包裹运输和城市物流：欧洲快递和包裹行业外文文献翻译最新译文

文献出处：Ducret R. Parcel deliveries and urban logistics: Changes and challenges in the courier express and parcel sector in Europe—The French case [J]. Research in Transportation Business & Management, 2014, 11: 15-22.

原文

Parcel deliveries and urban logistics: Changes and challenges in the courier express and parcel sector in Europe — The French case

Rapha?lle Ducret,

1. Introduction

The European Courier, Express and Parcel sector (CEP) is a very strategic and dynamic sector involved in globalization. Primarily, the CEP sector is a separate activity from the postal service. This sector has arisen over the past 20 years from the traditional transport of less than a truckload of general cargo. It groups together firms, capable of delivering small, light parcels (31.5 kg at the most), quickly and accurately, all over the world, relying on sophisticated networks (hub and spoke networks combined with depot networks for the most part) and the reliable tracking and tracing of the shipments. To put it simply, couriers provide a point-to-point same-day delivery; express providers supply fast delivery at fixed time windows the next day or the second day relying on their powerful networks; and parcel providers are characterized by the consolidation of standardized lightweight parcels delivered the next or second day. But nowadays frontiers between the three services are blurred, and a CEP player provides each of the services (DHL, 2008). In Europe, DHL, TNT and UPS share the market along with some national outsiders of various sizes. According to the International Post Corporation, in 2008, the UE CEP market turnover was 37.4 billion Euros (business to business (B2B) and business to consumer (B2C) parcels), and adding consumer to consumer (C2C), the CEP market turnover could reach 42.2 billion Euros (ITA Consulting & WIK Consult, 2009).

During the past fifteen years the CEP sector in Europe, in particular the final stage of the supply chain in cities, has undergone significant and rapid changes (Menge and Hebes, 2011, Patier-Marque, 2002 and Savy and Burnham, 2013). With

the spread of new technologies and the advent of economic and social changes, new shopping and logistics patterns have emerged, leading to a growth in deliveries in particular (Esser and Kurte, 2005, Hesse, 2002, OCDE, 2003 and Weltevreden and Rotem-Mindali, 2009). Firms and stores have also modified their supply chains in cities. Moreover, public authorities in European cities, increasingly aware of the essential role of urban goods distribution, have implemented measures and projects to deal with externalities and enhance the efficiency of urban freight; measures that have sometimes made urban deliveries more difficult (Dablanc, 2011, Lindholm, 2012 and Russo and Comi, 2010). Confronted with the growing comple xity of the …last-mile? issue and faced with a competitive environment, the traditional actors of the CEP sector in Europe are evolving together (“co-evolving”), and their players, strategies, tools, and organizations are becoming similar (converging) (Taylor & Hallsworth, 2000). Thus part of the CEP sector is restructuring itself to tackle the specificities and constraints of urban distribution in a rapidly changing context, creating what we could call an urban parcel delivery segment (although not autonomous), with specific organizations, tools and strategies.

This article aims at providing an up-to-date overview of the parcel sector in Europe, and at understanding the changes in the urban parcel delivery sector over the last ten years. It will also highlight future prospects for the sector. Undoubtedly, understanding the interests and concerns of one of the most important stakeholders of the urban freight system is essential for the urban logistics dialogue and for political players to propose efficient regulations and policies.

The research questions are: what are the common factors that affect the various European parcel delivery sectors and what are the common drivers of the creation of new parcel sectors in particular? How can we describe the reshuffling of European CEP sectors in their organizations, strategies, as well as the players' game? Specific analysis will deal with the most important challenges the new sector will have to face in the future, in particular the consequences of the growing involvement of political authorities on a European scale as well as the rise of cross-border e-commerce.

The article is built on an analysis based on three studies conducted between 2012

and 2013: (1) A literature review of the urban parcel sector in a European context, (2) a study of the French CEP sector via 48 interviews of French and European parcel distribution service providers, retailers and experts in transport, retail or ICT; and (3) a review of urban freight transport policy in French cities via 64 interviews with local authority representatives, transport operators and operational staff of parcel providers in 19 French cities. Even if the in-depth French case is the guiding principle of this article, we will also provide European comparisons.

The article will be structured as follows: it will first describe the data collection effort (1). Then it will give an outline of the new segment of the traditional European CEP sector, the urban parcel distribution sector, namely the convergent structures, strategies and organization, drawing an updated and complete picture of its players (2). In order to understand how and why the urban parcel delivery segment has been shaped, we provide an analysis of some of the driving forces. Our analysis will, in particular, explore the renewed relationships between stakeholders and local authorities in cities, and the role of the economic and retail context on parcel delivery supply and demand (3). Finally, in the conclusion we will briefly discuss the research implications and prospects of the evolution of the players of the parcel delivery sector, in the particular context of the rise of cross-border e-commerce.

2. Method, objectives and data collection of the study

2.1. Method and objectives

The article is based on an analysis of three studies conducted between 2012 and 2013. We first conducted a literature review of the urban parcel sector in a European context. We conducted a review of the existing literature on the CEP sector through academic papers, European reports, firms' reports and books since 2000. Even if urban logistics and related e-commerce studies have increased in the last ten years (Dablanc, 2011 and Lindholm, 2013b), surprisingly, few detailed and recent works on this sector exist in academic literature, with a few recent exceptions in German research (Menge and Hebes, 2011 and Gruber et al., 2013). Even if urban logistics studies often mention the CEP sector or underline parcels as a key element in urban freight, in-depth presentations of the industry are scarce (Maes and Vanelslander,

2012 and Miyatake and Nemoto, 2013). It appears to be a presupposition. Simultaneously we conducted a review of the professional press over the last six years referring to four French supply chain and urban logistics magazines, and of an international CEP newsletter called Post and Parcel. The professional press provided richer material on the CEP industry than the academic literature. We also conducted a study of the French CEP sector in 2012 thanks to 48 direct interviews with French and European parcel distribution service providers, e-retailers and experts in transport, retail or ICT. This survey was completed a year later by a review of urban freight transport policy in French cities via 64 interviews with local authority representatives, urban planning departments, transport operators and operational staff of parcel providers in 19 French cities. Those surveys lasted no more than three months each, given the constraints of the PhD, but they are very dense and rich.

Three aspects have been considered within these semi-structured interviews: the urban delivery sector within a changing environment (players, strategies and organizations); the nature of the urban freight transport policy context regarding parcel delivery (dialogue between stakeholders, awareness and knowledge of urban goods distribution, problem-solving approaches and measures, experiments, incentives and reactions of the freight providers); and finally future prospects and challenges regarding parcel delivery.

The first survey was concerned with the structures of the CEP industry, while the second tried to understand the CEP sector within its environment, the city, in order to confront theory and practice.

Even if the in-depth French case is the guiding principle of this survey, we have conducted several European comparisons.

2.2. Players interviewed and representativeness of the surveys

Fig. 1 and Fig. 2 describe the panel of players interviewed in the two surveys. CEP players are the largest proportion of interviewees. The proportion of the different categories of players interviewed within the CEP sector is relatively balanced. The panel gives a precise image of the current CEP sector. Emergent issues have been tackled thanks to a great number of meetings with start-ups and new players in the

CEP industry. In all categories we have succeeded in reaching the most important players. For instance, three out of the five most important express providers were interviewed and three pickup points out of the four which exist in France accepted our invitation.

Experts in transport, retail and ICT, e-retailers and local authorities are another important part of the surveys. They represent elements of the ecosystem that make the CEP industry evolve, since they influence it. They have given their vision of the changes in the CEP sector, and above all, they have focused on future prospects and challenges regarding the parcel delivery segment.

In order to strengthen our results, the main conclusions of the surveys have been synthesized in short reports and given to the players interviewed. Moreover, in-depth analyses were conducted with the French Post operator based on its own figures, to test the validity of the market shares provided in this article. Both audits were positive.

3. The renewed urban parcel delivery sector in Europe: new players, services and strategies

As proposed by Taylor and Hallsworth in a study about the courier service industry (Taylor & Hallsworth, 2000), we consider that the CEP sector is characterized by the “co-evolution” and “convergence” of its players who are in competition in the market, and thus face the same issues and adopt similar strategies to handle them. In fact, since the beginning of the century, the traditional CEP sector in Europe has undergone significant changes, especially regarding parcel delivery in an urban context, and a new segment has progressively emerged, the urban parcel delivery sector, dedicated to urban deliveries of small and light parcels. At the same time delivery services, organizations and strategies have become similar. Here we shall make an overview of the new segment based on an in-depth study of the French CEP sector.

3.1. Categories of players of the urban parcel distribution sector: between heirs and new players

The urban parcel delivery sector descended from the traditional CEP sector with

both traditional and new players. Families of players can be distinguished in terms of the player's origin in the parcel market, core business and strategies, and their position regarding urban parcel deliveries. The sector is divided into two main families, heirs and new players. It is also divided into eleven sub-families: post office, integrators, logistics providers of the mail-order sales sector, other logistics providers, other postal providers, subcontractors, pickup point networks, neutral and specialized parcel delivery service providers, players from e-retail and couriers.

译文

包裹运输和城市物流: 欧洲快递和包裹行业的变化和挑战，以法国为例

拉斐尔·杜科特

欧洲的快递和包裹部门(CEP)是一个非常战略性的和参与全球化的动态部门。最初，快递和包裹部门是独立于邮政服务部门的一个独立的物流活动。这个部门已经存在了20多年了，它拥有的运输车比传统运输普通货物卡车更少一些。它聚集了公司、小型包裹运输部的能力，依赖于复杂的网络(轴辐式通讯网络与仓储网络相结合)和可靠的追踪和跟踪发货方式，以提供快速的和精确的覆盖全球的快递投送。简单地说，快递提供点对点德尔当天送货;快递供应商提供快速的快递运输服务，依赖于其强大的运输网络，可提供次日达的快递运输服务; 包裹服务供应商的特点就是标准化的次日达包裹递送。但现在，这三个服务之间的概念已逐渐模糊了，CEP参与者提供综合性的快递物流服务(DHL,2008)。在欧洲，DHL、TNT、UPS共享市场。根据国际邮政公司于2008年的统计，快递包裹物流市场的营业额是374亿欧元(商业企业(B2B)和消费者(B2C)包业务)。根据估计，CEP市场营业额将达到422亿欧元(ITA咨询&伟嘉咨询,2009)。

在过去的十五年，欧洲快的递包裹CEP行业，特别是在城市供应链的最后阶段，经历了显著的和快速的变化(门格和赫伯2011年, 马克2002年，萨维和伯纳姆2013)。新技术的传播以及经济社会的变化、新的购物和物流模式的出现，导致了快递包裹运输业务的增长(艾塞和科特2005年，海瑟2002年，经合组织2003，维尔特和洛特姆2009)。公司和商店也改善了它们在城市的供应链。此外，欧洲城市的政府当局也越来越意识到城市商品分配的重要作用，因此实施了一系

列的措施来增强城市货运；(达普拉克2011；林霍尔姆2011；拉索和贾卡2010)。面对日益增长的复杂性，以及最后一英里的问题，面对竞争激烈的环境，传统的CEP部门思考如何(“共赢”) (泰勒和霍尔斯沃斯2000)。因此CEP的一些部门对其进行一些重组来适应快速变化背景下的城市包裹运输（尽管不是自发的）。

本文旨在为欧洲的包裹快递行业提供一个最新的概述，以及阐述欧洲城市包裹递送部门在过去的十年的变化。另外，本文还将强调该行业的未来前景。毫无疑问，理解城市物流货运系统最重要的利益相关者的利益和关切问题，对于政府当局提出有效的法规和政策来说是至关重要的。

研究的问题是:是什么因素影响欧洲的各种包裹递送部门，以及建立新的包裹行业有哪些常见的驱动程序?我们如何在他们的组织中描述欧洲CEP的重组策略以及参与者的竞争?具体分析新的部门正在未来将要面对的最重要的挑战，特别是政治当局的不断介入，以及在欧洲范围内跨境电子商务的崛起的后果。

这篇文章是建立在2012年和2013年之间三个研究的分析之上的。(1)城市包裹部门在欧洲背景下的一个文献综述；(2)对法国和欧洲的48个CEP部门，包括：包裹配送服务供应商、零售商、运输、零售或ICT; 的一项研究；(3) 64个法国相关地方当局代表的采访，以及其对城市货运交通的政策；对法国19个城市的运输经营者和包裹运输者的访问。原则上，即使以法国为例进行了深入的研究，但是我们还将提供与欧洲其他国家的一个比较分析。

本文的结构如下:首先描述数据收集工作，然后文章将会给出一个大纲，关于传统欧洲CEP部门、城市包裹配送部门、策略和组织、参与者。为了了解城市包裹递送的形式，我们还探索了新的城市利益相关者和当地政府之间的关系，以及经济和零售在包裹递送供给和需求方面的作用。最后，我们总结了研究意义和在特定的跨境电子商务的崛起的背景下，物流包裹快递行业的前景。

2 研究方法、目标和数据收集

2.1 研究方法、目标

本文是基于2012年到2013年之间的三项研究进行分析的。我们首先欧洲城市包裹部门的背景进行了文献综述。我们对现有CEP部门文献进行了回顾，自2000年以来公司的报告和书籍等。即使城市物流及相关电子商务研究在过去的十年里增加了很多(达布拉卡2011，霍姆2013 ),令人惊讶的是，近期的文献很少