At Pedal & Post, we’re always pushing to innovate and improve our delivery services, tailoring our zero emission logistics solutions to each one of our fantastic clients we’ve had the pleasure of working with so far. 

 

One of the biggest questions though for customers and clients a like is “when will my parcel arrive?” 

 

Most will give us a quick call and as our team is on a walkie talkie system we can usually update on a rough estimated time but with GPS tracking we don’t have to disturb the courier to request a position, so we don’t slow them down and as we scale up our deliveries in Oxford this method wont be very efficient as our team grows. We also currently provide notifications by email to say “your parcel is out for delivery” and if we deliver successfully or not,  it’ll send a second email to notify the customer of this with timings, photos of safe places and signatures etc. However it doesn’t give a time it’s likely to arrive? Your sat at home ready but you really want to nip to the shops quickly, see a friend for lunch or jump in the shower but what if you miss your delivery? 

 

We want to remove this worry, the last two weeks we’ve been testing our GPS settings with all our courier team and we reckon we have a good and workable solution. We’re finalizing our tracking section on our website (you cna see the link ready but it wont work just yet) where you can live track your courier with your unique parcel reference, so you will always know an accurate ETA when your last mile delivery (Yodel parcels), first mile collection or same day delivery is set to arrive.

 

 

Not only this, we now capture GPS pings when the couriers update jobs as part of our proof of delivery. This really helps us with time stamps and location data so we know exactly when, where , what and how as couriers can add comments to jobs too, vastly improving our service. 

 

We’re still working on our live tracking options and the ability to update your information in real time on the website but when this launches we’ll update on here! 

 

People receiving parcels from us and business’s sending parcels with us, we want your feedback. If we can improve further, let us know features you’d like to see – Leave us a review on the website and let us know! 

 

We decided to have an informal discussion this morning over coffee in our office about the botley road improvements which Cyclox the oxford campaign group (who you should totally sign up to be a member with) kindly reminded us of. We talked about how they would effect us as a cycle logistics team and how it could affect people who use bikes (specifically 8-80yr olds) 

 

(You can see plan 7 here so its a bigger image)

 

Here’s a link to listen to our team discussion today

(contains explicit language so caution advised if you have children in the room) 

 

http://zello.me/boTPzbHcFwqp

(A phone call split the recording in two)

http://zello.me/R5rx9WOpw3iB

 

The overall vibe is there will be no improvement to support a cargo bike and logistical point of view and the new layout will have no safety or filtering improvements. We also believe the current plans for people who use bikes from the age 8-80 are woefully inadequate. If the goal is to increase the uptake of cycling in Oxford then these current plans wont achieve it. We can do better than this. We cant increase bus use as its at capacity, we cant increase car use because congestions unbearable already,  cycling should be the priority and then walking too. 

 

Painted cycle lane discussed was a comment by Chris Boardman – you can read about it by clicking here

 

Whoever gets paid to come up with these plans is not being bold nor radical and it still prioritising the motor vehicle. We will give a much more detailed response and respond to the consultation but its good to discuss. We’d welcome comments and discussion on this topic so do get in touch. 

We’ve designed our new cycle jerseys for the Pedal & Post team for 2019/2020 and we’re excited, not only because they look amazing but that we have some space available on the jerseys for sponsorship.  The couriers are keen for the jerseys to give off a professional cycling image whilst also promoting and talking about the brands who choose to come on board.

 

We had planned to do this a number of years ago and received a lot of interest at the time but we didn’t get to the stage of ordering the jerseys and became very busy and it slipped down our to do list, which was a real shame but this is the year! 

 

Our team is out on Oxfords roads 5 days a week and visible to thousands across the day as our cargo bikes and e-cargo trike really do turn heads as we ride around. We also deliver to hundreds of people, business’s and public bodies from hospitals to offices to industrial units so we can give visibility to a brand/business like no other cycle jersey could. 

 

Not only this but Pedal & Post’s core ethos is to move goods in a sustainable way. We’ve inspired people to what’s possible with cargo bikes and we’re a company changing how we move goods within a dense urban city, pioneering green innovation in the logistics industry and giving a green image to any potential sponsor

 

 

We have a number of slots on the jersey so if you would be interested please get in touch with us for costings (or we would happily look at exchanges like a supply of food or coffee would be great that would support our team on their deliveries!) 

Tom Hayes got in touch last week to let us know about an event coming up next week for Clean air day which is june the 20th. The event details are here with some great speakers. 

 

Urgent action is needed across all levels of government and business to clean Britain’s toxic air and decarbonise our energy. The opportunity and benefits of moving to clean energy can help us tackle the dangers of polluted air that contributes to thousands of premature deaths.

 

 

This event is very much up our street to be involved with from a local business perspective but from a personal one, everything that worries me about toxic air was recently on channel 4 via dispatches, you can watch it here – Britains toxic air scandal

 

There is a better way and it drives myself and the teams vision for Pedal & Post which is to “deliver goods and freight in a sustainable way” with air pollution being a core part of this as well as congestion, inactive lifestyles, road safety, noise pollution and well, cycling makes you happy! what better way to make things sustainable than enjoy it

 

“Transport is responsible for a huge chunk of the UK’s carbon emissions and the levels are actually increasing,” Muna Suleiman from Friends of the Earth says. Delivery companies are a significant part of this”

Most of us shop online now and a lot of the carbon footprint of a parcel comes from the transportation process, with the last mile taking up the most energy, which is the final stretch from a distribution center to a parcels destination, think dirty diesel van arriving usually at your home or office. 

 

 

We specialise in delivering “The last mile” as we use zero emission, purly muscle powered cargo bikes to deliver in the greenest way possible to your home or office. You may of seen our fleet of cargo bikes whizzing around Oxford or had your parcel delivered by us! but we go further than this, our office for instance is 100% solar powered charging our IT equipment and handsets making our deliveries possible. We want to make zero emission delivery methods and practises become the norm as this has a huge impact on the air quality for Oxford. We saved an estimated 24 tons of co2 last year and we want to keep building on this huge reduction. 

 

 

We are now looking to electrify our fleet of cargo bikes and introduce more e-cargo trikes however these have 1.4kwh batteries that need charging (the battery is 40* smaller than an EV so requires a lot less electricity) .

 

So how do we do this, whilst meeting our vision? We have a plan to invest in two batteries per bike whilst hugely scaling up our solar generation at our depot so we can have one battery being charged by the sun through the day and one in use making deliveries which we can swap around at the end of each day.

 

This means our deliveries are quite literally powered by the sun! we believe this is the future of logistics and in reducing air pollution and decarbonising to a zero emission future as fast as possible to avoid unnecessary deaths from air pollution and the imminent climate catastrophe we all must face together. 

 

This panel discussion, supported by Oxford Friends of the Earth, opens its doors at 7pm and starts at 7.30pm, we look forward to seeing you there

 

Sources:

BBC – How green is your parcel
Metro – The carbon footprint of deliveries

Karis, Rich and James set out on the mammoth challenge yesterday and completed the 80 Mile bike Oxford route raising money for charity.

 

Pedal & Post started riding bike oxford 3-4 years ago and its become a tradition to participate and complete the sportive in our unique way with the 8 Freight cargo bike attempting to give some road bikers a run for their money. The cargo bike weighs in at 20kg and the average speed is about 10-12mph so its a full on 8 hours plus of riding. The course this year went over the cotswolds with 4000 feet of elevation and climbing! 

 

(Team rocking the company blue colours)

 

(Karis getting a mention in for some of our fantastic clients we work with)

 

 

(Route this year and elevation)

 

(Team finish at the end)

 

Its always a really fun event and you get to meet some awesome people along the way. We’d recommend getting involved with Bike Oxford for next year and get it into your calendars ready, we’ll likely see you in 2020

 

You can also still donate to Helen and Douglas house, the chosen charity by Karis here: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/karisgonecargo 

 

We have worked with Helen house for years now providing medical deliveries and its a fantastic charity to donate too

 

https://www.bikeoxford.co.uk/

I wanted to start a section called “Myths” generally topics we get tired of explaining again and again and again and again aaanndd again aannnnddd again… you get the gist.

 

Road tax has to be the number one though to kick this off. Its always guaranteed to spark off a heated debate, even though it doesn’t exist.

 

Motorists pay VED based on the harmful emissions caused by the type of vehicle and in my opinion rightly so, the damage of air pollution  to our communities is well known nowadays. Its why electric vehicles and small engines are zero rated and don’t have to pay a penny. The funniest comment we had once was a driver saying “road tax (they meant VED) should be applied to all people who use bikes” we had a good laugh as everyone would be zero rated anyway but this demonstrates the real ignorance of this debate.

 

Its become a much stronger issue, as in Oxford, the roads are in an appalling state and require lots more money to maintain. But to point out the road tax myth it raises the further question of who does pay for the roads?  and it also raises the question of how much does driving cost the economy? via damage to the roads, air pollution, congestion, noise pollution, greenhouse gases, accidents, physical inactivity, negative impact on communities (barrier effect) etc all of which dont apply when using a bike

 

Most drivers still feel they do foot the bill and it gives them a sense of superiority that they have the right to use the roads over anyone else

 

But is it true? 

 

In short, No, its completely untrue and driving is a HUGE drain on the economy but I’ll explore this in another post in a bit more depth as its certainly another myth to add to the collection and why people on bikes could be the life line to governments under a huge financial squeeze in the UK