The Energy Implications of Drones for Package Delivery: A Geographic Information System Comparison

Abstract

Delivery drones may become widespread over the next five to ten years, particularly for small, light items. In the future, drones could augment, or even replace, truck fleets and could have important implications for energy consumption, air traffic management, road congestion, urban planning, and consumption patterns in urban areas. In this report, we use a geographic information system analysis to compare truck versus delivery drone energy use.

Original document

The different versions of the original document can be found in:

• http://dx.doi.org/10.7249/rr1718.1

• http://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0c7e/c8fde796bbc8dbeb8f502226b7056bef4099.pdf

• https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1718z1.html,

https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR1700/RR1718z1/RAND_RR1718z1.pdf,

https://trid.trb.org/view/1484767,

https://academic.microsoft.com/#/detail/2766924810