Electric mobility toward sustainable cities and road-freight logistics: A systematic review and future research directions

Abstract

The importance of electric vehicles (EVs) lies in the fact that they are seen as a key solution to the climate change problem. In the last decade, this topic has received significant interest from the scientific community, contributing to publications in different areas. However, the existing literature is fragmented, and efforts have not been made to categorize and analyze it from a freight logistics perspective. This work aims to fill this gap by presenting a systematic literature review (SLR) of the potential impacts of EVs on sustainable road-freight transport operations, including in urban areas. We reviewed 237 peer-reviewed articles for bibliometric and literature classification analysis, whereby 119 articles were subsequently studied for content analysis and research gaps related to sustainability approaches. The bibliometric analysis showed significant growth in the body of research in the past two years, reflected in the number of journal papers, authors, and references. In the literature and keywords analysis, we identified five main categories and research areas: economic and competitive aspects, city logistics, environmental sustainability, vehicle fleet operations, and infrastructure and technology. In addition, this paper revealed eight key research gaps for future research: multimodal integration, long-haul and heavy-duty truck approaches, emerging economies, business models, social factors, charging infrastructure inclusion, and fleet replacement policies. These findings can enlighten researchers and practitioners toward sustainable research and real-life applications of electromobility in freight logistics.