by Walther Ploos van Amstel
DHL Express has started in Groningen (NL) with a CityHub for sustainable city distribution. It is a local operation with a parcel shop function from which cargo bike couriers, in particular, deliver and collect parcels and where consumers can pick up and send shipments themselves.
The growth of e-commerce is accompanied by an increasing distribution of parcels in cities resulting in externalities like traffic congestion or emissions. As a consequence, different delivery concepts like bike deliveries or delivery points have been suggested. Most companies will only accept these changes, if they do not result in higher cost of delivery.