UPS drivers are delivering packages by pedal in Portland, Ore., through the company’s new electronic delivery tricycles.
Used to bump up efficiency and allow UPS drivers to avoid traffic, the delivery tricycles carry one-tenth of what a normal truck carries.
“With a full-size delivery vehicle, you can’t get it into places that you would with an e-bike,” Scott Phillippi, a UPS automative engineer, told Fast Company. “It’s part of an overall strategy to make an impact on the environment as well as become more efficient in doing so.”
UPS launched a similar electronic tricycle delivery program in Hamburg, Germany in 2012, and tested the same system in Switzerland in 2015. Portland is the first city in the U.S. to test the program.
The delivery program aims to help UPS save money by avoiding delays in congested cities and fight pollution. If successful, UPS may bring it to other cities in the U.S., Phillippi said.
