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OXFORDSHIRE

United Kingdom

Context

Oxfordshire is a county in England which includes the City of Oxford (population 162.000). Oxford’s population has grown at an unprecedented rate in recent years. The city’s universities are a foundry for innovation, and there are several innovative start-ups, including in the Electric Vehicle (EV) and Connected and Autonomous Vehicle (CAV) sector.

The city centre has a network of narrow, historic streets, threading between tall medieval stone buildings. Cars, buses, delivery vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians all compete to make their journeys through this limited space. The arrangement creates an uneasy tension between demands for movement and access, and the desire to ensure a highly attractive and vibrant environment. Motorised vehicles are a major contributor to concerns regarding noise pollution and poor air quality across Oxford (a citywide Air Quality Management Area was declared in 2010).
Oxfordshire County Council and Oxford City Council are set to address major challenges with Oxford’s urban environment and air quality. Beyond these local challenges, a growing consensus in the city is recognising the need to address the climate crisis. Oxfordshire County Council, Oxford City Council and leaders from Oxford’s universities, institutions and large businesses signed the Zero Carbon Oxford Charter, which marks their support for achieving net zero carbon emissions as a city by 2040.

This commitment is a central part of Oxfordshire County Council’s Local Transport and Connectivity Plan which outlines a clear vision to deliver a net-zero Oxfordshire transport and travel system that enables the county to thrive while protecting the environment and making Oxfordshire a better place to live for all residents. The LTCP sets key targets to:

  • Reduce one in four car trips by 2030,
  • Deliver a net-zero transport network by 2040, and
  • A Have zero, or as close as possible, road fatalities or life-changing injuries by 2050 (as a signatory to Vision Zero).

THE CHALLENGE

Most last-mile deliveries in Oxford are currently made by vans (Light Goods Vehicles) – contributing to congestion, air quality and CO2 emissions challenges. The UK’s roads have experienced a significant growth in LGV traffic in the last 20 years: increasing by 67% and now accounting for 18% of all traffic. Some parcel carriers have started operating electric vans (eVans) in Oxford for last-mile deliveries. These have zero vehicle emissions, but still contribute to and face the same challenges of delays due to congestion and lack of parking.

Oxfordshire County Council’s Freight and Logistics Strategy sets out its priority for last mile movement to reduce the number of LGVs in towns and encourage the uptake of zero-emission vehicles – focusing on freight consolidation and more cycle freight to achieve this. Several cycle freight operators are currently working successfully in Oxford, but there are challenges to scaling up this sector, including limited sites for establishing micro consolidation centres.

GREEN-LOG INNOVATION

GREEN-LOG intends to bring together active players in Oxford’s freight operations to address the challenges in scaling up zero emission last-mile deliveries in Oxford. Leveraging this expertise, GREEN-LOG will work in three phases:

  • Focus on identifying requirements, barriers and opportunities in the use of Micro Consolidation Hubs (MCH) and Mobile Delivery Hubs (MDH) from which cycle couriers can collect parcels to complete the last mile to local delivery, and the challenge of developing and locating both MCHs and MDHs.
  • Use the key factors identified from this that affect urban freight and service demand as well as spatio-temporal demand algorithms that will be developed as part of the project to produce and refine concepts for MCH and MDH solutions and locations in co-creation workshops.
  • Develop those concepts to create a pilot.

The pilot explored three concepts: a Micro-Consolidation Hub (MCH) serving as a temporary transfer point for cargo-bike last-mile deliveries, a Mobile Delivery Hub (MDH) providing remotely operated and autonomous-ready neighbourhood delivery services, and Zero-Emission Load Pooling, which consolidated Covered Market and Farm-to-Fork logistics flows.

Demonstrations and simulations showed reductions in delivery times, urban distance travelled, and logistics costs through cargo-bike-based consolidation and collaborative delivery models. The Mobile Delivery Hub also demonstrated the technical feasibility of remotely operated, autonomous-ready delivery systems in controlled environments and received positive feedback from the public.

RELEVANT OUTPUTS

  • Identifying ideal locations where MCH and MDH could be used for last-mile delivery by cargo bike. This could include disused public urban spaces. 
  • Designing of and demonstrating the use of MCH.
  • Designing and demonstrating the dynamic use of MDHs based on current and predicted demand.
  • Setting-up a connected, remotely piloted and/or automated MDH in a test environment. 

GREEN-LOG PARTNERS INVOLVED

PEDAL & POUR LTD T/A PEDAL & POST
(PEDAL)

OXFORDSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL (OCC)

FEED OXFORD (FEED)

VELOCITY (CC)

University of Wolverhampton (UoW)

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