by Walther Ploos van Amstel
Smartphone data from Deliveroo riders delivering meals for restaurant-to-home shows that bicycles are faster than cars. In towns and cities, bicyclists are also often faster than motorized two-wheelers.
Florian Arnold from the University of Antwerp developed an algorithm that enables efficient parcel delivery with cargo bikes. According to Arnold, this is more environmentally friendly and not more expensive than with vans.
Ducth PostNL will purchase e-bikes for all 18,000 mail deliverers. In this way, they can make longer postal rounds in the future. In urban areas with a lot of mail, it concerns electric cargo bikes, in quieter regions around normal e-bikes.
A new publication presents the results of the LEFV-LOGIC project: a two-year research into the use of light electric freight vehicles for city logistics. In this project Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences and HAN University of Applied Sciences, together with logistics service providers, shippers, vehicle suppliers, network organizations, knowledge institutions, …
London presented a call for evidence on the opportunities available to deliver goods more sustainably. This call for evidence will allow the City of London to improve their understanding of the scale of opportunity as well as some of the current barriers to delivering goods more sustainably.
The use of cargo bikes for goods deliveries is a promising concept of urban logistics. In this paper by Hofmann et. al. (2017), a simulation-based assessment tool integrating this cargo bikes in urban distribution systems is presented.
Food delivery services are gaining popularity. To deliver products, horizontal cooperation, e.g. multiple competing restaurants share delivery resources, enables one to reduce costs, and increase logistics performance and service quality. Consequently, numerous logistics providers like Deliveroo, and UberEATS are entering the market.
The KoMoDo roject in Berlin is an effort from the city of Berlin to take a step forward in making city logistics more city friendly. KoMoDo comes from ‘Kooperative Nutzung von Mikrodepots’. And, it’s all about collaboration.
The European Commission has promoted actions and policies with the aim of reducing the negative impacts on traffic and environment caused by city logistics. One increasingly popular measure is the use of cargo bikes in city logistics due to their improved energy efficiency, lower emissions and lower traffic disturbance.
In urban areas light goods are often delivered by heavy vehicles covering only short distances. This is problematic in sensitive inner city areas. The European project Cyclelogistics Ahead, a follow up on the first Cyclelogistics project in 2011, aims at reducing the negative impact of motorised urban freight.