Last mile problem

Last mile problem came up in the context of delivery of goods and services. It is regarded as a problem because the costs of the last mile delivery occupy a major fraction of the total costs of delivery. In this learning resource we detach the last mile problem from a pure problem of logistics and delivery.

The "last mile" is regarded as general challenge for reaching people e.g. in context of Capacity Building and Risk Management. You can have well developed Open Educational Resources for improving Risk Literacy (e.g. in the context of Global Health), but if the risk mitigation approach does not reach the vulverable communities then it will not have an impact on risk mitigation.

If we detach the "last mile problem" to the limited context of logistics and transportation then language barrier can be the last mile problem, due to the fact, that uptake of risk mitigation strategies is not possible.

Learning Tasks

 * Look at first at the last mile problem in the context of logistics (lack of proper infrastructur, costs for delivery for the last mile, access to relevant resources, ...)
 * Compare an economic responses to the last mile problem with humanitarian response to last mile problem - e.g.
 * replace cost for delivery by car and a driver by delivery by drones the delivery of the product by the company and the cost reduction for delivery has priority
 * replace the delivery to a rural remote community by Capacity Building that allows the production within a vulnerable community to cover the needs for the product (e.g. instead of buying bread and deliver it, it might be option to bake bread in the community and provide economic opportunities for small vulnerable communities.
 * Compare economic approaches to address the last mile problem with humanitarian approaches to the last mile problem. What do have both approaches in common and what are the differences.
 * Explain how Collaborative Mapping and User-Driven Innovation could support the solving humanitarian approaches to the last mile problem (see Humanitarian Open Streetmap).
 * Explain how social problem increase the last mile problem.