Urban Arrow x Heid Löper
Smart delivery people ride an e-cargo bike.
Heid Löper combines delivery streams in Lüneburg. Various delivery people were making deliveries around Lüneburg in Germany every day. One brought the post, the other the regional newspaper. Those are two services that have undergone a lot of changes in recent years. It’s no secret that the readership of paper newspapers is decreasing, and that the volume of post is shrinking due to digitalization. The routes that the delivery people for these two services travelled separately from one another were therefore becoming increasingly less efficient.
Combining and restructuring
The solution that Heid Löper came up with for this inefficient approach was both smart and simple: merge them! Patrick Ristow, Fleet Manager at Heid Löper, explains: “Three years ago we merged the delivery services for the regional newspaper Lüneburger Heide and the postal service Der Lünebote GmbH. That means we now have a stable network that serves the entire area efficiently.
And we now not only deliver newspapers and the post, but also carry parcels from retailers in Lüneburg within our network.” The economic aspect was a driver for the merger, but Heid Löper is also paying lots of attention to the positioning in terms of the environment. “After a period of restructuring, we took a good look at our fleet. In 2020 we started replacing our ageing vehicles with e-cargo bikes from Urban Arrow.” Heid Löper now operates 18 Urban Arrows, particularly Cargos and Shortys.
With our business structure and electric delivery vehicles we have a service that is ready for the future.
Patrick Ristow – Fleet Manager
Lüneburg is in a hilly region, and delivery riders cover a lot of kilometres uphill and downhill with their cargo. The electric support provided by an Urban Arrow makes these trips a lot more pleasant for Heid Löper’s employees. “Our old cargo bikes did not offer that support. Since we have started delivering using the e-cargo bikes we are seeing that our employees are completing their routes more quickly. That saves on work time, and the delivery person can do more in the same time. Our Shortys cover an average of 5300 kilometres per month, and we visit hundreds of addresses every day,” explains Patrick. Another big advantage of the Shortys and Cargos is that the box can be properly sealed. “That is practical when it rains, but some of our delivery people also have routes through busy streets. It is then important that the cargo is properly protected.”
Futureproof service
Patrick explains that Heid Löper is ambitious: “We are planning to be all-conquering over the coming years. With our business structure and electric delivery vehicles we have a service that is ready for the future.” The expansion with a parcel service is therefore just the beginning. The young organisation wants to be the premier logistics provider in Lüneburg and environs. Meanwhile they are gradually replacing their fleet with Urban Arrows in order to perform their deliveries even better.
Shorty
