Anyone remember when grocers’ or butchers’ delivery boys would arrive at the door on a big black bike with an enormous basket mounted on the handlebars? 

Well they are back, in a way, with the launch of a new ‘last mile’ delivery system by UPS in Dublin, involving electric cycles and delivery barrows ‘walked’ by a delivery person.

Human-powered deliveries of the past were obviously ‘sustainable’, and the project developed under the auspices of Dublin City Council, Enterprise Ireland and Belfast City Council aims to replicate that.

The eWalkers and eQuad cycles will operate out of UPS's mini urban distribution centres and will mean that last mile deliveries won’t add to local emissions or congestion. These eco-hubs take in larger consignments of deliveries and redistribute them to walkers and cyclers using removable containers. 

Two of these hubs are already up and running in Dublin. Five diesel vehicles have been removed from the road as a result, reducing UPS’s local carbon emissions by up to 45%.

In Association with

UPS sustainability director Peter Harris said: “This is about reimagining last mile logistics. Cities need solutions that eliminate emissions and congestion and this system achieves that. But it goes further. The ability to load the box that the eWalker and the eQuad carry anywhere within our network will help UPS operate more efficiently. Taking this concept of removable containers, long since practiced in long haul freight, into the urban environment is a game changer.”

Both the eQuad and the eWalker can be loaded directly with a ‘Cube’ that already contains the deliveries for a particular ‘round’. The system was developed by design and manufacturing consultancy Fernhay as part of a Small Business Innovation Research challenge to create new approaches to delivering goods.

Fernhay director Frances Fernandes added: “It is really exciting to be piloting this in Dublin –the first city to test the Fernhay eWalker. Cities are facing huge change to respond to ‘social distancing’, and our system offers a clean and viable option and rethinks how cities can support last mile deliveries now and in the future.”

Other carriers have registered interest in operating similar systems in Dublin, and Belfast council is assessing the initiative for possible use there.