Urbike – promoting low carbon emissions through large capacity bike deliveries
The de-carbonization of the economy is becoming an undeniable imperative. People and businesses must turn to low or zero carbon solutions for a range of products and services in order to meet the Paris Agreement 2040 commitment to reduce Green House Gas (GHG) emission by 40% relative to 1990 levels. Because we will not achieve this merely with existing technologies or processes, we can be thankful for the entrepreneurs and innovators that everyday come up with solutions to help us achieve this objective.
One of them is urbike. This Brussels based cooperative is promoting zero carbon city deliveries on an innovative platform. Existing cargo bikes tend to have limited capacity or a storage space that is not easily managed. To revolutionize urban deliveries, urbike partner Fleximodal has developed BicyLift, which in short aims to do for short distance deliveries what the container has done from international shipping.
Applied to urban distribution, intelligent containerization of goods results in the use of light containers from 1 to 2 m³ in the supply chain and the optimization of their filling using dedicated modules to ensure maximum efficiency of delivery routes. Consequently, the principle of intelligent containerization would make it possible to significantly optimize all delivery operations: reduction in the handling of goods (productivity gains, reduction of stress and risk of damage), acceleration of trans-shipment operations, preparation of delivery routes in masked time (i.e simultaneous to other tasks – so does not take extra time), and the improvement in the density of bicycle deliveries. In addition, the use of secure and standardized containers promotes the pooling of flows, and thus the rationalization of logistics operations.
This trailer can be attached virtually any bicycle in a few seconds, can carry up to 180 kgs in weight and up to 2m3 in volume, and most importantly, it can be attached to wooden pallets that are already widely used for transporting goods. It is also possible to use it with its own container, which also has wheels to facilitate delivery in the last meters.
Urbike has received private and public financing to pilot how these solutions fare in real life circumstances in 4 sectors (parcel, pharma, retail, services and home care), and has chosen a cooperative model to allow their drivers to make decent wages and profit from the companies’ success.
This is particularly insightful at a time when employment is increasingly precarious. By 2020 urbike aims to make 115,000 deliveries avoiding the emissions of 550 tons of CO2 per year (equivalent to removing 30 vans and small trucks from the roads), and to create 17 sustainable and quality jobs.
In addition to this project, they also distribute BicyLift solutions (specifically the trailer and container). If you are interested just get in touch here: info@urbike.be.
