Micro-depots in cities: Less congestion, faster delivery?

Feasibility study

Marvin Meyke, 21.11.2019, 08:00

Micro-depots in cities: Less congestion, faster delivery?

Urban infrastructures are overloaded in many places, and delivery traffic is playing its part, driven by growing online trade. Micro-depots could counteract this. In a feasibility study, the Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics IML and agiplan GmbH have investigated how these could be implemented in the future.

Micro-depots are intended to serve as a common logistics base for all CEP service providers. From there, they can cover the last mile to the customer with small delivery vehicles such as cargo bikes. This should avoid traffic jams and enable faster deliveries. Fraunhofer IML and agiplan have conducted a study using the cities of Mönchengladbach, Neuss and Krefeld as examples to investigate whether and how these depots can be implemented.

Reducing traffic volume and congestion
The study was commissioned by the Chamber of Industry and Commerce (IHK) Mittlerer Niederrhein. The Ministry of Transport of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia provided financial support for the project. According to the authors, micro-depot vehicles - i.e. cargo bikes, small vehicles or transport aids such as sack trucks - can reduce the problems caused by high traffic volumes: firstly, there would be fewer traffic jams caused by vehicles parked in the "second row", and secondly, the emission-free bikes or sack trucks would contribute to climate protection. Although traditional delivery vehicles could not be completely replaced in practice, CEP service providers could significantly increase their efficiency with micro-depots, enabling companies to make same-day deliveries.

Sustainable and fit for the future
"Micro-depots have the potential to contribute to less truck traffic and reduced emissions in city centers. With our study, we have laid the foundations for supporting local authorities in their transport policy decisions. This enables them to equalize inner-city traffic and thus make it more sustainable and future-proof," emphasizes Prof. Uwe Clausen, Institute Director at Fraunhofer IML.

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