Muscles muscle out emissions
Vevey builds on cycle couriers for urban logistics pilot project. In 2021, 2,000 parcels were delivered as fast as an arrow to recipients in Vevey’s city centre by couriers on cargo bikes – instead of motorised vehicles. Camion Transport was also involved, and brought in its experience from Basel.
The official name of the association is rather long – Amelive, Association Mobilité Environnement de Livraisons à Vélo – but its transport routes are nice and short. It is preparing to deliver goods by bicycle couriers over the last mile in Vevey’s city centre.
Amelive was at the cradle when the so-called Riviera Microhub was launched in Vevey in 2019. The third partner participating in the team of this urban last-mile project – the first of its kind in Switzerland and funded by the Swiss government – is Camion Transport.
Approximately 20 couriers riding their steel steeds are enough to ensure the daily deliveries required. The specially-adapted cargo bikes help the riders make their way easily through the small town centre. The meeting point where they take over the goods is usually the railway station, where the trucks deliver and distribute the goods on a rotating basis from morning onwards.
Micrologistics in Vevey
Sylvain Galé, Camion Transport’s branch manager in the firm’s Vufflens-la-Ville warehouse inaugurated in 2018, is quoted as saying “the fact that we can deliver our consignments centrally and then move straight on saves time, with our drivers less likely to be stuck in traffic jams.” The company is involved in similar projects in German-speaking Switzerland, including one in Basel.
The bottom line is that courier delivery is more expensive, but that it gets a lot of credit from a climate-sensitive zeitgeist. In 2021, 2,000 parcels were delivered this way. The long-term goal of the project is to dish out no less than 12,000 deliveries annually. And it shouldn’t stop there either. Amelive’s vision encompasses the launch of similar projects in other cities in French-speaking Switzerland in the coming years.