Cityvelo and CityDepot blow out one candle: “As much as possible… (Antwerp)
Antwerp-
The cohousing project of CityDepot and Cargovelo, two Flemish companies that contribute to urban distribution in Antwerp, has been going on for a year now. The two transport companies are working together to bring goods into the city in a sustainable way. This was celebrated on Monday afternoon with cake and balloons in the BD Logistics depot. I think it’s a fantastic story,” says Koen Kennis, Alderman for Mobility.
“The companies are joining forces to make urban distribution ecological and safer,” says Kennis. “They have been working together for a year now in a difficult period, and that should be celebrated.”
The city distribution works as follows: all kinds of goods are transported to the outskirts of Antwerp. There they are stored in depots and taken to their destination in the city by the transport companies. The aim of the project was to use electric cars (CityDepot) and bicycle couriers (Cargovelo) instead of using large trucks. “This way, transport can be done in a cleaner way,” says Kennis. “By the way, it is also safer and because you use smaller transport.”
“When consolidating the goods, we look at the most logical means of transport to enter the city,” says Kristof Gouvaerts, general manager of BD Logistics, the company responsible for CityDepot. “We want to continue to open depots in the future, as we have already done in Leuven and Mechelen.”
200 to 400 deliveries per month by bicycle
According to Kennis, 5 to 10 percent of the volume that comes through the depots is now transported by bicycle. “The fact that from 200 to 400 deliveries per month are made by bicycle, that is 10,000 orders in a year that are no longer made by vans.” In the future, the companies want to continue working together. “The ambition is to bring as much volume as possible into the city by bicycle,” says Gouvaerts.