The idea behind the delivery service initiative Stadslogistiek is to make delivery traffic in Dutch cities smarter and more sustainable with a practical solution. The concept, which PostNL is currently implementing together with its partners in The Hague and Maastricht, among other places, is actually quite simple: individual distribution transports to the inner cities are bundled in a targeted manner and then handled by a purely electrically driven truck.
FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE CITY THIS BASICALLY MEANS LESS TRAFFIC AND LESS POLLUTANT AND NOISE EMISSIONS, WHICH TRANSLATES INTO AN INCREASE IN QUALITY OF LIFE QUALITY OF LIFE.
EMISSION-FREE FUSO eCANTER TAKES OVER INNER-CITY DELIVERY
Stadslogistiek’s customers are companies located in the city centre, where several different delivery vehicles normally drive up every day. This is where the PostNL concept comes in. The partners of the initiative are local forwarding companies with logistics areas or warehouses conveniently located on the outskirts of the city. So-called Green City Hubs were created there as a new central delivery address for all suppliers. Instead of driving directly to customers in the city, they now deliver there.
This reduces the number of vehicles travelling the last mile in city centres. For the people in the city, this basically means less traffic and fewer pollutant and noise emissions, which can be equated with an increase in quality of life. To further enhance the sustainable effect, PostNL uses six locally emission-free FUSO eCanters for deliveries.
Typical transport goods include common consumables such as printer paper, coffee supplies or sanitary items for customers such as retailers, town halls, public authorities or insurance offices. All goods that go to the same address, to the same customer, are re-picked by Stadslogistiek and packed together on pallets or in trolleys. From here on, the FUSO eCanters take over.
FUSO eCANTER UNITE USEFULNESS AND SUSTAINABILITY.
The all-electric light trucks offer a convincing combination of locally emission-free transport and payload strength. With a permissible gross weight of 7.49 tonnes, the eCanter can take on loads of up to 3.5 tonnes. They are equipped with a sturdy box body with a practical lifting platform that allows drivers to unload almost anywhere without any problems.
With a turning circle of only 13.8 metres (track circle 12 metres), the eCanter is ideal for use in busy city centres with limited traffic areas, and its range of 100 kilometres safely covers Stadslogistiek’s needs in inner-city distribution transport. In the evening, the eCanters return to their respective Green City Hubs, where they refuel with electricity overnight and start their rounds again in the morning with new goods.
THE eCANTER CONVINCES CUSTOMERS WORLDWIDE
The FUSO eCanters in service with PostNL are six of a total of 18 eCanters now delivered in the Netherlands. In addition to the Dutch, the Irish postal company An Post and Deutsche Post DHL, for example, also rely on the first purely electrically driven truck from series production.
The eCanters, which are produced in small series for the European and US markets at the FUSO plant in Tramagal, Portugal, are already known in many countries as reliable delivery vehicles in various industries. There are now more than 180 FUSO eCanters in daily use by customers worldwide, in cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Berlin, London, Amsterdam, Paris, Copenhagen, Dublin and Lisbon.