Bike Forums - UPS And The Bicycle

Bike Forums (https://www.bikeforums.net/forum.php)

- Commuting (https://www.bikeforums.net/commuting/)

- - UPS And The Bicycle (https://www.bikeforums.net/commuting/1128912-ups-bicycle.html)

UPS And The Bicycle

So it's a milk float that can also block the sidewalk?

Over the past few years, I've seen UPS put portable storage containers on streets in suburbs/small cities and then have a delivery truck load them up for holiday workers on bikes with trailers to come get the packages and do the final few miles. It makes more sense than having one employee sit behind the wheel while another runs from truck to porch making the deliveries.

looks awesome. i'd love to be the rider who delivers!

Quote:

Originally Posted by B. Carfree (Post 20013623)

Brilliant.

I haven't seen two workers in a truck, but your point is valid either way.

NYC has always been a city that relies heavily on bicycle deliveries. I wonder why UPS and the other shipping companies don't use bicycles! And how about the USPS!

I have a friend who is a UPS driver, and they do double up in the truck at Christmas time. I guess one guy can be busy grabbing packages while the other guy focuses just on driving. Less time with the truck standing still.

Quote:

Originally Posted by noglider (Post 20019863)

I think the volume is just too great. You would need a hoard of bikes and riders.

I'm not sure about your office, but the volume of deliveries that comes into mine every day is astounding. It's a WeWork, so you have a lot of different small companies crammed into a few floors, but pretty much every day you have the FedEx, UPS, USPS and Amazon guys/gals bringing in carts full of packages that would fill up that bike. And we are just 3 floors, in one office, on one block...

Quote:

Originally Posted by robertorolfo (Post 20021607)

UPS is pretty good at the logistics thing. Some place like yours would still get the truck, while all the onsie-twosie stuff would go out by bike.

Quote:

Originally Posted by RubeRad (Post 20021478)

I used to ride shotgun on a UPS route as my X-mas job during my undergrad. I'd take the parcels for one block and jump off, while the driver would go up to the next block and do the drops there, then pick me up and drive to the next street. Repeat until the truck's empty. I was on the truck for 6.5-7 hours a day, and in the week before X-mas we'd do ~300 deliveries a day.

Yes, DHL has been using them in select German cities since 2015 or so. They announced an expansion of the program.

Quote:

The City Hub is a customized trailer which can carry up to four containers for the DHL Cubicycle, a customized cargo bicycle which can carry a container with a load of up to 125 kg (one cubic meter in volume). A DHL van delivers the trailer into the city center, where the containers can be quickly loaded on to two Cubicyles for last-mile inner-city delivery. It can then be reloaded for outbound shipments. The solution significantly reduces emissions by minimizing the mileage and time spent on the road by standard delivery vehicles. Each City Hub can replace up to two standard delivery vehicles, with an equivalent CO2 saving of over sixteen tons per year and a significant reduction in other emissions.