Urban Multimodal Sustainable Transport: An Environmental Assessment of Cargo Bikes in Rio de Janeiro City

Abstract

This paper compares the environmental performance of three different last mile scenarios. The first one operates within a traditional truck-based delivery. The second one consists of having trucks serving as mobile depots while the final delivery is performed by motorized tricycles. Based on second scenario a hypothetical third scenario was created by using electric assisted cargo bikes replacing the motorized tricycles. Data was collected in Rio de Janeiro city and a Monte Carlo simulation was used to assess the environmental performance of these three delivery setups. The analysis suggests that, despite of having similar operational characteristics and service levels, the multimodal delivery scenarios yield substantial reductions in term of CO₂ emissions when compared with the traditional operation and that the electric assisted cargo bike scenario performs better for all the air pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions when compared with the similar scenario that uses motorized tricycles.