Part of an underground car park in the City of London is to be turned into a space for delivery services by bicycle around the City of London. The underground car park at London Wall will see 39 of the nearly 200 spaces turned into a hub for Amazon Logistics, who will use it to dispatch parcels around the area by bicycle, replacing the existing van delivery service.
Amazon Logistics is expected to be able to complete all deliveries within a 2km radius of the hub without the need for motorised freight vehicles. This covers the entirety of the City of London plus some additional parts of central London.
They expect that the new cycle hub will remove 85 vehicles off the roads each day. Although it reduces car parking capacity, the car park is rarely full anyway, so converting it into a cycle hub is a more environmentally friendly use of the space.
Although this hub is exclusive to Amazon, when the City proposed the idea, several parcel delivery firms expressed interest in the idea, and some bid of the space being offered. Due to the level of interest, the City of London now aims to deliver two additional Last Mile Logistics Hubs by 2022 and is aiming for a total of five Last Mile Logistics Hubs by 2025.