International Cargo Bike Festival 2018

How cities can speed up urban
logistics using containerisation
By Johan Erlandsson
Specialised last mile delivery vehicles, like cargo bikes, have numerous advantages
and also great potential to replace a large portion of todays standard vehicle for last
mile delivery - the van. If cities would actively support city logistics containerisation,
a lot of this potential could be unlocked!
Cargo bikes have a higher productivity as
they don’t get stuck in traffic like vans do,
they can take shorter routes and they never
have a parking problem. They also have a
lower total cost of ownership than vans.
Cargo bikes are particularly competitive in
cities with bike infrastructure.
Cargo bikes reduce congestion, eliminate
noise and emissions to air and also replace
vehicles with faces in the city - all of which
contributes to a more liveable city!
Todays standard process for last mile delivery -vans both bring the goods into the
city and do the last mile delivery.
Cargo bikes use only 6 % of the electricity a
small e-van uses, for doing the same transport
work. The reduction in material use
for the vehicle is similar. As long as we do
not have 100 % CO2 free electricity, energy
efficiency should be in everyone’s focus
and here is an opportunity for cities to save
energy!
Until now, the use of specialised last mile
delivery vehicles has however been limited.
The van still stands strong, partly because
shifting the goods to a smaller vehicle
has been too difficult, time consuming
and expensive.
Enter the city container. By borrowing ideas
from shipping containers, which increased
productivity in loading and unloading
vessels by a factor of 15, shifting of goods
between ships, trucks and trains is now a
breeze, especially if cities support
containerisation.
Containerised city logistics. Containers are loaded in the terminal, brought
into the city with big vehicles, dropped off at terminals/handover points
where last mile delivery vehicles pick them up for last mile delivery.
City containers are loaded in terminals
outside the city, transported by big vehicles
(replacing many smaller vans) to terminals
in the final distribution area. Here, specialised
last mile delivery vehicles collect the
containers in seconds and off they go.
The goods have been safely locked,
weather protected and monitored during
the whole process.
14