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Achieving Sustainable Logistics - a post-lockdown world
“with public transport capacity severely restricted, more cars could be drawn to the road and our towns and cities could become gridlocked”
Grant Shapps, Secretary of State for Transport, May 2020
The post-lockdown world is likely to come about in a set of different phases. These phases will ease restrictions over time, taking the UK back from full lockdown to freedom of movement. Whilst much has been made of the ‘new normal’ with regard to ongoing social distancing, there will be a point at which social distancing is an issue only for a small group of vulnerable people. However, where transport infrastructure has been changed to accommodate post-lockdown, huge issues remain for any business that has internal combustion engines (ICEs) at the heart of their operations.
Facilities management, fleet management and operation, service support businesses, urban delivery outfits, and local authority care services, amongst many others, all rely on driving vehicles around small streets, crowded urban environments and snarled up roads, with little parking or restriction-free stopping points. Post-lockdown infrastructure has already started to provide more restrictions in urban environments. Footpaths are being widened to allow for social distancing. Cycling paths are being widened, and roads closed to traffic to support alternative travel methods. These changes make sense. Social distancing on buses means something like a tenth of the normal numbers of passengers on each bus. So buses need to travel without hold up. The fear, of course, is that everyone that used to use public transport switches to a car. This would bring much greater chaos - no parking, no road space, nowhere is designed for that to happen. The knock on will be felt by those businesses outlined already, the ones that rely on internal combustion engines (ICEs) for their operations.
As a response, Just Ride the Bike is geared up to help those organisations that currently rely on ICEs to make the move to a sustainable logistics solution. We have seen how much difference sustainable cargo can make in quite small operations. Now is the time to ramp this up to the next level, taking it beyond the realm of well-being individuals and pizza deliveries, into a serious change for business operations in city centres, industrial estates, and beyond.
The time is right to make a move. And the move should be to cargo bikes, and specifically e-cargo bikes. The technology has advanced to take these machines out of the realm of ‘quirky’ or ‘continental’ to make them serious work beasts. The development in a very short space of time has meant they are extremely cheap to run, and massively versatile. And because of different enthusiasm in different countries, essentially the groundwork has been done.
In a nutshell, the many benefits of switching ICEs to ecargo bikes include:
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Extremely low running costs
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Accessibility to narrow roads, cycle paths, a through roads closed to road vehicles
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Quicker through traffic
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Easy to park
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Easy to use - no training required, just some familiarisation time
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Easy to convert into whatever you need
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Low maintenance; most bike shops can service and maintain e bikes and cargo bikes.
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Easy to advertise on
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Be an honest part of the sustainable logistics world
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Get in early, before you are forced, so you can plan and implement to take advantage for your business.
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Ebikes are easy to ride, taking almost no effort
Just Ride the Bike’s role in this is to help to plan and implement your move to sustainable logistics. We support the changeover, dealing with sourcing bikes, managing maintenance, undertaking PR and Comms, measuring performance and reporting against KPIs.
Our goal is to achieve sustainable logistics everywhere. It’s better for your business, better for your customers, and much kinder to everyone we share the planet with.
Contact Just Ride the Bike. Email us at andrew@justridethebike.com or call 07795 547069
Just Ride the Bike is about encouraging all sorts of people, of all ages, abilities, shapes, sizes, and backgrounds to enjoy the sheer joy of riding a bicycle. We do that by talking about bikes, riding them, fixing them, going on holiday with them and using them as a mode of transport. The site showcases projects, people and products that make cycling a way of life for us.
Keep scrolling for plenty more JRtB content
June 2020
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Bike Reviews
Giant TCR w/ultegra
As a hire bike, it certainly got us up some hills.
