Royal Mail seeking greener vehicles

Royal Mail is looking to its commercial vehicle fleet to help it achieve its goal of reducing total CO2 output by 50% by 2015.

Royal Mail is looking to its commercial vehicle fleet to help it achieve its goal of reducing total CO2 output by 50% by 2015.

Nearly 40% of all Royal Mail’s CO2 output, approximately one million tonnes per year, comes from its road transport operations. As a result it is now looking at a combination of hydrogen, electric and fuel-cell technologies to meet its target.

Mark Cavill, carbon management programme manager for the Royal Mail Group, said: “We would switch to so-called green fleets tomorrow if there was an urban postal delivery van available. We believe OEMs are missing a trick because commercial vehicles represent the ideal platform to showcase future propulsion technology.

“They usually run predefined routes and rarely do more than 100 miles in a day so it’s an ideal way to set up an infrastructure to support that industry, which would then pave the way for the mass consumer market. Our vans cover 47 miles a day on average.”

The firm is trialling two Ford Transits from Roush Technologies in collaboration with Cenex, which are capable of running on both hydrogen and petrol. On hydrogen alone, the Transit has an estimated range of 95 miles.

“We are looking to consolidate our mail centres and use renewable energy sources to power them. One of the solutions is stationary fuel cells, which generate electricity for the centres as well as hydrogen. The gas from the stationary fuel cells can then be used to power the parcel delivery vans,” said Cavill.