Logistics and express delivery giants UPS have put an e-bike on a delivery route in Fort Lauderdale in Florida.

The e-bike will deliver parcels on the Las Olas Boulevard and surrounding neighbourhoods.

UPS, which isn’t known for its fondness for all things ‘green’, is running the e-bike as part of the Fort Lauderdale Green Your Routine programme, that is geared to the city’s sustainability goals. The UPS e-bike is also part of the Vision Zero Fort Lauderdale which is a citywide initiative to make the city’s streets safer for all road users.

“This is another example of how private and public sectors can work together to find sustainable solutions to meet the needs of today’s cities,” said Scott Phillippi, UPS’s senior director of maintenance and engineering, international operations.

“We have many vehicle options when it comes to reducing our impact on the environment including our Cycle Solutions that provide greater mobility and zero emissions.”

The scheme was celebrated in a ribbon cutting ceremony on Saturday with city officials.

UPS first started developing the eBike delivery concept in Hamburg, Germany back in 2012 – and has since extended its usage to a number of cities in Europe and the US, Italy; Toulouse, France; and Dublin, Ireland in addition to the two eBikes now in the United States. UPS likes to do a little and shout a lot about its green credentials yet is one of the world’s biggest single on road polluters in terms of the CO2 it emits. This compares very unfavourably with DHL which now has 10,000 e-bikes on the road, as well as a further 5,000 EV delivery vans.

 
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