Electric bicycles have proven their worth when it comes to getting from point A to B in the urban setting. That said, they’ve gone beyond simple personal mobility, and are now proving to be essential tools for business to deliver products and services. For the longest time, delivery businesses – be it for products or services – have relied on bulky vans that can easily get stuck in traffic.
The advent of electric bicycles, particularly those designed to haul heavy cargo, is vastly changing the last-mile delivery industry. Indeed, several times before, we’ve talked about a lot of companies making the shift to e-mobility. Brands like Zoomo and even Ikea are incorporating e-bikes into their fleet of delivery vehicles in order to better keep up with the demands of folks living in the urban setting.
In the UK, for instance, Man Maid, a handyman service that offers home-service plumbing, carpentry, electrical, and other home essentials, has been seeing quite a lot of success with the use of its fleet of electric cargo bikes. Man Maid’s founder, Mungo Morgan, explained to cycling publication E-Bike Tips that switching to electric bicycles has increased the company’s operating speed and efficiency by a significant margin. In fact, he states that e-bikes are “10 times quicker than a van” when it comes to providing services within the city. Here’s a video of one of the e-bike-riding service providers navigating through the busy city.
Yet another clear benefit of this is that the company reportedly saves up to £7,000, or about $8,500 USD, in parking tickets per year when compared to using traditional delivery vans. This makes perfect sense, as e-bikes are much smaller than even the smallest of vans, and can pretty much be parked anywhere – even the driveway (or walkway) of a small house or cottage. As for the speedy service, e-bikes get to skip the queues at stoplights and traffic, as a lot of the time, they get their own paths where cars and vans are not allowed to drive through.
At the end of the day, efficiency is key when it comes to the logistics industry, and it’s interesting to see companies big and small integrating electric bicycles into their fleets of delivery vehicles. Of course, big vans and trucks still have their place when it comes to transporting goods across long distances, but when it comes to the hectic maze that is the urban jungle, compact e-bikes reign supreme.
