Environmental and economic impacts of drone-assisted truck delivery under the carbon market price

Logistics delivery companies today are under high pressure from the carbon market. As an emerging commercial delivery tool, the drone has the advantages of low carbon emissions and cost. This study proposes an innovative dual-objective mixed-integer linear programming model to explore the environmental and economic impacts of drone-assisted truck delivery under the carbon market price. It uses JD.com in China as a case study to explore the company's benefits of adopting drone-assisted delivery. The results show that compared to traditional truck delivery, drone-assisted delivery reduced carbon emissions by 24.90%, reduced total cost by 22.13%, and shortened delivery time by 20.65%. In addition, the effects of some key elements on the total cost and carbon emissions are compared. The analysis shows that drone battery cycle life, fuel price, driver's wage, truck speed, and drone speed are vital for drone-assisted truck delivery.