Cycle Logistics

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What is cycle logistics?

Use of cargo bikes for deliveries, servicing and freight is growing fast in UK and European cities.

Private trips using bikes to carry shopping or other loads is also informally known as “Quaxing” after Auckland Councillor Dick Quax’s 2015 tweet that you wouldn’t go shopping by walking, cycling or using public transport.

Cycle logistics generally refers to the use of cargo bikes for commercial delivery. These can be:

• Goods or tools being carried to carry out certain services (such as by plumbers)
• Freight transport by the producer (such as Sainsbury’s grocery chain in the UK)
• Freight transport by professional carriers (such as DHL and UPS or even Deliveroo).

The delivery trip could be point to point, and could be business to customer. Or it could be last mile delivery, where the package is transferred to bike for the last (or from first) segment of the journey. Last mile delivery may be to/from a delivery hub or consolidation centre, or more informally transferred between van drivers and riders.

Cycle logistics is particularly important and relevant in congested or traffic restricted areas now because of increasing e-Commerce and an urgent need to address emissions.

More reading/viewing

• RIPPL (Register of Initiatives in Pedal Powered Logistics) – Sharing trends and real world examples of innovation and best practice in cycle logistics
• Retailers opting for greener and more efficient deliveries
• UPS launches cargo e-bike delivery in Seattle (video)
• Amazon to build last mile hub for e-cargo bikes and on-foot deliveries (London)
• TfL Cycle Freight Study (2018)
• European Commission – Cycle Logistics
• European Cycle Logistics Federation
• UPS lessons learned
• Zero Emission Freight: How Berlin is promoting the use of cargo bikes by citizens and companies – webinar, C40 cities Climate Leadership Group

Research

• The spatial dimension of cycle logistics
• Urban consolidation and cargo bikes: a simulation study (comparison of different urban logistics schemes using a discrete event simulation model)
• What Makes a Good Cargo Bike Route? Perspectives from Users and Planners

Guides

• Cargo bikes: Safely delivering goods during the COVID-19 crisis and paving the way for a zero-emission freight future, C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group
• Planning the last-mile: Improving urban freight delivery using cyclelogistics

Benefits of cycle logistics

For the driver/rider: faster, avoids long walks from available parking spaces, no parking fines

For the delivery company: lower capital and running costs, faster delivery times, environmentally and socially responsible

For the customer/business: more reliable delivery time

For the city and its people: less pollution, less space needed for on-street loading, better road safety, less traffic noise, lower climate changing emissions.

The Promise of Low-Carbon Freight – Benefits of cargo bikes in London (August 2021) This study found that in London:

• About 10% of van kilometres in London could be easily replaced by cargo bike services.
• And this would lead to saving as much as 133,300 tonnes of CO2 and 190.4 thousand Kg of NOx per year.
• At the same time, it would reduce urban congestion and free a total of 384,000 sqm of public space usually occupied by parked vans and 16,980 hours of vehicle traffic per day.

Courier Hubs and Urban Consolidation Centres

Urban consolidation centres facilitate last and first mile deliveries by providing a location with facilities for transfer of parcels and goods between trucks or vans and bikes or walkers.

Research

Using urban consolidation centres with cargo bike support to increase the performance and sustainability of urban logistics – a literature review and a case study in the city of Sao Paulo

Guides

Planning of Cargo Bike Hubs – A guide for municipalities and industry for the planning of trans-shipment hubs for new urban logistics concepts (German Ministry of Transport and European Commission)

The Sydney CBD Courier Hub

• Sydney Last Mile Freight Innovation
• Developing an urban freight micro hub, by Transport for NSW – benefits analysis, considerations and limitations.

A 2016 efficiency assessment by Transport for NSW comparing a bike courier operating from the Courier Hub and a van delivering to the same points around the CBD found an experienced bike courier was able to complete the same deliveries in half the time of the experienced van courier.

RIPPL article about Sydney Courier Hub

Barriers

• Regulations can be a barrier in some places, although in Sydney/NSW the regulations for cargo bike access to roads or parking and power limits is the same as for other bikes/e-bikes. The London report recommends increasing the power limit for cargo e-bikes from 250w to 1000w, with the power assistance still cutting out at 25km/h (as per existing rules in NSW).
• Lack of recognition of the capabilities of cargo bikes (a trial of cargo bikes for construction materials for the Crossrail site at Whitechapel in London in 2019 found they were twice as fast as vans).
• Limited availability and range of cargo bikes in Australia and access to trained/skilled riders.
• Insufficient bike infrastructure, traffic conditions, and topography.
• Lack of consolidation centres (which need to be well located to work).
• Size, weight and distance of many deliveries.