From now on with electric scooters (or even on foot) and in the not too distant future, perhaps even with autonomous vehicles and robots: Amazon’s deliveries in Italy change starting from 4 cities (Bologna, Genoa, Milan and Naples), where the company has decided to open as many micro-mobility hubs.
The aim, as explained, is to support the so-called last mile deliveries and make them more sustainable, improve air quality, relieve traffic congestion and to reduce the pollution noise in urban centers: “Transportation is a key component of Amazon’s strategy to achieve net zero CO2 emissions by 2040 – he recalled Gabriele Sigismondi, country director of Amazon Logistics Italy “These hubs help increase the efficiency of our existing facilities and suppliers’ EV fleet and are already transforming the way we deliver to customers in high-density areas.”
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What are micromobility hubs
In Amazon’s mind, these facilities are small-sized warehouses that somehow flank the larger ones, but in more central positions: already present in some European cities, they allow the use of new delivery methods, such as electric 3-wheel cargo scooters, cargo bikes and foot deliveries, to bring parcels to customers in a more sustainable way, simply because they are physically closest to the final destination of the parcel.
In short, these hubs allow you to take traditional delivery vans off the roadrelieving traffic congestion in city centers and improving air quality by:
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a Bolognathe latest Amazon micromobility hub will allow 100% of parcels to be delivered in the ZTL by 2023 using 3-wheel electric cargo scooters;
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the micromobility hub of Genova allows Amazon Logistics staff to deliver 100% of parcels with electric cargo scooters in the ZTL;
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a Milanoover 25% of parcels in Area C (the ZTL of the Lombard capital) are delivered by Amazon Logistics delivery service providers with zero-emission electric cargo scooters thanks to the Rogoredo hub, and the share will continue to grow in 2023 ;
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a Napoli60% of parcels in the ZTL are delivered by electric cargo scooters.
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The situation in the rest of Europe
Amazon’s micromobility hubs are present in more than 20 European cities and the company’s intention is to double the number of locations involved by the end of 2025: in 2021 (the latest year for which data is available), Amazon delivered over 100 million parcels in Europe using only zero-emission vehicles , of which over 7 million in Italy.
In addition, more than 3,000 electric vans across Europe are already used for ed deliveries it is expected that they will rise to over 10,000 by 2025.