TFL LoCity is the clean air focus group for Transport for London, operators rich in attendance with an agenda of positive solutions for clean air on the roads of London. Chair is Carl Lomas MBE, heavy vehicle chair is Nick Bithell Knights of Old, secretary for TFL Dr Andy Neather. The July meeting was first one back after lockdown with a fifty-fifty mix of online and at-table attendance.

Carl Lomas MBE – Group introductions and the LoCity vision.

Introductions around the room, rich in operators, include, bus, truck, bike and cargo cycle. John Lewis with their giant gas truck fleet were on screen with the likes of GLH, Central London courier company. Cargo cycle companies in the room, GLH on line. DFT in attendance.

TFL’s plans for road user charging

Christina Calderato, Director of Transport Strategy and Policy.

ULEZ is about air quality not charge, we want a conversation about the next steps. We know low emission zones are effective in reducing emissions. We believe we will see a shift of 70,000 vehicles as ULEZ moves out.

Expanding London wide ULEZ, over four thousand people die, (Imperial College study) more vulnerable live further out and are adversely effected. To address all the challenges it will need investment, we need to lead from the front, ev bus and infrastructure charging points.

We want to understand your views on the past scrappage scheme.

Timeline, April 2019 Central ULEZ launched. 2023 London wide ULEZ expansion. We want a conversation about next generation charging. We want you to engage in the consultation for next steps. A link is to be forwarded.

Q&A

Where do we stand on parked euro five in London? No charge.

Where are we on the zero emission? A target to have a central emission zero by 2025. Presently some small pockets, streets, Broad answers is we need to do something, it may be borough

Luke Edgar, Santis Global,

Electric cargo bike final-mile deliveries in central London

Cargo bike is the future but there are challenges.

‘There may be more than Ten Thousand cargo cycles in London.’

Where do you put cargo bikes when out of use in the evenings? Driver availability and skills are a further challenge for the expanding cargo cycles. Breakdown and recovery is a challenge.

Luke explained the Santis operation as a focused movement of urgent goods in the Central London area. We have found great growth of e-cargo bikes. Cargo bike revolution began with cycle-based devices with boxes. The urban arrow style box cycles. Things then got bigger, our biggest vehicle is an EAV, as many as twenty archive boxes on the back. Reliability and cost of these vehicles is a challenge, cost of vehicle can be fifteen thousand pounds. Storing the bikes securely is a further challenge. These are expensive vehicles to leave road-side. As size of the cargo bike grows street size becomes a problem, insurance issues follow as these devices become bigger. Wind effects the operator, on bridges and amongst tall bikes in the areas such as Canary Wharf. We have never had one topple over.

Paul Abbot, Knights of Old – a Scandinavian lens on clean air trucks.

For shunting, tick over.

When its EV and stationary its using nothing.

The future trucks for us is hydrogen fuel cell alongside fully electric.

The burden of fossil fuel is a challenge. Refurbishment is in the debate for different drive train systems. Paul taking a look at alternatives.

We see HVO as a journey of transition from diesel. Paul explained a recent trip to Scandinavia to test the clean air trucks and tackle a look at the Volvo brand availability. The test track had a great variation of work style environments. From a driveability perspective it’s a very peaceful cab experience, very smooth, no gears, no fuel burn at stop. Truck range at 40 tonnes was more than 200km. Next ear we will be trialling the MAN EV truck.

LNG is something we have trialled, very similar to diesel but refuelling the greatest challenge. We saw quick return in investment prior to gas price change. For on site shunting electric tractor units are growing in useability and availability. Electric has no tick over, when its stationary its using nothing. The future trucks for us is hydrogen fuel cell alongside fully electric.

Prasana Uthayakumar, Commercial Innovation Manager,

Low emissions solutions from the FreightLab innovation.

Two innovators – Tyre particulates -

Linked to Mayors transport strategy, London Freight lab was to promote better air quality, reduce freight vehicle miles travelled with scalable options. We work with ten partners including DPD, Royal mail, John Lewis UPS. Seed funding for the challenge included 120 companies. Appyway digitised road side including Ealrs Court area. Emsol, Enso, Fernway and Humanising Autonomy.

Focusing on two of the innovators. First Enzo who are looking to minimise tyre pollution, synthetic rubber particles in the air. Recent study showed more than six times the particulates in the air compared to the tailpipe emissions. The review focused on material makeup of the tyres and that impact on air, trials with DPD and Royal Mail. Second EMSOL, air and noise sensors to reduce emissions around St Thomas and Docklands with John Lewis Partnership. Sensors recorded emission and sound impact via blue tooth tags and cctv where available. Attribution pollution to event and finding reasons to mitigate for the future. There is a July 21st demo day at Palestra.

Next LoCity returns Palestra Oct 10th at two PM.