DPD has opened two new depots in Germany, including one micro depot and one large highly sustainable site.
The larger site came into operation on 23 January after a year-long construction period. It is located in southern Germany, in Holzgünz near Memmingen in the Lower Allgäu region.
The site has a hall area of 10,000 square metres, with the capacity to sort 10,000 packages per hour.
It is built with sustainable features in mind, including automated LED lighting. According to a report by the Carbon Trust, the overwhelming majority of energy usage in a typical warehouse comes from lighting, often accounting for between 65 and 95% of the total.
The warehouse also has photovoltaic panels which generate 750,000 kwH of electricity per year.
On 20 January, DPD opened a new micro depot in Berlin in the hall of a former car repair shop. The site supplies the surrounding districts of Friedrichshain, Prenzlauer Berg, Pankow and Lichtenberg.
The new site uses electric heavy-duty bikes from the German start-up ONO, as well as four other cargo bikes.
DPD expects the site to initially supply 400 shipments per day.
“We were already supplying parts of the delivery area with pedelecs when we took part in the federally funded, cross-provider cargo bike project KoMoDo. We also found that there is still development potential for the available cargo bike models, especially in the areas of reliability and aftersales. Here, as in other cities, we have used various models for a long time,” said Gerd Seber, group manager for sustainability and innovation at DPD.
“After the project was over, we started looking for suitable locations for our own micro-depot and struck gold on the edge of Prenzlauer Berg. In the surrounding delivery area there are predominantly private recipients, the stop density of the tours is correspondingly high. Such areas are ideally suited for parcel delivery via cargo bike. “
