Investigating stakeholders’ support for off-peak hour deliveries in Malta

Abstract

This paper summarises research carried out to understand the perceptions and concerns of key stakeholders of off-peak hour delivery. The key stakeholders, for this research, are logistics operators, government entities, retailers and citizens. The main purpose of this study was to access if shifting some commercial deliveries to off-peak has enough support to potentially be a viable initiative introduced in Malta. To be able to measure this, and answer the question, a combination of semi-structured interviews and a survey were used. The information gathered through both media were analysed through a thematic analysis, were common themes within the cases were extracted. Overall, there seems to be an understanding between the different stakeholders concerning off-peak hour delivery. They seem to think that this initiative will be truly successful with the introduction of some form of incentive to both the distributors and retailers. This allows the financial burden, that is placed on the entities involved in this shift, to be partly reduced. This policy is also seen to potentially aid the congestion issues within Malta and thereby allow, both on a personal and a commercial level, higher rates of productivity. On the insights gained through the data analysis a number of policy implications and conclusions were reached, which can enlighten the industry to the thoughts of its most influential participants.