DHL Express has extended its City Hub concept for environmentally friendly inner-city deliveries to The Hague, the Netherlands, with a new pilot involving electric vehicles.
This is the first deployment of Deutsche Post DHL Group’s StreetScooter electric delivery van in its delivery network.
The concept was launched in March 2017 in Utrecht, in the Netherlands, and Frankfurt, Germany. The successful pilots in these cities linked the DHL Cubicycle cargo bicycles that can carry a specialized container with a load of up to 125kg (275 lb) with a customized trailer carrying up to four containers.
A DHL van brings the trailer into the city center, where the containers are loaded on to Cubicycles for delivery over the last mile. The project in The Hague will see a modified pickup version of a StreetScooter and a Nissan e-NV200 take on the last-mile delivery of up to three containers each.
John Pearson, CEO, DHL Express Europe, said, “As one step on our longer-term journey to reduce emissions to zero by 2050, Deutsche Post DHL Group has set a target of operating 70% of first- and last-mile delivery services with clean transport modes by 2025. The City Hub concept is one innovative way in which DHL Express is contributing toward this target.
“With its simple use of standardized containers, the City Hub is a flexible solution that will allow us to introduce more electric vehicles, bicycles and even walking couriers on inner-city routes. This, in turn, will give us an even sharper competitive advantage as more and more cities around the world focus on promoting sustainable transport systems and competition intensifies among delivery companies over the last-mile.”
The standardized containers used in the City Hub concept match the dimensions of a standard shipping pallet and can be easily transferred between the different modes of transport within the DHL Express network. This helps ensure additional speed and reliability in DHL’s last-mile delivery operations for documents and small packages.
August 10, 2017