Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has revealed his new transport strategy, looking at how London’s streets can be made cleaner, safer and less congested.

Core to the strategy is improving and investing in public transport networks, as well as encouraging more walking and cycling while deterring car use. There are to be more incentives to encourage electric vehicles. The ULEZ is to be extended too. There is also discussion of Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) and how they can play their part in improving the city’s transport infrastructure.

High on the list is how to reduce the impact of the delivery sector. There are plans to reduce the number of trucks and vans entering Central London during the morning peak by 10% by 2026.

The volume of e-commerce is increasing, so the difficulty will be in getting more packages into fewer vehicles.

In order to achieve that, the Mayor (as outlined in “Policy 5” of the Strategy) wants to “encourage more freight consolidation” and also “reduce, re-time and re-mode deliveries”. Fewer deliveries would occur during peak periods. There will be technologies used to reduce the amount of failed deliveries too.

The new London Mayor strategy has been welcomed by certain delivery industry players. They do emphasise that delivery companies and retailers will have to work together.

In a statement, Bobby Shome, Global Business Development Director with Centiro, commented:  “The Mayor of London’s Transport Strategy is an encouraging first step towards securing a sustainable and more environmentally-friendly future for deliveries.

“If London is to have any chance of these meeting goals the Mayor has set out organisations from all parts of the industry – from retailers to delivery partners – must start working together in a more collaborative way. This approach could be extremely effective when it comes to deliveries, with more businesses working together, where appropriate, over the last mile to reduce the existing levels of delivery traffic, particularly during the morning peak.

“The key to making this happen in practice lies in the technology driving logistics and operations. Collaboration can be made possible by sharing accurate, timely information across a wider network, making it possible for retailers to pool their resources when it comes to delivering goods.”