Commercial transport & logistics

Commercial traffic in a city is an indispensable prerequisite for the supply of goods and products to citizens and for production and service companies to live and do business.

Urban commercial traffic includes freight and passenger traffic. The commercial goods traffic and works traffic considered here includes freight forwarders, the trades, (urban) service vehicles and courier, parcel and express services (CEP) as well as other traffic such as that of the catering trade. If urban delivery traffic is considered in more detail, the following subdivisions can be made:

• Container transport (20/40-foot containers and swap bodies),
• Bulk transportation (mostly construction site traffic),
• General cargo transportation (containers often on Euro pallets),
• Courier, express and parcel services (CEP shipments up to approx. 40 kg)

Commercial transports can occur as source transports (e.g. dispatch of manufactured products), destination transports (e.g. supply of CEP depots with swap bodies in the nightly main run) and internal transports (e.g. plant transports and CEP delivery tours from the depot to the customers) of a city.

Against the backdrop of steadily rising traffic figures, urban-compatible commercial transport and functioning city logistics can only be reconciled if the municipalities actively plan and coordinate the design and management of delivery traffic in cooperation with stakeholders and implement appropriate measures, also taking into account other traffic development measures and other planning principles.

City-friendly parcel delivery

The gradual conversion of parcel deliveries from combustion vehicles to electric vans and cargo bikes will improve the flow of traffic in Aachen's city center.

Since March 2021, the express and parcel service provider UPS has been operating a mobile micro-depot at the Adalbertstraße parking garage in cooperation with APAG Parkhaus GmbH and the city of Aachen. From here, parcels can be delivered efficiently and in a more climate-friendly way in the city center.

Every morning, several hundred parcels are delivered in the light blue container, which are delivered throughout the day using five electric cargo bikes in the city center. At night, the cargo bikes are safely parked in the multi-storey parking lot and can be recharged there. In the evening, the container is then brought back to the distribution center in Eschweiler with returned parcels for reloading.

Expansion after successful test phase

Following a successful test phase, the micro-depot will now be permanently anchored at the Adalbertstraße parking garage. Switching to cargo bikes as delivery vehicles will not only make the city air cleaner, but will also eliminate the need for large delivery vehicles to park in the second row. The parcel carriers can reach many destinations in the city center more easily by cargo bike and take up less space. This not only makes traffic flow more smoothly, but also safer for all road users.

Fields of action

The city of Aachen's Integrated Climate Protection Concept (IKSK) incorporates numerous measures from the "mobility turnaround" scenario in the three areas of urban transport, regional transport and reduction of vehicle emissions. The aforementioned measures in the five fields of action of commercial transport contribute to the climate protection and transport targets in urban and regional transport and have a direct impact on the reduction of vehicle emissions.

The measures in the five fields of action listed below can make a significant contribution to achieving urban and environmentally friendly commercial transportation by 2030.

Further measures

"Mobility Strategy 2030" / commercial transport

How do we organize the mobility of the future? How could a sensible combination of cars, bicycles, local public transport and walking work in Aachen? This was the topic of a citizens' workshop on transport development planning on Saturday, June 13, 2015, at the Elisenbrunnen.

Further topics