Walkability and pick-up points in the Catania Metropolitan Area, Italy: Lessons learned

Goods' delivery can be quite a problem in terms of time and resources, both for digital shops and consumers. As e-commerce grows, online retailers are preparing themselves to deliver the goods to pick-up points. Assessing walking accessibility to shopping locations is crucial for choosing pick-up points' locations, producing several benefits for the consumers/ receivers (avoiding usage of private vehicles thus contributing to less road congestion phenomena, environmental benefits, financial, etc.). Different typologies of pick-up points are available. In this study two categories are considered: lockers, where parcels are deposited in a locker compartment, and counters, in which operations are made with the help of the retailer. This paper refers to the improvement of planning goods' distribution to pick-up points by implementing actions to improve urban areas' walkability in the metropolitan area of Catania, Italy. Through identifying and recording the locations of the pick-up points (lockers and counters), 5-minute walking isochrones pertaining to the dislocation of these points and the characterisation of the activities falling within the areas examined, are developed, leading to the following conclusions: a) counters have a 'dispersed' type of dislocation, located mainly in urban centres (they are more concentrated in urban activities and therefore serve pedestrian mobility), and b) lockers have a radial distribution, located mainly around the road axes that connect the historic centre with the peripheral areas/ urban and suburban meaning that they are concentrated in extra-urban activities, on extra-urban roads, and therefore serving car mobility. A comparison using maps produced in QGIS reveals that the under-study area is well served by pick-up points and about 60% of the population resides within a 5-minute walk of these points/ locations.