Sainsbury’s is trialling an electric cargo bike service in South London to see if it could be used to replace traditional delivery vans elsewhere in the UK.
In partnership with e-cargobikes.com, five purpose-built bikes have been deployed at the Streatham Common store and can carry several customer orders at a time, delivering up to 100 orders a day to local customers. Both the bikes and riders are branded with the Sainsbury’s logo.
In addition to offering zero-emission running, the bikes bring other benefits including the ability to circumvent traffic by using cycle lanes, especially during peak delivery hours such as midweek mornings, and park closer to customers’ homes than is often possible with traditional delivery vans.
Once customers have placed their online orders, Sainsbury’s will use routing technology to determine which orders are delivered by a traditional van or by electric cargo bike.
Clodagh Moriarty, director of online at Sainsbury’s, said: “We’re always looking for new ways to make sure we can best serve our customers and this trial will help us explore whether there might be a more flexible way to deliver Sainsbury’s groceries to those who live in busy cities.”
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