by Walther Ploos van Amstel
The Center of Excellence for Sustainable Urban Freight Systems (CoE-SUFS) announced that TU Delft, a longtime partner has a new massive open online course (MOOC) entitled Sustainable Urban Freight Transport. The MOOC will be available on EDX as of 2nd May 2018.
UPS announced it plans to deploy 50 plug-in electric delivery trucks that will be comparable in acquisition cost to conventional-fueled trucks without any subsidies. This is an industry first that is breaking a key barrier to large scale fleet adoption.
The uptake of electric vehicle (EV) technology appears to be progressing faster than expected, with industry forecasts routinely being revised upwards. This is in part the result of strong policy stimulus from the Chinese and Western governments, but is also increasingly due to favorable economics as battery costs have tumbled in recent years.
It is an inspiring dream image of the future, but also a vision that is slowly turning into reality. The use of human-powered vehicles in urban distribution is increasing, but how should we adapt the city to accommodate these newcomers?
Since October 2017, NexTrust has been trialling a sustainable commercial delivery arrangement for chilled products and fresh produce in the centre of London. The pilot aims to consolidate multiple deliveries of these products onto fully electric refrigerated (1 to 5◦C) vehicles to reduce congestion and toxic emissions in London.
The ConCoord City Logistics Game is a six-player game designed as part of the ConCoord project. The project focuses on Consolidation and Coordination of urban freight distribution flows, that are currently fragmented. By consolidating these fragmented volume flows in City Hubs, a physical space where freight can be delivered and bundled again for delivery in …
London based Brisqq provides local logistics-as-a-service, enabling retailers to offer same day (or later date) deliveries and returns in 1-hour time slots (chosen by the customer). Their technology takes the pain out of delivery for retailers by connecting them with local, crowdsourced, freelancers, providing 100% visibility over deliveries and state-of-the-art security features.
The Final 50 Feet program looks at methods to improve delivery and the last 50 feet of the supply chain, such as loading areas, traffic control and street design. The urban freight lab will pilot low-cost and high-value actions to optimize operations of goods.
Cluster 2 of NECTAR (Network of European Communications and Transport Activities Research) focuses on policy and environment and is organizing a meeting in Molde (Norway) on the 11th and 12th of October 2018.
In a growing urban logistics market transportation companies are struggling to effectively change their operation to be smarter and more flexible but at the same time more sustainable. There is a lack of smaller (white label) city hubs suited for smaller and more sustainable delivery vehicles such as cargo bikes and light electric vehicles.