| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Cargo Bike King Ronnie | |
| Posted by: | Justin Stephenson | |
| Date/Time: | 02/12/23 16:42:00 |
| The picture is of Babboe cargo bike which has a maximum load capacity of 100 kg. There are small vans out there which can carry more than 1000kg of cargo and even some e-vans at reasonable prices (but range can be an issue). It is therefore not unreasonable to assume that a van would be able to carry 5x-6x the load of a fully loaded cargo bike. For small businesses it is a simple question of economics and load capacity/size of goods being delivered. If goods being delivered to a single address exceed 100 kg or are too big for the bike cargo bay then obviously a cargo bike is impractical - but I would guess that would be a minority of local businesses. The bigger issue is staffing. If they can deliver by bike and do not need to take on more staff because of the lower load capacity then the bike is clearly the better option. On the other hand if they need to hire more people if they deliver by bike then in most cases it is probably uneconomic to use a cargo bike - the cost of the extra staff would swamp the cost savings (a cargo bike being a lot cheaper to buy and operate) within a couple of years. As long as local businesses are given a free choice as to how they deliver their goods, I have no problem with the Council encouraging the use of cargo bikes. On a slightly different but related issue, it would not be a surprise to me if in the next few years local takeaway deliveries are done almost exclusively on e-bikes |