Cargo Bike Summit shows cargo bike freight developing, but with hurdles

Last week Landor Links held its second annual Cargo Bike Summit, an event followed this year by a consumer-facing Cargo Bike Festival, giving the meet a two-fold purpose of introducing on-the-fence business and local authority leaders, plus curious parents a chance to learn more about the maturing sector.

Seminars interspersed throughout the day tackled the subjects of cargo bike standards, legislation covering the training, riding and public usage of such bikes, as well as the many-fold challenges the comparatively young cycling sector faces.

A key hurdle was the revelation that the UK is still struggling to get to grips with leasing of such vehicles, with one leading voice in the juvenile sector – BikeFlex – currently pausing its work. CIN did hear a whisper that Redde Northgate may be stepping into that gap. Meanwhile, over in Europe, countries like Belgium see around half of all electric bike sales go via leasing, something that gives businesses flexibility in fleet management.

The Cargo Bike Summit was once again rich in content that illustrated the path the sector has been on, where the cargo bike freight market as whole sits in the present and what the long-term ambition is.

A known face from the bike industry, Jeyda Hessleton, whose collaboration with Kwik Fit has been pioneering in the bike industry spoke on the need to lay nationwide foundations to be able to service and store cargo bikes. Kwik Fit, she told the room, services 2 million fleet vehicles annually across 700 centres and in forging the link, Kwik Fit has been steadily earmarking sites to convert to enable cargo bike servicing alongside.

In achieving the collaboration Jeyda gave a piece of lesser-considered insight on her pitch to bring about the nationwide footprint, saying ‘We had to pitch this as a health and climate idea, not so much a bike business idea to get the ear of big business.’

In another indicator of the tailwinds cycling has behind it, despite the current downturn, the Summit also heard from local authority leaders, with Rezina Chowdhury, who is charged with Lambeth’s sustainability and clean air strategy.

She stated in her opening address ‘Cargo bikes have the potential to revolutionise freight and services in our borough. We know from trials that they can be more efficient and cost-effective for local businesses to make deliveries. So we are developing our own freight and servicing strategy to increase their use. Our kerbside strategy is already award-winning and the first of its kind. Launched last year, it commits us to free cycle parking every 50 metres, including spaces for adapted and cargo bike parking. We are aiming to roll this out in the coming years. Ultimately, we need to make easier and more attractive to use these kinds of bikes and use more sustainable transport for day-to-day needs.’

A final theme hinged on infrastructure. Doesn’t that always come up? Well Tristan Allen at Fully Charged Silverstone delivered a presentation that illustrated the often far longer route cargo bike couriers must cycle in a rural setting than vans, noting that while the reverse may be true in cities, efficiencies needed to be improved nationwide to see cargo bike freight establish ubiquitously. He said ‘Mapping companies need data to best help local authorities plan routes. So far they prioritise cars because data exists widely. I think too that we need to decide on a definition for mobility hubs as so far property developers have been a bit clueless, so there’s lots of views on what they should look like.’

Echoing this, Royal Mail’s Mark Riley said that while there may be a potential 32,000 possible routes on which to deploy cargo bikes, only a ‘few thousand’ were viable in reality. Again, the reason being safe and efficient infrastructure guaranteeing safe and direct passage for parcels and riders.