The Promise of Low-Carbon Freight

Freight transport contributes significantly and increasingly to climate change. In urban areas, delivery vehicles contribute to worsening public space quality, air quality, and other road users’ safety. 

Cargo bikes can provide an alternative to the current damaging freight transport model.

Focussing on London and produced in collaboration with the Active Travel Academy and Pedal Me, this report uses GPS data to determine the potential of cargo bikes being used for urban deliveries. Here’s what it found:

  • The service performed by Pedal Me freight vehicles is, on average, 1.61 times faster (yes, faster!) than one performed by van.

  • In the 98 days of work sampled, the Pedal Me service saved 3896kg of CO2 and over 5.5kg of NOx.

  • Using cargo bikes for 10% of the journeys currently undertaken by vans in London would mean a saving of as much as 133,300 tonnes of CO2 and 190.4 thousand Kg of NOx per year.

  • It would also reduce urban congestion and free a total of 384,000 sqm of public space usually occupied by parked vans along with 16,980 hours of vehicle traffic per day.

The world of sustainable freight is very much just beginning. But cargo bikes courier services, such as Pedal Me, have provided excellent foundations that could help decarbonise urban freight. By embracing the potential of cargo bikes and making our cities’ roads more cycle-friendly to bikes, they could be a significant contributor to how we decarbonise urban freight.

What can you do

  • Read our report: The Promise of Low-Carbon Freight - and talk about it with your friends and family.

  • Call on Royal Mail, Parcelforce and Hermes to take up Pedal Me’s challenge of a race between their cargo bike and a standard delivery van.  We have an example tweet you can use here - “Love to see that @_wearepossible and @PedalMe are challenging @RoyalMail, @parcelforce and @Hermesparcels to a race across London. Cargo bikes are the way forward for urban deliveries, now all we need is for the delivery companies to accept the challenge!”

  • Always check whether there’s an option for zero-emissions delivery and, if there is one, take it.

getting-around, cfmckai saunders