Global urbanisation has been overgrowing in the past decades. In 2018, the world's urban areas were home to over half of the world's population, and by 2050 that number will rise to approximately 68%. With the fast-packed urbanisation and the rapid growth of e- commerce across the globe, cities face more pressure, particularly in terms of urban goods distribution. Traffic congestion, pollution, and last-mile deliveries are some of the most challenging issues. The World Economic Forum (WEF) projected that this trend for urban last-mile deliveries is soaring; it is set to grow by 78% globally by 2030 This thesis presents a concise background on the concepts of urban logistics and last- mile delivery. It further provides a general overview of the technology and robotics in logistics, particularly autonomous robots for last-mile deliveries, and how these innovations are being piloted and experimented in urban settings with the use of three case studies. The emperical data was collected through semi-structured interviews both face-to-face and virtually via Microsoft Teams and Zoom with the stakeholders of the pilot project: a case of the REDI-Home-on-demand delivery robot pilot run in Kalasatama, Helsinki, Finland. The main results and the conlusions of the research indicate that autonomous robots are more beneficial in urban last-mile deliveries. Sidewalk delivery robot models are shown to be less dangerous to other pedestrians as they operate at smaller speeds, as well as suitable in most cases for hybrid-commercial and residential areas, but have limitations related to their battery life and weather conditions, particularly during winter times. The road delivery robot models, on the other hand, have shown promising benefits for urban freight distribution, but they also have legislation concerns. Nevertheless, there is a cause for optimism, mainly the implementation of autonomous delivery robots on a large scale, but again, nothing is straight forward. Because of this, more comprehensive regulatory issues regarding ...


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