Bus and tram garages as transhipment points for parcel deliverers with environmentally friendly cargo bikes to reduce the number of trucks in the city: This is the goal of a research project by tbw research and TU Vienna together with Wiener Linien and Heavy Pedals. The project examines how central public transport areas can be used for urban parcel delivery in the future.

“On the way to becoming a climate model city, the use of public transport is a key to success, but we also have to take a look at delivery traffic. Online trade is booming, which causes an increase in truck traffic. We want to promote climate-friendly parcel delivery in our city. The use of bus and tram garages that are not being used during the day is an innovative approach to do so,” says Executive City Councillor for Innovation and Mobility Ulli Sima. The fact is that many parcel distribution locations are outside the city. The distances are often too great for cargo bikes and therefore trucks are used for delivery.

How it works

In the morning DPD delivers the parcels to the Spetterbrücke bus garage in Ottakring. A driver from the company Heavy Pedals collects the parcels on a cargo bike, sorts them efficiently into the bike container according to the planned route and delivers them to the end customers. The cargo bikes make no noise, emit no climate-damaging CO₂ and take up little space in city traffic.

In the first test run in November 2019, the bicycle messengers delivered food to kindergartens and schools, starting from the Kagran tramway remise. In the second test run (spring 2020), they distributed parcels from the Ottakring bus garage together with DPD. In the third test run (autumn 2020), parcels were distributed by cargo bike from an underground station, also in cooperation with DPD.

Together with the project initiator tbw research, TU Vienna is now evaluating the data obtained in order to derive further measures. The FTI programme Mobility of the Future promotes and finances RemiHub.

Honoured with European innovation award

In December 2020, RemiHub won in the Quality of Life category at the 2020 Innovation in Politics Awards. This is the first time the international prize was awarded to an Austrian project. The goal of the award is to honour projects that cause positive change at a Euroean level. Among the many innovative projects, the climate-friendly research project RemiHub came out on top.

“In addition to the expansion of public transport, ingenious research projects such as RemiHub, in which Wiener Linien is also involved, are essential for environmentally friendly mobility in our city. I am sure that we can gather valuable experiences from this project for the future. The government programme attaches great importance to environmentally friendly parcel delivery within the city – accelerating progress and implemention is part of my new task,” says Executive City Councillor for Innovation and Mobility Ulli Sima.

Contact

E-Mail: info@remihub.at
Website: www.remihub.at