Adoption patterns of autonomous technologies in Logistics: evidence for Niagara Region

ABSTRACT

Despite the well-known benefits that autonomous technologies bring to supply chain and logistics, the adoption of such technologies remains a challenging task. This study seeks to investigate how firms that are associated with the generation of freight movements in Niagara Region (Canada) will respond to new autonomous technologies. Structural Equation Modeling was used to extract meaningful features from the dataset obtained from an extensive and in-depth survey. The survey was designed to help better understand firms’ views regarding autonomous technologies. The results showed that firms with a higher percentage of e-commerce sales are more likely to adopt autonomous technologies. Results also showed that third-party logistics providers are likely to play an important role in facilitating a path to adoption. The number of product lines, the number of transportation assets, and the number of import countries are other important contributing factors that can affect firms’ levels of interest in autonomous technologies.

KEYWORDS:

• Autonomous technologies
• Logistics operations
• SMEs
• technology adoption

Acknowledgments

The researchers would like to acknowledge the support received from the Autonomous Vehicle Innovation Network of Ontario (AVIN), Transport Canada, and the Niagara Region Economic Development for conducting this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).