RIPPL: Our Top-5 Trends and What’s Next

Register of Initiatives in Pedal Powered Logistics - RIPPL #40

The RIPPL blog continues at the website RIPPL.BIKE

The RIPPL project has been running for a year now; so what better time to look back and reflect upon what we’ve discovered? We’ve picked out our top 5 most interesting trends so far.

Firstly though, our thanks go not only to you, our readers, for reading, but also to the 39 initiatives we’ve featured so far for sharing their valuable ideas and experiences with us. Later in this article we’ll also give you a taste of what is coming up for the RIPPL project.

Trend 1: Heavy Duty Components

When it comes to making multiple deliveries, a fully loaded bike is an efficient bike. With many delivery vans now not carrying more than 150kg, it has become more and more common for us to ask bikes and trikes to carry heavier loads. The problem; standard bike components aren’t designed to cope with such heavy loads. Logistics operators and manufacturers alike are responding to this design challenge.
Click here to read more

Trend 2: Containerisation

In the mid 20th century, containerisation revolutionised the global shipping industry. As cycle logistics becomes more and more popular, the possibilities offered by containerisation are being considered by operators and manufacturers alike. In October, we wrote a feature about the possibility that standard sizes of container will emerge, and how that could play out.
Click here to read our feature on standardisation in containerisation

Trend 3: Mobility as a Service (MaaS)

In July we featured Pedal Me, an impressive London-based startup. Taking on the likes of UBER, they are using cargo bikes to provide an efficient and competitive app-based taxi service in central London. In 2018, expect to see expansion from Pedal Me and more initiatives like this popping up elsewhere.
Click here to read our feature on Pedal Me

Trend 4: Sharing

Bike share for personal mobility is now mainstream; around a thousand cities worldwide have a system. Parallel to this, more and more cargo bike sharing services are popping up. They’re especially popular in Germany and Switzerland, where they’ve been shown to break down barriers to participation; users who have tried a shared cargo bike are more likely to buy one for themselves.
Click here to read about TINK, a bike sharing initiative in two German cities

Trend 5: Food

There’s more to the combination of food and cycle logistics than Deliveroo, Foodora, UBER Eats and the like. We’ve written about sustainable home delivery food businesses making healthy food, whose model is based on use of cargo bikes for delivery. There are also many social initiatives doing great work; with food which would otherwise have been wasted, or by ensuring that food waste does not unnecessarily end up in landfill.
Click here to read RIPPL articles about food businesses and initiatives

It is safe to say that at the beginning of 2018, there is a lot going on in cycle logistics. Honourable mentions for fascinating trends that didn’t make our top five go to Disaster Relief, Government Intervention and Multi-modality.

Looking Ahead: What's Next?
As well as looking back, we’ve also been looking forwards and are very pleased to announce that our partnership with smart sustainable mobility network Connekt will continue for another 6 months. This allows us to continue writing independent articles about innovation and best practices in cycle logistics. Our overall aims remain the same, to share knowledge and inspire those thinking about using cycle logistics as part of an initiative of their own, so many thanks go to Connekt for their continued support.

We have also been considering the above trends and have decided that our posts for the next six months will mostly focus on those trends that, in our opinion, will have the greatest impact on cycle logistics in the near future; namely Containerisation and Heavy Duty Componentry. As ever, if you have a suggestion about a concept or initiative you think we should cover, please get in touch.

In other news, we will also shortly be launching a dedicated RIPPL website. Watch this space for an announcement in the near future.

Last but not least, don’t forget that the International Cargo Bike Festival will be held in April. This year, for the first time, it is moving to Berlin and will run concurrently with VELOBerlin on the Tempelhof airfield. Festival dates are 14th and 15th April and you can read more about the programme here. We’ll see you there!

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