Simulating urban freight flows in e-grocery scenarios accounting for consumer heterogeneous preferences

E-grocery is a growing phenomenon that has the potential to rapidly change the way shopping is performed and goods distributed in cities. The impacts of this innovation can vary according to the delivery service performed, thus affecting positively or negatively the overall sustainability of urban freight transport. Understanding the dynamics of demand (i.e. consumers) will be useful to know how supply (i.e. supermarkets) should adapt, and how policy-makers should deal with this phenomenon. This paper presents an agent-based model to simulate different e-grocery scenarios at a neighbourhood scale. Agents are characterized with individual utility functions from a latent class model based on a stated preference survey performed in Rome (Italy). First results of a one-month simulation allow deriving some useful conclusion on the impact different grocery channels can have on travelled distance and consumer shopping time and formulating some policy implications.