The Colibri urban delivery pilot project is growing. Montreal inaugurated on Tuesday a second distribution center on D’Iberville Street, in the Plateau-Mont-Royal borough, to offer this delivery service using cargo bikes and small electric vehicles over a larger area. . The City plans to extend the service to the entire island of Montreal within a few years.
“Replacing trucks with bicycles, even if we are talking about cargo bikes, it seemed a bit crazy at first. There are a lot of people laughing in their beards, but at the City, we believed it, ”said Councilor Sophie Mauzerolle, responsible for transport and mobility on the executive committee, on Tuesday.
Led by Coop Carbone, the Colibri Iberville project, located at 4670, rue D’Iberville, will extend the four-season delivery service to several central neighborhoods, including Plateau-Mont-Royal, Rosemont–La Petite-Patrie and part of the boroughs of Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve and Villeray–Saint-Michel–Parc-Extension. Partners include FedEx, Courant Plus and Machool. Local merchants will also be able to use Colibri for their deliveries.
According to Sophie Mauzerolle, the Colibri model, set up at the former bus station on rue Berri in 2019, has proven itself and has proven to be profitable, especially since the last kilometer is very expensive for companies. More than 260,000 deliveries per year were made as part of the first pilot project. “With this second project, we estimate that we will be able to achieve 500,000 100% carbon-free deliveries over the last mile per year. This will allow us to reduce 150 tonnes of CO2 and a reduction of 30,000 truck hours on our roads. »
In a few years, the Colibri service is expected to spread, says Luc Rabouin, mayor of Plateau-Mont-Royal and responsible for economic and commercial development on the executive committee. “We have passed the pilot project stage. Now we are starting the deployment,” he said. “We want to cover the whole island in the coming years, not in the next ten years. »
Director of sustainable mobility at Coop Carbone, Yves Sagnières specified that the objective was to open one Colibri site per year.
Several conditions are necessary for the establishment of Colibri distribution centers in urban areas, such as appropriate regulations for this type of service in town, equipment for cleaning bicycles in the chosen buildings and infrastructures to allow the transhipment of parcels, a indicated Luc Rabouin.