In Hamburg, Germany, as in a growing number of crowded cities, large trucks are banned from the city center during business hours.
The restriction is part of a 20-year plan to transform the city into a greener, healthier, vehicle-free metropolis.
For United Parcel Service, the world’s largest package delivery company, that’s a revenue-killing nightmare. But the Atlanta-based shipping giant has a clever answer: it delivers the goods with electric-assist cargo tricycles.
Overnight, the company parks a trailer load of packages in the city center, then uses the brown UPS trikes to deliver them the next day.
With 77 cubic feet of cargo space (more than most mid-sized sedans), a range of 21 miles and a top speed of 15 miles per hour, UPS’ Cargo Cruisers are an economical and efficient way to get the job done. And they’re not just for narrow European streets; UPS customers in Portland, Ore., will soon see drivers pedaling around their neighborhoods in a similar model.
UPS is testing the e-trikes and thousands of other alternative fuel vehicles in various scenarios around the world as part of a “rolling laboratory” approach to its most vexing business problem: how to keep up with the boom in e-commerce while at the same time reducing its impact on the environment.
The 1,000-page algorithm, developed over 10 years, crunches real-time data from every package, along with customer information and detailed maps, to sort through 200,000 possible choices and dictate the driver’s optimal route. And it works, shaving 6 to 8 miles off the average driver’s route, according to UPS.ile at the same time reducing its impact on the environment.
As a global logistics company with $58 billion in revenue, UPS’ business depends on trucks and airplanes powered by petroleum-based fuels. Its goal is to reduce its “carbon intensity” – in other words, the amount of pollution it creates per package delivered – 20 percent by the end of 2020 (compared to 2007 levels). It’s inching closer: it was down 14.5 percent as of the end of 2015.
But here’s the rub: the explosion of e-commerce is rapidly changing the way UPS operates. Instead of dropping off a stack of boxes at regular business customers each day, UPS drivers today spend more time delivering stuff ordered from Amazon, Nordstrom and Williams-Sonoma to individual homes.
That means 2 billion stops a year, and fewer packages per stop, which translates into more miles driven, more fuel consumed and more emissions. (During the holiday season, UPS deliveries soar to 36 million packages a day – twice the usual rate.)
