Dachser is now making all its deliveries to the heart of the southwest Germany city Freiburg emission-free, using a combination of Fuso eCanters, StreetScooters, and cargo bikes. Taking transportation as a whole, this new service reduces CO₂ emissions per shipment by 26%.

In the city center of Freiburg, Germany, Dachser has designated the post code 79098—which encompasses parts of the city’s Altstadt, Neuburg, and Oberau districts—as an emission-free delivery area. Effective immediately, B2B and B2C customers in this roughly 1.5 km² zone will receive all their groupage shipments completely emission-free.

We successfully introduced electrically assisted cargo bikes two years ago, so this is now the next logical step in doing our part to improve the quality of the air and of life in Freiburg’s downtown.

—Michael Gaudlitz, General Manager of Dachser's Freiburg logistics center

To make these emission-free deliveries, Dachser will immediately deploy a 7.5-ton all-electric FUSO eCanter, a light truck that will deliver goods either directly to customers or to the microhub operated by partner VeloCARRIER / Roc-Ket Cargo Bikes, located close to downtown.

There, smaller shipments are transferred to electrically assisted cargo bikes or StreetScooters for the delivery runs. The charge point for the electric truck is located at Dachser’s branch in the Breisgau industrial park south of Freiburg, which—like all the logistics provider's branches in Germany—purchases 100% hydroelectric power.

Taking transportation as a whole—collection and line-haul are performed with conventional diesel trucks—this new service reduces CO₂ emissions per shipment by 26% on average, particulates emissions by about 47%, and nitrogen oxide emissions by about 41%.

Dachser Emission-Free Delivery, an innovative city logistics concept, is built on a modular toolbox for city-center deliveries. Dachser has been putting the concept into practice in downtown Stuttgart since 2018, and recently rolled out Dachser Emission-Free Delivery in Oslo as well.

This is a promising beginning, but there is still a long road ahead of us—for a start, we have to resolve issues surrounding the availability of trucks with alternative powertrains. Over the next two years, we will be examining select European metropolitan regions to successively identify the hotspots in their city centers and implement the Dachser Emission-Free Delivery concept.

—Stefan Hohm, Corporate Director Corporate Solutions, Research & Development,

Headquartered in Germany, Dachser is one of the world's leading logistics providers. Using its own in-house developed IT-systems, Dachser incorporates transport, warehousing, and value-added services to provide comprehensive supply chain solutions. With some 31,000 employees based in 393 locations all over the globe, Dachser generated a consolidated net revenue of approximately €5.7 billion in 2019. The same year, the logistics provider handled a total of 80.6 million shipments weighing 41.0 million metric tons. Country organizations represent Dachser in 44 countries.