While you’re waiting for Amazon to deliver your latest purchase by drone, UPS is testing a more, umm, down-to-earth approach. The company announced it would begin delivering in Seattle’s downtown Pike Place area using pedal-powered tricycles. The trike-trucks have electric-motor assistance, presumably to help the operator make it up Seattle’s hills.
United Parcel Service got its start in Seattle as American Messenger Company in 1907, delivering correspondence, small packages – even pails of beer –for downtown businesses. The fledging company utilized feet and bicycles to serve its customers. In the twenty-first century, their ubiquitous brown trucks contend with the challenges of urban traffic and lack of space to park when making deliveries. (UPS collects thousands of parking tickets each year.) The smaller and more maneuverable vehicles are expected to deal more effectively with city congestion.
Tricycle delivery’s first trial was in Hamburg, Germany in 2012. Toronto and Portland were the next test cities. Pedestrians, currently contending with bicyclists who have no regard for traffic laws and crazed scooter riders, will also need to be aware of brown lorries in the bike lanes and on the sidewalks.
