In order to make the transport of millions of parcels more sustainable, the delivery staff are trying out a number of things. Nevertheless, they are making slow progress in converting their fleet – for a variety of reasons.
When it comes to converting the vehicle fleet to lower-emission drives, the parcel industry is making slow progress, especially on longer transport routes. According to the latest surveys, the share of alternative drives in all vehicles used in the courier-express-parcel sector (CEP) last year was around 16 percent, as the Federal Association of Parcel and Express Logistics (Biek) reported on request.
“The share will continue to increase in the future, especially if the manufacturers can offer the vehicles at lower prices,” it said.
From the point of view of the industry, the obstacles are manifold. On the one hand, the acquisition costs for more sustainable alternatives are still “many times higher” than conventional diesel vans, as the Biek further announced. In addition, there is a lack of the necessary infrastructure, especially on long-haul routes – i.e. when transporting parcels away from the delivery traffic in the inner cities.
Biofuels only a temporary solution
The industry association emphasized that the fueling infrastructure is only already in place for biofuels, which can be used to fill up existing vehicles instead of diesel. However, the price for liquid biofuels is “between 15 cents and 40 cents higher than the selling price for diesel. This makes it even more difficult for companies to switch”.
From the point of view of the parcel delivery service DPD, biofuels can only be an interim solution anyway. “With regard to greenhouse gas emissions, they are not progress,” said Gerd Seber, responsible for the sustainability strategy at DPD, the dpa. The manufacturers therefore rely on hydrogen for long distances and heavy trucks. However, both the availability of the vehicles and the expansion of a hydrogen tank infrastructure are still insufficient, emphasized Seber.
Nevertheless, the entire industry is open to “testing and using innovative concepts that promote climate-friendly and efficient parcel logistics,” said the industry association.
Electric truck for logistic traffic
This is also confirmed by city logistics expert Kai-Oliver Schocke. “All deliverers are already on the last mile electrically – in some cities even 100 percent,” said the President of the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences (Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences) of the German Press Agency. “The problem of switching to resource-saving vehicles was less due to the will of the companies than to the fact that, purely technically, there were no vehicles available for a long time.”
This fact is gradually changing. Today, for example, market leader DHL wants to present new electric trucks for logistics traffic between its own depots in the Berlin area. Competitor Hermes also points to such attempts. “Hermes Germany currently has two electric trucks in daily service – one in the Hamburg area, one in the Berlin area,” the company said on request.
The electric vehicles with a range of several hundred kilometers are well suited for these shorter distances away from delivery traffic, stressed Schocke. In some regions, overhead lines have also been installed over the motorways as part of pilot projects, with which trucks can be driven fully electrically. There are such tests in Hesse, for example, which are scientifically supervised by the Technical University of Darmstadt. “However, in the medium term, not the entire German road network will be equipped with overhead lines for trucks,” said Schocke.
Source: Stern
