UPS now using pedal-powered trike to deliver freight in Portland

The UPS e-bike in action.(Photos: Mark Gamba for Truck Trike)
The UPS e-bike in action.
(Photos by Mark Gamba for Truck Trike)

Global package delivery juggernaut UPS has chosen Portland to debut its first electric-assist trike in the U.S.

In a statement released today, UPS said, “The deployment of the eBike is part of UPS’s ongoing commitment to reduce carbon emissions as city populations and e-commerce grow, and traffic, noise and air quality challenges continue to rise.”

Using trikes and other small, pedal-powered vehicles to deliver cargo in dense urban areas is relatively common in Europe. The European Cyclists’ Federation (an EU-funded non-profit) says 25 percent of all goods could potentially be delivered bicycles. That number rises to 50 percent when just considering lightweight cargo.

“The bicycle may be making a comeback as we navigate through crowded urban areas and continue our focus on environmental sustainability.”
— Mark Wallace, UPS senior VP

The trike being used by UPS was made locally by cargo bike innovator Bill Stites. It’s a custom version of his Truck Trike, a vehicle we predicted back in 2010 would change the shape of urban cargo delivery in cities across the globe. The Truck Trike can carry over 600 pounds of cargo plus 200 pounds of driver.

UPS started testing pedal-powered delivery vehicles in Germany in 2012. In that successful pilot, the company used a hub-and-spoke method to optimize efficiency. They placed storage containers in central locations and then had employees pick up packages by food or bike for final delivery. This type of urban freight delivery reduces emissions and congestion. It’s also similar to the concept already in use by B-Line. Last year they became the anchor tenant in a major food hub that distributes local food on the central eastside.

In their statement today UPS said Portland was a “logical choice” for the first U.S. deployment of an e-bike. As far back as 2008 the company has used traditional bicycles to handle deliveries during the busy holiday season. In 2011 they held a job fair in Portland and hired nearly 50 temporary bike delivery employees.

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UPS Senior VP of Global Engineering and Sustainability Mark Wallace said using pedal-power gets back to his company’s roots. They started 109 years ago as a bike messenger company. “While we have evolved and developed a vast network of ground and air vehicles,” Wallace said, “the bicycle may be making a comeback as we navigate through crowded urban areas and continue our focus on environmental sustainability.”

UPS’s new trike will share the bike lanes with existing local pedal-powered freight delivery companies like B-Line Sustainable Urban Delivery and Portland Pedal Power — two businesses with successful track records.

While congestion and air quality are definitely important, road safety is perhaps the most exciting benefit of having smaller, lighter and slower delivery vehicles. As we shared a few months ago, these trikes take the place of much larger trucks and other motor vehicles on busy city streets. They can also park on wide sidewalks, which means fewer trucks double-parked in bike lanes and more loading zones left open for others.

B-Line Owner and CEO Franklin Jones said in an interview this morning that cargo trikes are very safe. “It’s a total win for the Vision Zero concept… The worst thing our trikes have ever done is taken out someone’s mirror.”

A trike will also likely save UPS money in parking tickets. A 2006 study (PDF) in Canada found that three delivery companies (including UPS) were issued 34,000 parking tickets in just one year that amounted to about $1.5 million in fines.

Jones, who has been in business since 2009, said he’s excited to see UPS enter the fray. “This is a good thing for us all. It’s a rising tide.” Jones says using trikes is far from simply a photo-op for sustainability. His business is strong and has grown each year. B-Line currently has eight cargo trikes in full-time use and six more are on the way.

UPS says if their Portland pilot is successful they will consider adding more bikes to the fleet next year. It’s unclear whether they’d continue to use the locally-made Truck Trike or if they’d buy trikes from another vendor.

— Jonathan Maus, (503) 706-8804 – jonathan@bikeportland.org

BikePortland is supported by the community (that means you!). Please become a subscriber or make a donation today.

Jonathan Maus (Publisher/Editor)

Jonathan Maus (Publisher/Editor)

Founder of BikePortland (in 2005). Father of three. North Portlander. Basketball lover. Car owner and driver. If you have questions or feedback about this site or my work, feel free to contact me at @jonathan_maus on Twitter, via email at maus.jonathan@gmail.com, or phone/text at 503-706-8804. Also, if you read and appreciate this site, please become a supporter.

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fourknees
fourknees
7 years ago

This is great news. It would be even better if UPS could become an advocate for protected, dedicated bike and properly striped (and width) lanes as now it becomes a greater employee safety issue.

Let’s keep the $1.5M in parking tickets in perspective though. UPS had over $48 billion in revenue last year. Although it would be great for all parties if it is zero, I’m guessing parking tickets are not on the UPS radar for expenses.

Would be curious though – does the driver pay these out of pocket or the company?

fourknees
fourknees
7 years ago
Reply to  fourknees

*correction – $58 billion.

Scott H
Scott H
7 years ago
Reply to  fourknees

That 1.5 mil is spread across 3 companies, so even if 66% of that is UPS, you’re looking at 1,000,000 out of 58,000,000,000 in revenue. That’s the equivalent of a $1 parking ticket for the average Joe in one year. At that rate, they’re probably saving money by just paying the fine.

Tom
Tom
7 years ago
Reply to  Scott H

Are you comparing fines and revenue over the same cities, or fines for a handful of Canadian cities vs global revenue.

Scott H
Scott H
7 years ago
Reply to  Tom

Ah, I read the report a little more and see now that figure is just for the city of Toronto, not all of Canada or the world. So, if we multiply that figure by 400, about the number of sizable cities there are in the world, we’re looking at the equivalent of $400 a year. Probably something they’re taking notice of, but still not crazy. Who knows, they might just throw it in with the cost of doing business.

fourknees
fourknees
7 years ago
Reply to  Tom

Good catch on Toronto. That’s a lot of tickets. Maybe a bigger issue for UPS and others. Or a bigger issue for cities. Trikes= less parking tickets = less parking ticket revenue? Though potentially it just frees up resources to ticket a different group keeping revenue neutral.

Hello, Kitty
7 years ago

Go Bikes!

todd boulanger
todd boulanger
7 years ago

Yes this is great step forward – I came across UPS testing one of their local e-trikes last month in the inner SE. I believe the operator said they were made by the same company that supplies B-Line.

So this news builds on my point made yesterday…is PBoT sizing its future bikeways for bike freight?! It would be a shame to build a new bridge across the gulch and have it be the multi-million dollar bottleneck in 10 years…now that companies like UPS and B-Line and others are investing in such last mile delivery methods. (B-Line’s new investment increases their fleet by 75%.)

rh
rh
7 years ago
Reply to  todd boulanger

Good point about sizing of the future bikeways. Maybe in a weird way, freight could end up helping biking by pushing gov’t for wider bike lanes?!

Todd Boulanger
Todd Boulanger
7 years ago
Reply to  rh

Yes…the worst thing you want to do is hit a bollard / trail post or blunt curb return with your freight bike…you would be ejected onto the pavement (or pole) or jackknife…but without the flames and fuel spill a truck would have…

todd boulanger
todd boulanger
7 years ago

And furthermore…with such last mile delivery dependant on setting up a network of “pedal freight hubs” or “micro freight hubs”…has the CoP/ PBoT comprehensively looked at land use codes, network choke points and elevation to help set aside / or plan for where these facilities could be built / integrated into…before these prime sites are turned into boutique hotels in the Inner SE and elsewhere?

Perhaps they may be a good interium use of some of our soon to be “over-built” parking garages / parkades.

rick
rick
7 years ago

‘Murica ! Very nice. The trucks are so loud from the honks before they park to just the sheer speeding.

todd boulanger
todd boulanger
7 years ago

PS. with these private investments coming onto the market – it would be a great time for the planners to run down to Powells (etc.) and buy a copy of JH Crawford’s visionary book: Carfree Cities. I was one of the first modern books to devote a great deal of thought into how freight would be delivered by bikes if our cities had such a tool in the toolbox. See the section after page 195 http://www.carfree.com/book/

huh
huh
7 years ago

Yay! Coal powered delivery rules!!

B. Carfree
B. Carfree
7 years ago
Reply to  huh

Blended coal, natural gas, wind, solar and hydro beats tar sands any day in my book. Now we need to improve that blend by phasing out the first two.

Chris I
Chris I
7 years ago
Reply to  huh

Considering that the electric motor on this bike only provides part of the energy to move it, and only part of our grid power comes from coal, I find your comment to be quite disingenuous. Boardman will cease burning coal in 2020, so I guess you will get to make ridiculous comments like this for a few more years, before they become an outright lie.

BB
BB
7 years ago
Reply to  Chris I

Fortunately for them, lies repeated enough times become truth while ridiculous comments only grow more ridiculous over time.

huh
huh
7 years ago
Reply to  Chris I

75% of our electricity is from coal/gas. If you think the drivers (riders?) are actually pedaling these 600+ pound contraptions… Well, not sure what to tell ya.

Sorta like the disaster relief trials – These delivery vehicles are a pointless waste of resources, attention and time.

https://www.portlandgeneral.com/our-company/energy-strategy/how-we-generate-electricity

wsbob
wsbob
7 years ago
Reply to  huh

“…If you think the drivers (riders?) are actually pedaling these 600+ pound contraptions… …” huh

Not much in the way of details offered, here or on the manufacturer website, that I could tell, trying to load the page with dialup…as to what electric power system the cargo trike uses, but it stands to reason that it uses some variation of pedal assist technology available today.

Unless the employee driver is extremely lazy, I fully imagine they’re pedaling to produce at least part of the energy required to move the rig. How much they produce, of the overall energy it takes to move the rig, may be difficult to determine, given the many variables involved. But there may actually be some dashboard equipment to keep track of the relevant data, and make calculations.

On level terrain, once it’s rolling, a reasonably fit person may be able to fairly easily keep it going at 10-15 mph. Making starts from a full stop, quicker and more time efficient, is one situation where battery power probably could help.

Even Downtown Portland with its relatively moderate inclines, seems to me as though it would be tough pedaling a cargo bike, especially one loaded. Out here in the downtowns and some of their close in neighborhoods. of Beaverton, Aloha, or Hillsboro, the terrain is flat, and would be much more favorable to the use of these cargo trikes.

Haven’t seen the manufacturer video…but I’d like it if these trikes had really good LED lighting front and back, with turn signals and brake lights.

Chris I
Chris I
7 years ago
Reply to  huh

Did you look at your own link? The giant pie chart clearly shows “22% Coal” and 26% purchased power (which would also be partially coal). Please stop spreading lies.

Eric Leifsdad
Eric Leifsdad
7 years ago
Reply to  Chris I

You can sign-up for clean power and solar and vote for taxes on coal.

Try a solar panel on the roof of this vs the roof of a traditional delivery truck which has been converted to electric power? I would like to know the size of this battery, it’s not anything near the 50kWh you would need to roll a big truck around all day.

Now if only fedex would replace that stinky old truck they roll up corbett so often…

Scott Mizée
7 years ago

Fantastic! I’m glad to see UPS taking this next logical step while at the same time returning to their roots!

Stephen Keller
Stephen Keller
7 years ago

I wonder how I’ll freight vehicles parked in and blocking the bike lane when the vehicle is a bike? Sigh, probably about the same.

Stephen Keller
Stephen Keller
7 years ago
Reply to  Stephen Keller

How I will feel about freight vehicles…

Todd Boulanger
Todd Boulanger
7 years ago
Reply to  Stephen Keller

Or a little less mad…since a freight bike (if not pulled up into a driveway) would block 1/2 the the bikeway and not the whole bikeway.

Caitlin D
7 years ago

That’s great news–way to go, UPS!

B. Carfree
B. Carfree
7 years ago

For the past four years or so UPS has been delivering packages by bicycle (just bikes with trailers) in Davis, CA. Davis, while having lots of small lots, is far from a compact urban city. It’s more of a bedroom community/suburb with a university at the edge, which shows that density is not necessary for human powered final mile to work, just like our public transit systems of a century ago show that high density is not necessary for trolleys and trains to work.

Tim
Tim
7 years ago

This looks fun, but I suspect it is hard work. I would like to hear the delivery riders perspective. What type of training and what safety protocols does UPS offer?

ebiker
ebiker
7 years ago
Reply to  Tim

Since it appears the truck-trike uses a small, geared, front hub-motor I would expect it to be quite a workout. A BBSHD or other mid-drive would probably make it a piece of cake for the driver, but the added cost and complexity may make the trike unprofitable.

Chris I
Chris I
7 years ago
Reply to  ebiker

Seems like a good way to stay warm in this frigid weather. I imagine that new versions of these bikes will be mid-drive. All of the e-assist systems seem to be moving in that direction.

Bill Stites
Bill Stites
7 years ago
Reply to  ebiker

To provide some technical feedback: the UPS trikes have two hub motors in the rear wheels. What you see in the front is a NuVinci CVT hub.
Our trikes are unique in that the human power is coursed to the front wheel. This simplifies the overall vehicle, in that we don’t need transmissions nor differentials to combine the human and electric power. Since each wheel has its own independent power source, we can easily make different sizes for the rear bed – all mating with the same front frame. This leads to a modular design that can morph into many different configurations.
Without all the usual drive components in the rear [all we need to do is get electric power to the rear wheels], it allows for a lower floor, leading to lower center of gravity and more load capacity. Finally, it’s all wheel drive!

Scott Mizée
7 years ago
Reply to  Bill Stites

Thanks Bill! Keep up the good work!

ebiker
ebiker
7 years ago
Reply to  Bill Stites

Bill, that is brilliant. Actually, the product-info section of your website explains this very clearly. Sorry for the confusion!

Bicycle Curtis
Bicycle Curtis
7 years ago

It’s about time. I would like to see FedEx, USPS and other urban delivery services follow suit. Good job UPS!

Adam
7 years ago

This is really cool.

RoanokeRebel
RoanokeRebel
7 years ago

Aside: UPS /started out/ as a delivery service…by bicycle. http://www.historylink.org/File/1679

Todd Boulanger
Todd Boulanger
7 years ago
Reply to  RoanokeRebel

Plus they (and other like Wells Fargo) used to use private trolleys on city lines to deliver packages to their hubs at night when the city trolleys where shut down…

Tim
Tim
7 years ago
Reply to  RoanokeRebel

Teenager with bicycle starts multi-billion dollar business. Great read.

dan
dan
7 years ago

Where do I apply?

I’d be pretty interested in hearing about the operating cost to deliver with an e-cargo bike vs. a truck, for the same number of packages. If you use multiple bikes to replace a single truck at what point does the increase in salaries cancel out the (assumed) savings in operating costs?

Pat Franz
Pat Franz
7 years ago

Congratulations to Bill Stites and crew, this is a great validation of what they have been working towards for years. I hope UPS saves a lot of money, that’s what will really keep this going.

And now we can start talking about how we need new freight facilities, that trick seems very effective.

9watts
9watts
7 years ago
Reply to  Pat Franz

This!

Hard to overstate how proud I am of Bill and team.

waterpopp
7 years ago

I hope ups keeps this bike around longer than the holiday season. I’ve heard it will only be here for a short time. I was disappointed ups didn’t let me a avid cyclist and long time ups driver get a chance to use.

Andy K
Andy K
7 years ago

I wonder if helmets are required?

Spiffy
7 years ago

this should mean less double-parked vans blocking the roads as they’re able to hop up on the sidewalk…

Vince
Vince
7 years ago

Now if Amazon would just bring in some bikes, maybe I would not keep encountering their white vans, often with motors running, parked in traffic lanes.

Matt S.
Matt S.
7 years ago

I hope B-Line can handle the competition from such a large company providing the same service. I imagine UPS will be cheaper with better benefits provided to its employees. I support local, but does everyone else when the service is exactly the same from its competitors. When you’re a small business, you’ll do anything to lower your overhead. Maybe there’ll be a tax incentive or some other policy to incentivize the use of a small business freight company such as B-Line over UPS.

Mark smith
Mark smith
7 years ago

This is nothing more than a political/marketing stunt. Enjoy the show.

Michael Filmore
Michael Filmore
5 years ago

Simply awesome