A courier suggests
"Help to reduce the carbon footprint of your parcel by up to 90%* By diverting your parcel to a ParcelShop or locker"
Isn't this somewhat negated by the customer having to travel to the Parcelshop or locker in their car? Can it really save 90% by the courier not doing the last mile?
Saves ?the courier? 90%. ;-)
Apparently the last stage of delivery to your door is the most carbon intensive part of its journey and if you have a drop point within walking distance it probably does help a lot. If not, unless you have an EV probably better to get it delivered to your door.
Tim
Does an EV have a carbon footprint low enough to make a 90% difference?
No, but it?s probably gonna be better than firing up an ICE vehicle for a trip to the Parcelshop.
Tim
Even if this is just for UK products, it sounds to me as though there are some creative assumptions, doubtless including walking to the pickup. Also, percentages is a cheeky way to view it. 90% of bugger all is still bugger all. How many parcels get delivered per tank of fuel?
You?ll be telling me next that you don?t unplug all your wall warts every night to save the planet. ;-)
Tim
I think many couriers have a lot of wasted mileage (and stop-start urban mileage too) in the 'last mile' to people who aren't at home or there are other reasons for a failed delivery.
A few things I've sent DPD parcelshop to parcelshop both ends, which is cheaper and saves the recipient staying in. In many cases the recipient will be making a journey to a supermarket or town centre anyway (and if I do it's on foot or by bus as I don't run a car).
Owain
Oh come on Tim, it's virtue-seeking bollocks. They don't give a shit about 'carbon'. And EVs use more 'carbon' than ICE cars, because of the manufacturing costs, the scrapping costs, and the fact that the leccy is mostly made from gas.
Bill
Busses are the worst for CO2 per passenger mile because they run about half empty. In fact there's one comes past here and it never has more than three people in it.
Bill
Possibly the same for every commuter train into London. Before Covid packed full for the morning journey into London but with no facilities to park all but a few trains in London they are sent back down the line near empty and then again for the evening return rush sent near empty back into London again.
saves them money that is all that matters
I assume they will claim that a delivery van makes a lot of short start/ stop hops in the drop of phase, which are probably fuel inefficient.
Conversely, if people collect from a central point, some will walk, some will call in while passing ( perhaps from / to work etc), some while shopping, and some will make a special trip by car. ( other options exist but you get the idea).
On first examination, this makes sense if the special trip number is small enough to ensure the fuel used / carbon released is less.
However, you need to make assumptions or have data - get those wrong and it could be nonsense. Rather like SAGE and the Chinese Virus predictions. Not one has been remotely accurate.
The delivery situation could be modelled but I suspect it hasn?t. If nothing else, it would require different parameters for different areas - population densities, locations of drop off points, even social class ( as much as I hate that term) as it guide to access to cars, employment patterns, ??
I'm very suspicious of the "up to" 90% figure and suspect that that is a one off outlier - for someone who lives 10 miles out of town, with no other deliveries nearby and cycles the 20 mile round trip to pick up their parcel.
our local Park & Ride ones have been battery powered for the last few years.
Sounds very like the 'save the planet, don't make us wash all the towels' in hotels. It really benefits them.
I guess we could all ban burned toast as well. Brian
alan_m explained :
Yes, but only for the operator of the EV.
Because the other 57 have driven their cars?
Depends of whether you'd make a special journey to collect - or can do it while shopping etc. Most delivery vans are making a special trip to your door. Given how many alternatives there are - unlike with your postman who will deliver to every house in your street.
I've yet to see an EV deliver here. Most are anything but new vans anyway.
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