CARGO BIKES AREN'T COMING –THEY ARE ALREADY HERE

In the UK, the private sector is steaming ahead with developing the cargo bike ecosystem. But where is the Government support, asks

Juliana O'Rourke

With the exception of public health funding, local authority cupboards are bare. The Air Quality Grant run by the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) is the main funding that is currently helping councils to take forward cargo bike schemes. Air quality grants are now funding more cargo bike schemes than those given by transport authorities.

In March this year, Will Norman, London's walking and cycling commissioner, launched a plan – the London Cargo bike Action Plan – to help councils, businesses and the freight and servicing industry switch to cargo bikes. Norman launched the plan at the National Cargo Bike Summit in central London, organised by Landor LINKS and hosted by the City of London Corporation.

“Cargo bikes are no longer a niche concept, and they can be real game changers when it comes to delivering freight and servicing trips,” Norman said. “Not only do they provide environmental benefits by not contributing to air pollution, they also make journeys more efficient, and present a much lower risk of danger to people walking and cycling than vans and HGVs.”

The London Cargo bike Action Plan was quickly followed by a further report, published by London Assembly Economy Committee, which said that the “the Mayor should provide further funding to local authorities in London for cargo bike sharing schemes and cargo bike training, to help businesses pedal their way to net zero”.

The London Assembly report explored how businesses in the capital can be incentivised to make a shift away from diesel vans and towards using cargo bikes for their deliveries and other jobs.

Said Hina Bokhari AM, Chair of the Economy Committee: “Cargo bikes and e-cargo bikes can be the greener alternative to diesel vans, not only for deliveries, but also for tradespeople and small businesses that need to transport equipment, tools, and goods around the city.”

Cargo bikes are booming

The Royal Mail is trialling cargo bikes. London van hire service Tipper Hire is renting out e-cargo bikes, as are many other van hire firms nationally. Cargo bike libraries gave are already available in London and Norfolk. Bicycle repairs and servicing business fettle has paired up with Kwik-Fit to help ensure that the UK has the right servicing infrastructure to support changing modes of transport. The partnership will be open to serve all cyclists, but the initial focus will be on supporting fleets using ebikes and cargo bikes for the last mile.

Also in March, Barclays invested £5m to roll out Zedify's e-cargo bike delivery network. Zedify seeks to normalise hyper-local micro hubs and zero emission delivery vehicles within UK cities.

Last year, British electric cargo bike manufacturer Electric Assisted Vehicles (EAV) appointed Halfords as its key UK fleet service, maintenance, and repair partner, ensuring EAV's Fleet customers have access to qualified Halfords Mobile Expert technicians anywhere in the UK.

And, to show that cargo bikes are here to stay, this year Amazon unveiled a £300m investment in the electrification and decarbonisation of the company’s UK transportation network, stating that e-cargo bikes and walkers are now expected to make more than two million deliveries a year.

All in all, much has happened in the cargo bike world lately – and it’s all positive – except for the lack of public funding. Let's hope that the Department for Transport's Future of Freight plan, the first-ever cross-modal and cross-government plan for the UK freight transport sector, has some good news for this very promising industry. n

50 Cargo Bikes

JustEconomics calculated that the cost per mile for a diesel van was eight times higher than the same mileage for a cargo bike