The increased demand for fast deliveries of goods have led to more costly and less environmentally friendly transports since many of the delivering trucks are not being fully loaded. The inefficiencies of deliveries have created a need for development of new freight systems. One alternative vehicle that has gained increasingly interest is usage of UAVs (unmanned arial vehicles), also known as drones. Several drones in varying sizes and configurations are being developed and applications within transports of both people and goods is seen as promising areas for the future. The study aims at investigating the performance of drone deliveries regarding time, cost, and environmental impact and to see what parameters are important for the performance. This have been made by comparing a UAV to two different vans (electric and HVO) for parcel deliveries in four chosen missions in both urban and rural settings. The evaluation takes a future perspective and are based on information received through both literature review and a market investigation. 

The result from this study indicates that UAVs are likely to be a competitive future option for parcel deliveries regarding time and cost. This is concluded since the results shows significant savings in both costs and delivery time and these results are not changed by the sensitivity analyses. The result regarding environmental performance shows that the UAVs competitiveness depends on the vehicle of comparison. The drone has a better environmental performance than vans with fossil-based propellants but given the energy intensity of the UAV, it is not favourable compared to an electric van.

The energy requirement of the drone is one of the most important factors affecting the performance. The energy requirements per km for the UAV increases when the routes become shorter since different phases of the flight have different energy intensity. The most demanding phase is lifting and when the distance between the stops is reduced this phase becomes more prominent. Another important factor is the possibility to reduce the travelled distance by taking the straight path with the UAV compared to being bound by the road infrastructure. The shorter distance for the UAV contributes both to reduced time but also reduced energy requirements which in its turn affect both environmental and economic performance. The distances and energy requirements are thus not the most important factor for the economic sustainability but rather the cost of staff. Since the drones are unmanned, several UAVs could be controlled by the same operator contributing to reduced cost of staff.

The low energy requirements for the UAV in the longer and more rural cases makes this type of applications the most beneficial regarding environmental performance. Urban missions are instead the most preferable regarding cost and time, since a bigger share of the distance can be saved and the difference in speed between the UAV and the van is larger.