative Low Medium High
Fatality and injured of traffic accidents per km Quantitative Low Medium High
Total income per km Quantitative Low Medium High
Taxes per km Quantitative Low Medium High
732 R.A.M. Bandeira et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 184 (2018) 727e739

the sustainability UFT composite index. The input parameters for

the inference blocks presented in Fig. 1 are added to obtain a fuz- U ¼ ½u1 u2 u13  (8)
zified output, using the Mamdani Inference Method (Eqs. (1) and
(2)). As proposed by Filippo et al. (2007), the following notation 1
B ¼ Pm3 $U$A (9)
i¼1 ui
used is:

mijk ¼ maxkl jminjmA1l ðx1 Þ; mA2l ðx2 Þ; mA3l ðx3 Þj 2 3

1
a11 a12 a13 a14 a15
 jfor blocks with three inputs (1) B ¼ Pm3 ½u1 u2 u3  4 a21 a22 a23 a24 a25 5 (10)
i¼1 ui a31 a32 a33 a34 a35
mijk ¼ maxkl jminjmA1l ðx1 Þ; mA2l ðx2 Þj
Low M/L M M/H High
 jfor inference blocks with two inputs (2) (11)
=[ 1 2 3 4 5]
Where: A1, A2, A3: fuzzy sets of the input parameters;
Finally, we calculate the sustainability composite index for UFT
l: number of the rule (1, 2,… r); (SIUFT) using the center-of-maximum method (Eq. (12)), consid-
r: number of rules, ering triangular membership functions. Results range from 0 to 10,
i: index of the impact index (environmental, economic and so- facilitating comparisons and classifications among different UFT.
cial: 1e3); Scores closer to 10 indicate that the operation is more sustainable
j: index of the intermediate variables (1e2); and according to the socioeconomic and environmental perspectives.
k: index for the linguistic terms of the fuzzy output sets, varying
from k ¼ 1 (LOW) to k ¼ 5 (HIGH). ðb1* 0Þ þ ðb2* 2:5Þ þ ðb3* 5Þ þ ðb4* 7:5Þ þ ðb5* 10Þ
SIUFT ¼ P5 (12)
k¼1 bk
For each impact index i, we calculate a matrix Mimxn (Eq. (3))
with elements mijk , which are the membership value of the linguistic
term k for the intermediate variable j. 3.5. Evaluation and selection of best alternative

Low M/L M M/H High Steps 1 to 4 result in a final score for assessing and ranking

[( )]
alternative UFT in terms of sustainability. The final ranking in-
11 12 13 14 15
(3) dicates the highest score alternative as the best sustainable UFT,
= and thus recommends its implementation.

4. Developing the sustainable urban freight transportation

Where: m: number of intermediate variables in index i; and. composite index for operations in the city of Rio de Janeiro

n: number of linguistic terms used for the outputs (n ¼ 5);
Different weights (pij) can be assigned for each intermediate
variable within each performance index through vector pi1xm (Eq.
(4)), which is applied to the membership values of the linguistic
term k to obtain a row vector Ai1x5 (Eq. (5)) for each indicator i.
These calculated values of aik are then aggregated in Matrix A (Eq.
(6)) and used in the center of-maximum method (Eq. (7)) to obtain
the scores for each impact performance index Si.
pi1xm ¼ ½pi1 …pim 
1 and the beach. These factors provide a high complexity scenario for
Ai1x5 ¼ Pm $pi $Mi ¼ ½ai1 ai2 ai3 ai4 ai5 
j¼1 pij
Cargo bikes or tricycles can only cover specific types of business,
since it can only cope with small weight freight, such as parcels, to
be delivered within short distances, being thus considered viable
solutions for postal service deliveries (Melo and Baptista, 2017).
Under such context, this paper applies the proposed sustainable
UFT composite index to assess the use of electric tricycles in urban
areas by a postal company. The current distribution process is the
baseline, and the use of e-tricycles is considered an alternative
scenario, based on a trial experiment in the districts of Copacabana
and Leme, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. These districts present high
(4) population density (36,000 inhabitant/km2) and are located in a
small plain area (4.1 km2), squeezed among a mountain, a lagoon
(5) urban distribution, and thus this is the reason for choosing this area
for the experimental test-rig.

Low M/L M M/H High 4.1. Characterization of the UFT

=
[ 11
21
31
12
22
32
13
23
33
14
24
34
15
25
35
] (6) In the Traditional Intermodal Distribution (DTI), the postman
walks from the DC to the bus stop and then takes a bus to the
service zone, where he/she performs the deliveries walking and
carrying its own bag. Due to the legal limit of 10 kg for the weight of
ðai1* 0Þ þ ðai2* 2:5Þ þ ðai3* 5Þ þ ðai4* 7:5Þ þ ðai5* 10Þ the bag, the postman must collect the exceeding cargo weight in
Si ¼ P5 (7) predefined support points (PAD), where a light duty vehicle (LDV)
k¼1 aik
brings the additional load to be delivered. At the end of the de-
A vector U (Eq. (8)) is determined to assign the weight u i liveries, the postman returns to the DC taking a bus, such as illus-
attributed each impact factor I (i.e., social, economic and environ- trated in Fig. 2.
mental). Then row vector B1x5 is calculated (Eqs. (9)e(11)). Each In the Electric Tricycle Supported Distribution (DTE), the post-
element bk of B1x5 is the membership's value corresponding to the man drives an electric tricycle from the DC to the first delivery
linguistic term k. point. At the delivery zone, he/she parks the vehicle and carries out
 R.A.M. Bandeira et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 184 (2018) 727e739 733

the deliveries walking, such as illustrated in Fig. 3. In this operation,

the weight limit is the tricycle capacity of 50 kg.
The specifications for each operation analyzed are presented on
Table 4.

4.2. Defining and treating inputs

We initially considered as input variables the ten UFT sustain-

able indicators discussed in Section 3 and characterized as fuzzy
variables in Table 3. Nonetheless, adaptations were required ac-
cording to the characteristics of the assessed operation and due to
Fig. 3. Electric tricycle supported distribution.
data availability. For instance, the indicator ‘Emission intensity of
air pollutants per km’ was originally measured per momentum of
transport (in g/t.km). However, it required that we provided a Table 4
reference value for this indicator (g/t.km) in the city of Rio de Items considered for the composition of total costs by type of operation.
Janeiro to specialists, so they could associate numerical values to Operation specifications Unit DTI DTE
the linguistic terms in the fuzzy sets. Nevertheless, there is no
Days per month Days 26 26
survey or data available on the average value for the average Average distance travelled on the route km 5.01by LDV 10.74
amount of freight (in tons or m3) delivered per route for UFT in the 5.44 by bus
city, so we had to adapt the original indicator ‘emission intensity of Number of postmen on the route unit 10 1
air pollutants per momentum of transport’ (in g/t.km) to ‘emission
intensity of air pollutants per km travelled’. For the same reason,
similar adaptations were required for the indicators: ‘Fossil Energy
Consumption per km’, ‘Total transportation cost per km’ and ‘Total Wherein:
income per km’.
In this section, we present the measurement procedure and data E ¼ DTI pollutant emissions
collection of such parameters for DTI and DTE. fef ¼ emission factor of LDV for each pollutant (g/km)
feo ¼ emission factor of bus for each pollutant (g/km)

Emission intensity of air pollutants per km: Since DTE uses do ¼ distance travelled by the postman by bus (km)
electric vehicles; it was considered a tail-pipe zero-emission df ¼ distance travelled by LDV (km)
operation. DTI uses Otto cycle and Diesel cycle vehicles, and thus avb ¼ average bus occupancy (passengers per vehicle)
the emissions of CO, NOx, RCHO (aldehydes), NMHC (hydro- np ¼ number of postmen attended by LDV ¼ 10 in DTI
carbons except for methane), CH4 (methane), PM and CO2
Noise emission: Electric tricycles used in DTE have very low
(carbon dioxide). However, PM is the only air pollutant that noise emission, to the point it can be considered that it has no
presented a percentage of occurrence classified as inadequate or impact on noise pollution (ECOSTART, 2014). Nevertheless, DTI
bad (higher than the standards levels for air quality) in Rio de uses two noisy vehicles: (i) a bus; and (ii) a LDV. The limit of
Janeiro. Therefore, we considered emissions of PM as the noise for buses and passenger vehicles with total gross weight
comparative indicator for emission intensity of air pollutants. over 3.5 t in Brazil is established as 80 dBA and for LDV this limit
Thus, using the bottom-up methodology proposed by MMA is 76 dBA (MMA, 2000). In DTI, 5.44 km is travelled by bus (80
(2013), the emission was calculated through Eq. (13), consid- dBA) and 5.0 km by LDV (76 dBA), thus the average noise
ering the emission factor of 0.0011 g/km of PM for flex-gasoline emission is 8.52 dBA (Eq. (14)).
2013 LDV and 0.02 g/km of PM for 2012 diesel bus. Conse-
quently, the daily reduction of PM emission obtained with the Ne ¼ ((Nef * df)/np þ(Neo * do)/avb)/(df þ do) (14)
DTE per route is 0.015 g. Considering the total distance travelled
on the DTI route, the emission intensity of MP per km is Wherein:
0.0014 g.
Ne ¼ DTI noise emissions
E ¼ (fef * df) þ((feo * do)/avb) (13) Nef ¼ noise emission by LDV (dBA)

Fig. 2. Traditional intermodal distribution.

734 R.A.M. Bandeira et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 184 (2018) 727e739
Neo ¼ noise emission by bus
do ¼ distance travelled by the postman by bus (km)
df ¼ distance travelled by LDV (km)
avb ¼ average bus occupancy (passengers per vehicle)
np ¼ number of postmen attended by LDV ¼ 10 in DTI

Fossil Energy Consumption per km: DTE uses e-tricycles with
very low energy consumption per km (varying from 0.13 to 0.28
kwh/km), besides most of the electric energy consumed in Rio
de Janeiro is of hydroelectric origin, so we will not consider fossil
energy consumption in this operation. Nonetheless, the per-
formance of the bus used in DTI, according to the model, fuel
and years, is 2.3 km/l (MMA, 2013). The performance of the flex-
gasoline LDV used in DTI is 4.56 km/l, according to data provided
by the postal company. Based on this data and on the travelled
distances, the average fossil energy consumption per km in DTI
is 0.03 TOE/1000 km, as calculated by Eq. (15).
 1    
*fg *df 1
*fd *do
pf
np þ po
ðavbÞ
En ¼
ðdf þ doÞ
Wherein:
En ¼ fossil energy consumption per km in DTI
pf ¼ LDV's performance (km/l)
po ¼ bus' performance (km/l)
fg ¼ factor of conversion from m3 of gasoline to TOE (tonne of oil
equivalent) ¼ 0.86 TOE
fd ¼ factor of conversion from m3 of diesel to TOE (tonne of oil
equivalent) ¼ 0.98 TOE
do ¼ distance travelled by the postman by bus (km)
df ¼ distance travelled by LDV (km)
avb ¼ average bus occupancy (passengers per vehicle)
np ¼ number of postmen attended by the LDV ¼ 10 in the DTI

Products transported per m2: Most of the DTI is carried out on
bus and a large part of both operations is carried out on foot.
Therefore, neither operation occupies significant amount of
public space on the streets and parking areas to perform their
deliveries. Consequently, we considered that this indicator is not
entirely representative in this analysis and it was not
considered.

Load factor: Each postman deliveries on average 40 kg per day
in e-tricycles of 50 kg of capacity, so in DTE the load factor of the
vehicle is 80%. In DTI, a LDV delivers on average 40 kg of extra
loads for each postman, and, in Copacabana and Leme, each LDV
with load capacity of 800 kg attends 10 postmen with an
amount of 400 kg. So, the load factor for DTI is 50%.

Total transportation cost per km: was calculated according to
Eqs 16 and 17 developed by the National Association of Freight
Transport and Logistics (NTC, 2014).
TCTID ¼ (cm/h * tct) þ (bf * n) þ (cv/h *vct) þ (cv/km *tdv)
Where, TCTID ¼ Total cost of TID; cm/h ¼ Cost of postman per hour;
tct ¼ Total round trip time; bf ¼ Bus fare (US$ 1.00); n ¼ Number of
bus trips; cv/h ¼ Cost of LDV driver per hour; vct ¼ LDV round trip
time; cv/km ¼ Cost of the LDV per km; tdv ¼ Total distance travelled
by the LDV (km).
TCDET ¼ (cm/h * tct) þ (ct/km * tdt)
Wherein, TCDET ¼ Total cost of DET; cm/h ¼ Cost of postman per
hour; tct ¼ Total round trip time; ct/km ¼ Cost of the tricycle per
km; tdt ¼ Total distance travelled by the tricycle (km).
Costs related to vehicle depreciation, maintenance, taxes,
compulsory insurance and, fuel were considered when calculating
the costs per km of the tricycle and LDV, as indicated in NTC (2014).
The total transportation cost per km for each operation is US$
US$1.05 for DTI and US$0.74 for DTE.

Average operational speed: For DTI, the postman travels
13.32 km in 2h02min per route, and thus the average opera-
tional speed is 6.5 km/h (Eq. (18)). In DTE, the total distance
travelled per route (in the tricycle and walking) is 10.74 km in
1h35min, and thus the average speed is 6.8 km/h.
V ¼ (tdt)/(tdt) (18)
Wherein, V ¼ average operational speed; tdt ¼ Total distance trav-
elled per trip (km); tct ¼ Total round trip (h).

Fatality and injured of traffic accidents per t.km: Although
21% of the casualties in traffic accidents in Rio de Janeiro in-
volves bicycles, tricycles or motorcycles, there was no traffic
accident during the DTE trial. Therefore, we could not consider
(15) this indicator on this analysis.

Taxes per t.km: As the same freight is delivered in both oper-
ations, the same amount of taxes is paid and thus this indicator
will not be assessed in this analysis.

Total income per km: is calculated for DTE and DTI according to
Eq. (19). Considering the total distance travelled on each route,
26 days of operation per month and the monthly income
generated (US$ 220.07 of wages for postman, driver and main-
tenance staff plus taxes for DTI, and US$ 148.20 for DTE), the
total income generated per km is US$ 0.81 for DTI and US$0.53
for DTE. Nonetheless, due to difficulties presented by the spe-
cialists to attribute the lower and upper limits to this indicator in
the fuzzyfication process, we opted to use the ratio between the
value of the total income generated per km by the assessed
operation and the average value to the city of Rio de Janeiro as
this indicator. The specialists felt more comfortable on estab-
lishing limits to the indicator as a comparison ratio.
tw
In ¼ (19)
tdt$nd
Wherein:
In ¼ total income per km
tw ¼ total wages for postman, drivers and maintenance staff
plus taxes
tdt ¼ Total distance travelled per trip (km)
nd ¼ number of days of operation per month
The average income generated per km in UFT in Rio de Janeiro
was calculated considering the minimum wage of US$410.65 for
truck drivers (SCVRTTCGP, 2016) and that 0.73% of Brazilian
(16) economically active population (EAP) works in road freight or
distribution activities (IBGE, 2014). Since the EAP of the city of Rio
de Janeiro is 3,083,000 inhabitants, it is estimated that 22,505
employees work on UFT, generating a monthly income of US$
9,536,297.88. Considering that the total number of internal-
external and external-internal displacements for UFT in the city is
equivalent to 16,647 trips/day (PDTU, 2014) and that these move-
ments occurred only in business days (22 per month), an amount of
(17) US$ 26.03 of income is generated per trip. However, there is no
survey on the average distance travelled by routes for UFT in Rio de
Janeiro. Jaller et al. (2016) measured an average distance of 48.1 km
per daily route to UFT in the metropolitan area of Mexico City
(1485 km2), thus, given that the area of the metropolitan region of
Rio de Janeiro is 1255 km2 and that both are megacities of devel-
oping countries, this value was adopted to Rio de Janeiro, obtaining
 R.A.M. Bandeira et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 184 (2018) 727e739 735

Table 5
Values of the input parameters.

Performance Index UFT sustainable indicators DTI DTE

Environmental (i ¼ 1) Emission intensity of air pollutants (MP) (g/km) 0.0014 0

Noise emission (dBA) 8.52 0
Fossil Energy Consumption per km (TEP/1000 km) 0.03 0
Economic (i ¼ 2) Load factor (%) 40 80
Total transportation cost per km (US$/km) 1.05 0.74
Average operational speed (km/h) 6.5 6.8
Social (i ¼ 3) Total income per km (ratio) 0.76 0.5

thus the value of US$0.54 of income generated per kilometer
travelled. Aggregating 96% of taxes applied to wages in Brazil, we
have a total income of US$ 1.06/km, so the ratio values for DTI and
DTE are, respectively, 0.76 and 0.5.
Table 5 summarizes the values of the input parameters for DTI
and DTE. It is important to reinforce that even though we initially
considered the ten UFT sustainable indicators proposed in Section
2, only seven of them apply to the scenario analyzed.
Table 6 presents the fuzzy sets for the input parameters, ob-
tained from interviews with seven Brazilian specialists on UFT. The
specialists are academics with PhD on transport engineering and
with experience in the area varying from 5 to 30 years.
4.3. Development of the fuzzy network architecture
The fuzzy network architecture used to obtain the sustainability
index for ranking DTI and DTE is similar to that presented in Fig. 1
with the required adaptation due to the modifications in the set of
indicators, such as presented in Table 5.
4.4. Inference procedure and defuzzyfication
The environmental, economic and social performance indices
(I1, I2 and I3, respectively) and the sustainability composite index
(SIUFT) for each alternative UFT were calculated considering the
same weights for each input and intermediate variable in the
model, such as follows:
4.5. Evaluation and selection of best alternative
Fig. 4 presents the results for DTI and DTE and shows that DTE
presents slightly better results for the sustainable composite index,
as well as a better economic performance than the DTI. Both op-
erations present similar environmental performances, but DTE also
presents better results regarding this category. Nonetheless, DTI
presents better social impacts than the DTE, with a higher I3.
For the results presented in Fig. 4, we have considered that the
environmental, economic and social impacts have equal impor-
tance and thus we used the same weight for each performance
indicator when calculating the sustainable composite index
(SIUFT). Nonetheless, this may not be the case and thus it becomes
necessary to verify the importance of the weights attributed to the
input criteria in the selection of the best alternative for UFT. For that
reason, we conducted a sensitivity analysis with the purpose of
identifying how sensitive SIUFT is to changes in the weights
attributed to each impact performance indicator. Consequently, we

Matrix A:
DTI DTE
L M H L M H

[
0 0 0 0.1 0.9
] [
0 0 0 0 1
= 0 0.5
0.3 0
0 0
0.7 0
0
0
0 0 0.2 0.8 0
0.8 0 0.2 0 0 ]
Performance index Ii:
DTI DTE
o Environmental index: I1=9.75 I1=10
o Economic index: I2=2.5 I2=7.0
o Social index: I3=3.5 I3=1

Vector B:
DTI DTE
o B= [0.1 0.167 0.233 0.033 0.3] [0.267 0 0.133 0.267 0.333]

Sustainable Composite Index:

DTI DTE
o SIUFT=5.8 SIUFT=6
736 R.A.M. Bandeira et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 184 (2018) 727e739

Table 6
Fuzzy sets for the input parameters.

Impact Index Indicator Linguistic terms

Low [c1, a1, b1, d1] Medium [c2, a2, b2, d2] High [c3, a3, b3, d3]

1 1 [0,0,0.025,0.032] [0.025,0.032,0.445,0.715] [0.445,0.715,1.072,1.072]

2 [0,0,40,55] [40,55,65,75] [65,75,103,103]
3 [0,0,0.025,0.077] [0.025,0.077,0.175,0.288] [0.175,0.288,0.426,0.426]
2 1 [0,0,30,50] [30,50,60,80] [60,80,100,100]
2 [0.05,0.05,0.70,0.90] [0.70,0.90,1.25,1.29] [1.25,1.29,3,3]
3 [4,4,15,30] [15,30,40,50] [40,50,80,80]
3 1 [0.1,0.1,0.4,0.9] [0.4,0.9,1.3,1.75] [1.3,1.75,3,3]

10
9
8
7
6
5 DTI
4
3 DTE
2
1
0
Environmental Economic Social SIUFT
performance performance performance

Fig. 4. Scores for the DTI and DTE indicators.

vary the weights attributed for each impact performance indicator
(I1, I2 and I3) individually from 1 to 10, and observe the effects on
SIUFT, such as illustrated in Figs. 5e7.
Figs. 5 and 6 show that changes in the weights of the environ-
mental and economic performance indicators, when analyzed
individually, do not invert SIUFT scores for DTI and DTE. However,
variations in the weight of the social indicator, when analyzed
individually, do change SIUFT scores to the point that DTI presents
better results, that is, if a higher importance is given to the social
impact of the operation, DTI may be considered more sustainable
than DTE. This result reinforces the importance of choosing the
right weight for each criterion in the decision process and also
highlights the relevance of conducting a sensitive analysis in situ-
ations in which there is uncertainty regarding the definition of the
relevance of different criteria.
At long last, the case study shows that the use of electric tri-
cycles as an alternative to the last mile postal distribution in the city
of Rio de Janeiro was able to promote economic and environmental
benefits, corroborating to the results presented by Cherry et al.
(2009) that indicates that electric bikes and tricycles outperform
other modes on almost all environmental metrics.
Moreover, the case study confirms the consistency and

8.80

8.30

7.80

7.30

6.80

6.30
SIUFT

5.80
0 2 4 6 8 10
DTI DTE Weight

Fig. 5. Sensitivity analysis for the SIUFT varying the weigh for the environmental performance index.
 R.A.M. Bandeira et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 184 (2018) 727e739 737

8.00 5. Conclusion
7.00
SIUFT

In this paper, we could not identify, through a SLR, which criteria

6.00
5.00
4.00
3.00
2.00
1.00
0.00
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
DTI DTE
Fig. 6. Sensitivity analysis for the SIUFT varying the weigh for the economic perfor-
mance index.
applicability of the framework, so it can be applied to evaluate any
other set of alternative sustainable UFT operations, as long as the
required data to calculate the proposed indicators for sustainable
UFT is available or can be measured. For instance, also in the
segment of postal operation, Choubassi et al. (2016) assessed the
economic feasibility of replacing the U.S. Postal Service vehicles
with cargo cycles for last-mile mail deliveries. The proposed
methodology could be applied to this specific case study to assess it
in a more comprehensive analysis, considering not only the eco-
nomic feasibility but the three pillars of sustainability.
In another example, Oliveira et al. (2014) evaluated the financial
and environmental benefits of the use of diesel-hydraulic hybrid
drive technology applied on trucks used for urban waste collection,
in terms of monetary aspect and CO2 and local atmospheric pol-
lutants (CO, NMHC, NOx and PM) emissions. Nonetheless, in
addition to this data, the authors (2014) also presented data on fuel
consumption, average speed and volume transported. Therefore,
the proposed composite index could be used to assess the viability
of this operation.
transport operators assess to select the most indicated initiative to
increase their level of sustainability nor a composite index that
enables this analysis regarding UFT. Thus, it reinforces the inno-
vative character of this research, as it proposes a set of sustainable
indicators and an index for evaluating sustainable UFT, based on the
criteria identified in a literature review on STI.
We propose a fuzzy multi-criteria model for evaluating sus-
tainable UFT from the perspective of transport operators, using
9 10 fuzzy set theory and multi-criteria decision analysis. In one hand,
Weight fuzzy set theory allows incorporating the knowledge of environ-
mental and transportation experts into the process, considering
thus the subjectivity and uncertainties involved in this type of
evaluation. On the other hand, multi-criteria decision analysis al-
lows using different weights for various indicators. Moreover, a
sensitive analysis is carried out to determine how different weights
assigned to input parameters impact the final priority ranking, and
thus the final decision. From this, one can conclude that fuzzy sets
theory in association with multi-criteria decision analysis can be
applied for the assessment of UFT operations.
Using the proposed fuzzy multi-criteria model, we can calculate
a composite index (SIUFT), which measures multi-dimensional
aspects of sustainability that could not be completely addressed
by individual indicators alone. Going beyond the traditional
approach that limits the consideration of cost and level of service
attributes to evaluate the performance of freight transport, this
composite index seeks to reconcile the economic, environmental
and social aspects for evaluating and selecting sustainable UFT.
Such index limits the amount of information presented, allowing
companies and transportation operators to make quick and easy
comparisons to assess alternative configurations for their distri-
bution chains, and then ranking them in terms of sustainability.
Consequently, they can address to the proposed methodology as a
tool for evaluating their own distribution chain and identifying
more sustainable configurations for their urban deliveries,
improving thus overall decision-making.
We applied the proposed methodology to assess the use of
electric tricycles in parcel deliveries within city borders. Although

7.00

6.00

5.00

4.00

3.00

2.00

1.00

0.00
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
DTI DTE

Fig. 7. Sensitivity analysis for the SIUFT varying the weigh for the social performance index.
738 R.A.M. Bandeira et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 184 (2018) 727e739
we chose the presented case study, the proposed methodology is
not specific to postal operation. The case study confirms the con-
sistency and applicability of the framework, so it can be applied to
assess, in terms of sustainability, alternative configurations of any
other distribution chain in urban areas. As a matter of fact, we can
apply the proposed methodology in a comparative assessment for
almost any set of alternatives of UFT operations, such as deliveries
from centers of distribution to stores, home-deliveries from e-
commerce or even to urban waste collection. The application of
such methodology to assess different case studies could be the
subject of research for future studies.
Beyond that, the case study indicated that, although the pro-
posed sustainable UFT indicators can be used as input variables to
the model, the procedure enables adaptations if the characteristics
of the assessed operation and data availability require them. For
instance, due to the lack of data on UFT in Rio de Janeiro, changes
were necessary in the units of measurement of several indicators
for this application. This does not invalidate the proposed meth-
odology and neither the presented application, but it reinforces the
importance of measuring data and statistics on UFT.
Finally, the framework presented is simple, flexible and wide
useful, so it can be applied for evaluating the sustainability of other
UFT operations, as long as the required data is available. The pro-
posed composite index helps transport operators to choose from
potential alternatives for distribution configuration of UFT opera-
tions. Moreover, it can be used for benchmarking among different
urban freight delivery companies as well, and thus clients could use
this index in their decision-making process regarding the selection
of transport companies. Furthermore, it can be applied as the basis
for the development of a sustainability standard and certification
program for UFT. Such program would recognize participants that
achieve a minimum level of performance. Based on the proposed
STI and composite index, specific targets would be set for different
levels of achievement.
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