User:Affablelemur/sandbox

Last mile is a term used in supply chain management and transportation planning to describe the movement of people and goods from a transportation hub to a final destination. The term "last mile" was adopted from the telecommunications industry which faced difficulty connecting individual homes to the main telecommunications network. Similarly in supply chain management last mile is often used to describe the difficulty in transporting people and packages to final destinations. Last mile delivery is an increasingly studied field as the number of business to consumer (b2c) deliveries grow especially from e-commerce companies in freight transportation, and ride sharing companies in personal transportation.

History
See also: Last mile

The term last mile was originally used in the telecommunications industry to describe the difficulty of connecting end user's homes and businesses to the main telecommunication network. This last "mile" of cable or wire is only used by one customer meaning that the cost of installing and maintaining this infrastructure can only be amortized over one subscriber, compared to many customers in the main "trunks" of the network.

In distribution networks the term "last mile" has been applied to describe a similar problem for both transporting people and freight. In freight networks, parcels for many customers can be delivered to a central hub efficiently using ships, trains, large trucks, or planes. Once at this central distribution hub however, these parcels must be loaded into smaller vehicles for delivery to individual businesses or consumers. Just as in telecommunications networks the costs of this "last mile" delivery are often higher. In transportation networks "last mile" describes the difficulty of getting people from a transportation hub such as an airport or train station to their final destination.

This last leg of the supply chain is often less efficient, comprising up to 41% of the total cost to move goods