Expanded Partnership Aims to Eliminate Delivery Trucks in Downtown LA

Sustainability is an extremely important trend in the last-mile right now, as online ordering and shopping grows, putting more trucks on the road and more carbon emissions. Additionally, bottlenecks and traffic jams are significant disruptions in the last mile. AxleHire and URB-E work together to overcome these obstacles with their zero-emission partnership, which started in New York. After a successful pilot program for a zero-emissions last-mile delivery service in New York, the service now moves into downtown Los Angeles, where the two companies hope will eliminate delivery trucks. 

Per Globenewswire: 

• It’s a fast acceleration of a plan to revolutionize cargo delivery using containers operating within a neighborhood microhub system. The initial pilot between AxleHire, a logistics innovator in microhubs, and URB-E, an e-cargo delivery platform, took place in August 2021 servicing deliveries from Brooklyn to Manhattan. It first deployed 10 vehicles moving 100 containers per week. By December 2021, the companies are deploying 50 URB-E vehicles moving anywhere from 300 to 500 containers per week in NYC.
• The URB-E containers will be packed at AxleHire’s distribution center and dropped off daily to neighborhood microhubs, eliminating the time trucks are on the road. URB-E vehicles can haul 800lbs of cargo and will be making deliveries to both residential and commercial addresses. The vehicle batteries are charged off-site at an URB-E facility and delivered daily, providing an additional benefit over electric cars and vans by deploying a safe energy infrastructure anywhere needed.
• The system also features a full telematics solution to track packages, rider performance, battery life, and vehicle maintenance.