Future of Delivery: Unleashing the potential of micromobility for the last mile

Demand for deliveries is surging. Relying upon cars, vans and trucks for the last mile risks clogging up our local places and adding to emissions. Transitioning to micromobility, like e-bikes and cargo bikes, in our city centres offers an alternative that is better for people, places and businesses. The Future of Delivery uncovers five big moves that city leaders can make to unleash the potential of micromobility for deliveries.

Over two billion people purchased goods or services online in 2020 - that’s a quarter of the global population. Enabled by technology and new delivery players, people now consider fast and efficient deliveries a ‘must have’ service.

Demand for deliveries of almost everything from ready-to-eat meals to home improvement items is on the rise. Parcel deliveries are the largest market segment followed by grocery and food deliveries. The resulting freight task, especially the ‘last mile’ that brings the service or product directly to customers, adds pressure to our cities and places resulting in pollution, congestion, and negative impacts on health and wellbeing. For freight operators, the last mile is the most complex in terms of cost and efficiency, accounting for 53% of the delivery cost.

A legacy of designing cities for cars is that the majority of deliveries reach their final destination by cars, vans and trucks, even over short distances. This has resulted in competition for space and crowding on our roads and streets. We explored these issues in the Future Ready Kerbside white paper.

Relying upon cars, vans and trucks for the last mile risks clogging up our local places and adding to emissions. Transitioning to micromobility in our city centres offers an alternative that is better for people, places and businesses.

Micromobility is emerging as the smart way to move freight in our city centres. Small, environmentally-friendly and space-efficient vehicles can have a competitive advantage over cars, vans and trucks in busy and dense city centres, where space to move and to park is increasingly at a premium.

Schemes to integrate micromobility in the last mile delivery task are already showing favourable outcomes:

• Following improvements to the cycling network, Uber Eats in Toronto has seen a 40% increase in deliveries by bike between 2019 and 2020.
• PostNL in Utrecht has achieved a reduction in CO_² emissions of around 35,000 kg per year by switching to micromobility.
• Use of micro-logistics hubs in London could reduce traffic volumes by 13% and reduce harmful vehicle-related air emissions by 17% by 2025, through the consolidation of deliveries and a shift to micromobility for the last mile deliveries.
• Preliminary results from Bogota’s Bici Carga trial show that up to 4.2 tons of emissions could be avoided per year by using cargo e-bikes for last mile deliveries.
• A pilot project in New York resulted in a 109% increase in deliveries by cargo bikes.

Delivering by micromobility is not the right option in all places. Success will depend on the city’s density, urban form, the operating environment, size and type of delivery, operator willingness and proximity to customers. But where these ingredients come together, the last mile freight task is ripe for disruption to create better outcomes for cities and improved efficiencies for businesses.

Fundamentals:

• Safe Moving – Make it safer for people to move around by micromobility
• Easy PUDO (pick-up and drop-off) – Change the built environment to facilitate safe and easy pick-up and drop-off from kerbsides and in buildings for people making deliveries by micromobility.
• Policy Leadership - Set long-term policy direction to create an enabling environment for a transition to micromobility for last mile deliveries in city centres.

Accelerate:

• Remoding - Remode deliveries from cars, vans and trucks to micromobility for the last mile in city centres.
• Test and Scale - Test ideas to promote last mile deliveries by micromobility and scale up what works.

Lead Authors: Graham Pointer, Shifani Sood