Will Royal Mail ever consider using Cargo bikes or even E-Cargo Bikes?

[rmurphy195]

I was considering whether it would be possible to work as a parcel delivery courier by bike, in an inner city area you could probably get around almost as quick, although a large cargo bike might not be as good at getting through traffic, it could still use cycle routes and short cuts and maybe save time parking etc, but maybe security would be the biggest problem.

Secvurity indeed - couple of courier van hijackings lately, I expect to see more in the run-up tom Christmas particularly

[gaz]

I was considering whether it would be possible to work as a parcel delivery courier by bike, ...

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http://www.dhl.com/en/press/releases/re ... ycles.html

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[pete75]

Bikes of any sort will not work in rural areas. They just can't carry enough.

On a cycle tour through Northern France last summer we saw La Poste staff making deliveries by bike in many small villages. They were using bikes like the one pictured above or three wheeled cargo bikes which appeared to have electric assist.

Maybe they were just delivering letters. Our postie delivers letters, parcels, the lot. He wouldn't get many deliveries done with a bike.

Whatever they were delivering it proves bikes will work in rural areas.

[Cyril Haearn]

Does Royal Mail use cycles at all now, in London or elsewhere?

Any sightings?

Diolch

[GrumpyGit]

Does Royal Mail use cycles at all now, in London or elsewhere?

Any sightings?

Diolch

No.

Our local delivery office has closed (valuable bit of land) and moved to an industrial estate 4 miles away. The posties used to wheel a trolley round the neighbourhood, now they turn up in a stinky diesel van

[smallwheels]

The postman in a neighbouring village used to use his own bike to deliver mail then I noticed he had acquired a post office bike. Presumably it had come from somewhere where enlightened local management had retained bikes such as in Wymondham, Norfolk where they were still in use a couple of years ago.

[PH]

Now I'll hold my hands up to not being an expert or having the knowledge about why the Royal Mail stopped using bikes in the first place and I'm sure that there are lots of people on this forum who will know the exact answer and so please forgive my ignorance. I'm going to make a guess and say they stopped using bikes in an age when lots of people are ordering more and more things online and so there's lots more bulky packages & parcels to deliver, as a percentage compared to letters, than there used to be in days gone by. So perhaps that was at least some of the reasoning behind the Royal Mail ditching bikes for deliveries.

You've pretty much got it.
The way mail is delivered has changed, or is in the process of changing. It used to be the postie who went to the sorting office, sorted their round, delivered it and went home, job and knock, the faster you worked the sooner you finished. Many of those sorting offices have closed*, the sorting and delivery have been separated, in most urban areas a team of posties will deliver to a district from a van, with the van topping up the rounds to the posties as they go. The average postie will now deliver far more than in the past, not just the parcels but of course all that junk mail as well.
The driving force (pun intended) for this was the privatisation and the need to compete on the open market, we haven't seen the last of it. It's being run as a business rather than a service and as the barriers to other companies come down expect the service to deteriorate further.
Will we ever see posties on bikes again? It's hard to say never, but I really can't see it, the distance between sorting and delivery means there would have to be transport link between them.

* I googled to see how many sorting offices have closed, but couldn't find it As an example 8 of the 14 in the Greater Manchester area have closed, that's probably typical. EDIT - Just found it, sorting offices (Now called mail centres ) have been reduced from 69 to 38 since 2008.

[Postboxer]

When did they ditch the bikes? A few years ago the package pick up window at Eccles was round the back of the post office, they had quite a few bikes back there, I wonder if they're still there.

TNT did postal deliveries around here for a time a couple of years ago, they were horrendous, but did have their own fleet of bikes.

[Spinners]

La Poste seem to manage

Yes, we noticed one yesterday near Roscoff.

[francovendee]

The French Post do use electric bikes extensively in large towns and villages. Outside these places they also use electric powered vans. Our postman still uses a diesel van but I'm sure eventually it will be an electric one as we're not more than 7 miles from the sorting office.

[pwa]

The French Post do use electric bikes extensively in large towns and villages. Outside these places they also use electric powered vans. Our postman still uses a diesel van but I'm sure eventually it will be an electric one as we're not more than 7 miles from the sorting office.

I'm sure that would work in and around my village too. The postie needs a van because of the sheer bulk of what he delivers, but the sorting office is a couple of miles away on a trading estate on a former airfield, and I expect an electric van could work.

[Bmblbzzz]

I was considering whether it would be possible to work as a parcel delivery courier by bike, in an inner city area you could probably get around almost as quick, although a large cargo bike might not be as good at getting through traffic, it could still use cycle routes and short cuts and maybe save time parking etc, but maybe security would be the biggest problem.

No need to consider, lots already do it.

[Debs]

I expect one huge reason why Royal Mail stopped using bicycles is because they stopped 2nd deliveries.

The 2nd delivery of most rounds was a fraction of the size of the 1st, perhaps only 5% so it made sense to walk the first delivery which would typically have mail for 4 out of 5 of the houses on the round, and then scoot around the 2nd delivery which would typically only have mail for 1 in 20 houses on the round.

Other reasons for RM giving up bikes is their developing style of 'profits first' business plan which doesn't include any obligation towards environment issues but their incentive to cut costs and expenditure in some departments, and in a drive to simply look more modern. It's also possible they may have [wrongly] assumed the bicycle as a employees safety hazard and cause of injury claims which would be eliminated if they got rid of bicycles.

[thelawnet]

I see a LOT of Deliveroo riders around, they don't use cargo bikes just normal bikes with a coolbag on their bag.

Apparently they don't supply the equipment it just seems that give the choice of (their own!) bike or moped, people go for bike.

[simonhill]

The Japanese use Honda 50s to deliver their mail. The country has a very low crime rate and the posties just leave the engine running when they hop off to make the delivery. In this country bike or motorbike, would need to be securely chained if left for even a few seconds.

Not sure if they still do, but the Aussies used to use little Honda mopeds. They were called postie bikes.