It’s Time for Cities to Ditch Delivery Trucks—for Cargo Bikes

If you’ve visited London recently, you might know that Amazon has launched its first fleet of cargo bikes in England, the latest move in a growing trend: DHL has been trialing cargo bikes in Edinburgh. UPS has deployed a small number of them globally. And this month, FedEx became the first global courier brand to invest in a North American fleet.

These vehicles—akin to regular pedal bikes, but with a large box, platform, or basket for transporting goods built into the frame—are on a roll. And it’s just as well. Urban freight transport accounts for roughly 10 to 15 percent of miles traveled in cities, and is often the most expensive and polluting section of the logistics chain, having traditionally been carried out by vans and trucks running on fossil fuels, even when the goods carried are light and small.

The problem is worsening as home deliveries soar. The ground covered by vans in urban areas has been rising, spurred by online shopping, with the number of delivery vehicles in cities projected to increase by 36 percent by 2030 if we don’t become more efficient at getting goods to people’s doors. In London, up to 9,500 people die annually due to health complications related to air pollution, and a large chunk of these pollutants come from delivery vehicles. But Amazon and the like could have stumbled across a solution.

“Cargo bikes have a cascade of positive effects, including the reduction of air and noise pollution and the improvement of public space,” says Ersilia Verlinghieri, senior research fellow at the Active Travel Academy at the University of Westminster in London. “They’re more efficient and a lot cleaner than using vans.”

It’s estimated that cargo bikes could replace around 51 percent of all motorized freight trips in European cities. And this number could be higher if cargo bikes with electric assistance are used. According to a recent study, in Paris it’s technically possible to pick up and deliver as much as 91 percent of freight using ecargo bikes.

But just because a company could use a cargo bike courier doesn’t mean it will. The Paris study also found it would only be economical to use cargo bikes 67 percent of the time, compared to using a fleet of electric vans.

Efficiency of movement is key to keeping things cost-effective, and this is something that Verlinghieri and her colleagues have looked into. Last year, they found that services provided by cargo bike company Pedal Me were 1.61 times faster than those of an equivalent van service, because the bikes were able to move at higher average speeds through dense urban environments. Whereas cargo bikes can bypass traffic jams, take shortcuts through streets closed to cars, use bus lanes and bicycle paths, and ride to customers’ doors, vans are hindered by congestion and the search for parking. Admittedly, these advantages are greater in European cities with narrow, winding streets compared to the wider roads of North America.