Cargo bikes hold promise for speedier, less polluting package delivery

As online shopping grows, so do the number of double-parked delivery vans blocking traffic in cities and adding carbon emissions into the air. To curb both pollution and street congestion, a new report suggests that logistics companies should be investing more in electric cargo bikes as an alternative. In city centers, the study found that such bikes can make deliveries 60% faster than vans and also have a lower carbon footprint, even compared to electric delivery vans.

Using GPS data from Pedal Me, a cargo bike company that makes deliveries in central London, the researchers calculated how long it would have taken a delivery van to make the same trips, accounting for differences in speed, payload capacity, and the time to unload the vehicles. Because cargo bikes can more easily cut through heavy traffic, take shortcuts on streets that are closed to car traffic, and spend less time trying to find parking, the report found that they can make deliveries more quickly.

Still, less time searching for parking may not always mean more packages make it to doorsteps. When UPS tested electric cargo bikes in downtown Seattle, a study from the University of Washington’s Urban Freight Lab found that even though delivery truck drivers spent around 50 minutes each day looking for parking, they were able to deliver more packages than cargo bikes on the same route. The bikes delivered only between 20% and 25% of the packages delivered by trucks. The pilot took place in the busy holiday season, when the delivery vans had an extra helper to make their deliveries faster; and only lasted a month, so the results may have changed over time. The Urban Freight Lab is now working with more companies to study a neighborhood delivery hub and gather more data about the efficiency of using cargo bikes, along with lockers, that customers can use to pick up packages themselves.