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Ms Wenzday Jane, cyclist for the New Amsterday Project, on her trike delivery. Photo by the New Amsterdam Project.
Trikes deliver as oil prices soar
ARE bikes about to make a reappearance as delivery vehicles? Messengers on bicycles are part of the scenery in Perth's CBD but is there room for "haulage trikes" like the one pictured here?
The photo was not taken in Asia but Cambridge, Massachusetts and as oil prices make it increasingly expensive to run motorised delivery services, small businesses in both Europe and America have started to examine the economics of trike transport. One British manufacturer, Cycles Maximus has even been able to sell haulage trikes to the not so small Royal Mail for local postal deliveries.
Similar trikes and trike "taxis" can now be seen in places like Copenhagen, Edinburgh, Berlin and Toulouse and versions of Cycles Maximus have already been used in Perth and other parts of Australia.
In the US those behind the Massachusetts trike service, the New Amsterdam Project, also manufactures its own vehicles - both for use on its existing delivery services and for sale to other delivery companies.
The standard haulage trike, with its electric motor booster, can handle loads of about 360 kilograms.
