Micro-Depot Pilot Project for Last Mile in Charlottenburg

Under the motto “We make the district faster and cleaner,” District Councilor Oliver Schruoffeneger (Alliance 90/The Greens) presented the cornerstones of a more environmentally friendly urban logistics in the district on Thursday at the Amtsgerichtsplatz in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. The project is scheduled to start in May 2022.

(Berlin) The background of the plans is the steadily increasing volume of packages and the growing number of delivery vehicles. Nationwide, around 13 million package shipments are delivered daily. In Kantstraße alone, there are about 1,000 packages every day. The resulting burdens on people and the environment are to be reduced. For 2021, a further significant increase in online trade of between 12.5% and 13.3% is expected. This will again generate above-average growth in package shipments.

The plans include, among other things:

• 13 loading and unloading zones along Kantstraße, especially for delivery services with separate time slots for cargo bikes and e-transporters (implementation: 2022),
• in the short term: 1 neutral cooperative transshipment hub (also called “Micro-Depot” or “Micro-Hub”) for several logistics service providers on a special usage area at the fairgrounds, Masurenallee, specifically to relieve the delivery area of Kantstraße/Neue Kantstraße (including side streets),
• in the medium term: 4 additional micro-depot locations in the district for the fine distribution of packages by cargo bike or e-transporter.

The logistics companies participating in the pilot project “Micro-Depot Messe” presented themselves with a selection of different cargo bikes. Also represented was the future operator of the cooperative transshipment hub, the railway subsidiary DB Station&Service AG, Europe’s leading station operator. It was awarded the contract after a selection process by the district in July 2021. The company, with its Smart City division, has already gained Micro-Hub experience at Tempelhofer Damm in the district of Tempelhof-Schöneberg.

Shift 30 percent to cargo bikes

The start of the micro-depot pilot project in the district is scheduled for May 2022. “I am confident that we will shift far more than the 30% of urban delivery traffic to cargo bikes targeted by the Minister of Transport,” said District Councilor Oliver Schruoffeneger on Thursday before the press.

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