The Last Mile Home

Urbanism Next Researcher Amanda Howell weighs in on what is needed in cities for e-cargo bikes to gain traction as a way to fulfill first and last-mile deliveries.

For cargo bikes to become a ubiquitous mode of transportation for freight, there also needs to be infrastructure in dense urban areas for bikes to pick up loads. Amanda Howell, project manager at Urbanism Next, an emerging-technology research outfit at the University of Oregon, says the lack of infrastructure for cargo bikes is a hurdle against widespread deployment.

“There is definitely interest in e-cargo bikes,” says Howell. “What you need for that are lots of micro-hubs that can serve as starting point. Cargo bikes have less capacity than a truck has — you need a centralized location where packages are brought, and then you need a hub for the bikes to come every day for that to take off. There are starting to be efforts of looking at where we could locate those.”