DHL Express Taiwan Corp (洋基通運) yesterday announced that it would start a trial of cargo bicycle deliveries in an industrial park, making Taiwan the first nation in the Asia-Pacific region to adopt the eco-friendly delivery method.
The firm, a local subsidiary of Deutsche Post DHL Group, one of the world’s leading mail and logistics services groups, said that starting next month, it would use a “cubicycle” for deliveries at Tai Yuen Hi-Tech Industrial Park (台元科技園區) in Hsinchu County’s Jhubei City (竹北).
As the company has set up a logistics center inside the park, it would be hassle-free for workers to ride the special vehicle to deliver goods or mail to clients, DHL Express Taiwan said.
Photo: Kao Shih-ching, Taipei Times
The company is to use one cubicycle during the trial, which is expected to last from three to six months, to test delivery efficiency and staff reactions, DHL Express Taiwan managing director Yung C. Ooi (黃湧君) told a news conference in Taipei.
“If the trial is successful, we plan to import more cubicycles into Taiwan and adopt them for first and last-mile delivery,” Ooi said.
The firm would first expand the green logistics service to the nation’s other industrial parks, as traffic is usually better and safer there, but would try to adopt the bicycles on regular streets if approved by the government, Ooi said.
Unlike regular bicycles, a cubicycle has four wheels, resembles a recumbent bicycle and is equipped with a customized trailer that can carry one container with a load of up to 125kg, engineering and infrastructure department manager Monson Chou (周鄭義) said.
As cubicycles are equipped with two batteries that deliver up to 250 watts of power to electric motors, delivery personnel will not feel too tired when riding, and it has maximum mileage of about 50km per day, Chou said.
The vehicle was imported from Europe, but many of its components were made by Taiwanese companies, so it would be easy for DHL Express Taiwan to maintain the bike, Chou said.
The group, which has been using cubicycles for deliveries in Europe for many years, chose Taiwan as the first Asian-Pacific nation to launch the service, as it is known as the “kingdom of bicycles” and has a bicycle-friendly environment, he said.
The firm last year announced plans to reduce all logistics-related emissions to net zero by 2050 and purchased 15 Gogoro Inc (睿能創意) electric scooters, as well as hybrid vehicles, saying the green vehicles should reduce carbon emissions by about 50 percent from 2017.
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