UPS brings it by bike

About 155 UPS (NYSE: UPS) delivery “drivers” in California and Oregon took to the streets on bicycles for the 2009 holiday season. Towing trailers behind them, each rider made about 80 deliveries per day. About 400 million packages are delivered by Sandy Springs Ga.-based UPS during the four-week holiday season, according to the company.

The UPS bicycles were chosen as an alternative delivery method by local district managers in West Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland and Portland. They are not part of a larger corporate effort, according to Donna Longino a UPS spokeswoman, but she acknowledges that the choices made at the local level will have an impact on overall efforts at UPS to reduce its emissions. “It’s easier and more efficient to deliver via bicycle than to do it via truck,” she says. An average UPS delivery vehicle delivers between 160 and 200 packages a day during the holidays.

The decision to use bicycles was based on a wide variety of factors including local terrain, density, fuel cost and whether or not additional trucks would have to be rented. Eliminating the need for 20 to 25 rental trucks in California could have saved UPS about $45,000 to $50,000 in fuel and maintenance costs in the region, according to reports. UPS declined to release cost or savings numbers related to the bicycle program.

Holiday shopping on the Internet may already be a more environmentally efficient form of purchasing, according to a study released in December by GigaOM Pro and San Francisco-based Mindclick GSM. The researchers compared greenhouse gas emissions associated with a $100 purchase online and in a brick-and-mortar location on “Cyber Monday” and “Black Friday,” respectively. The in-store purchase accounted for approximately 40 kilograms (kg) of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e), 15 times more than the online purchase, which rang up just 2.6 kg of CO2e.

UPS is looking at ways to reduce its emissions related to fuel use. In 2008, almost 33 percent of its greenhouse gas emissions resulted from diesel use in its delivery vehicles. The company saved 3 million gallons of fuel and more 28 million miles by using software to plan routes that avoid left turns [see, “UPS gives green light to right turns,” sustainableindustries.com June 11, 2007]. Bicycles are not likely to play a large role in the effort, though they can be found elsewhere in the United States at other times of the year and are used in Europe regularly where streets are narrower and parking is at a premium, Longino says.