DACHSER to launch emission-free delivery in German city Freiburg

DACHSER Emission-Free Delivery makes delivering groupage shipments in central Freiburg sustainable

In the city center of Freiburg, Germany, DACHSER has designated the post code 79098—which encompasses parts of the city’s Altstadt, Neuburg, and Oberau districts—as an emission-free delivery area. Effective immediately, B2B and B2C customers in this roughly 1.5 km2 zone will receive all their groupage shipments completely emission-free. “We successfully introduced electrically assisted cargo bikes two years ago, so this is now the next logical step in doing our part to improve the quality of the air and of life in Freiburg’s downtown,” says Michael Gaudlitz, General Manager of DACHSER’s Freiburg logistics center.

To make these emission-free deliveries, DACHSER will immediately deploy a 7.5-ton all-electric FUSO eCanter, a light truck that will deliver goods either directly to customers or to the microhub operated by partner VeloCARRIER / Roc-Ket Cargo Bikes, located close to downtown. There, smaller shipments are transferred to electrically assisted cargo bikes or StreetScooters for the delivery runs. The charge point for the electric truck is located at DACHSER’s branch in the Breisgau industrial park south of Freiburg, which—like all the logistics provider’s branches in Germany—purchases 100 percent hydroelectric power.

Taking transportation as a whole—collection and line-haul are performed with conventional diesel trucks—this new service reduces CO2 emissions per shipment by 26 percent on average, particulates emissions by about 47 percent, and nitrogen oxide emissions by about 41 percent.

Electric vehicle mix for city distribution

DACHSER Emission-Free Delivery, an innovative city logistics concept, is built on a modular toolbox for city-center deliveries. DACHSER has been putting the concept into practice in downtown Stuttgart since 2018, and recently rolled out DACHSER Emission-Free Delivery in Oslo as well. “This is a promising beginning, but there is still a long road ahead of us—for a start, we have to resolve issues surrounding the availability of trucks with alternative powertrains,” explains Stefan Hohm, Corporate Director Corporate Solutions, Research & Development, who is in charge of the City Distribution innovation project at DACHSER. At the same time, he remains optimistic: “Over the next two years, we will be examining select European metropolitan regions to successively identify the hotspots in their city centers and implement the DACHSER Emission-Free Delivery concept.”