UK postal service steps on the gas

CNG vehicles are very popular in England. The world’s biggest biogas filling station for trucks was just opened and the postal service is going full out with CNG rather than diesel trucks. The Royal Mail has pledged to make deliveries much more climate-friendly, last year reducing its CO₂ emissions by 31.9 % compared to the reference year of 2004.

Mick Salts of the Royal Mail with the new CNG-powered Iveco trucks at the UK Post Office depot in Warrington, Cheshire. Source: Royal Mail

”Tackling climate change is a national task, and it’s great to see the Royal Mail doing its part to reduce emissions in its fleet,” says Paul Scully, the UK Minister of Postal Affairs. “Innovations such as the use of biogas trucks are crucial to ensure that we’re greener after the pandemic.”

As a full service provider, Royal Mail operates a large fleet of 50,845 vehicles in the UK to ensure postal services for every municipality in the country. Around 22,200 delivery vehicles and 3,300 scheduled services are used every day to transport parcels. For the last mile, 63 % of postal shipments are still delivered either on foot or by means of the “park-and-loop” process, i.e. the car is parked and the delivery round is done on foot. As a result, the Royal Mail’s total emissions and share of urban traffic congestion are lower than those of other delivery companies.

The 29 new CNG-powered trucks bring the Post’s fleet to a total of 258 CNG vehicles. Source: Royal Mail

“We’re striving to modify operations so as to reduce our environmental impact. Biogas is a much more cost-effective and low-carbon alternative fuel to diesel for heavy commercial vehicles,” says James Baker, Chief Engineer and Fleet Director at Royal Mail. “These vehicles allow us to deliver large volumes of parcels in the most environmentally friendly way.” In 2021, the UK postal service invested in 29 additional CNG-powered trucks. “We’ve saved 50,869 litres of diesel to date through the use of our existing biogas vehicles,” says Baker, adding: “We plan to further increase the number of biogas trucks in our fleet as we replace older diesel vehicles.”

The UK postal service has recognised that investments in electric vehicles and vehicles that run on alternative fuels have a key role to play in achieving its environmental objectives. The entire Royal Mail fleet is to run on alternative fuels by 2050. The service currently owns and uses a total of 1,137 vehicles with alternative drive systems: 505 all-electric vehicles, 149 electric cargo bikes/three-wheelers and 38 hybrid vehicles are used, along with 96 cars powered by LPG. The postal fleet’s contingent of CNG vehicles has also grown to 258 and, due to their longer range, 91 LNG trucks are also out and about in the UK distributing parcels and letters nationwide.

Up to 80 trucks per hour can be fuelled with biogas at the filling station in Avonmouth (UK), making it the largest public biogas filling station in the world. Source: CNG Fuels

Incidentally, the UK postal service is just one of many companies in the country that currently uses CNG and LNG vehicles to reduce CO₂ emissions. Philip Fjeld, CEO of CNG Fuels, is particularly pleased: “We’re supporting Royal Mail in the ongoing introduction of biogas trucks through our rapidly growing network of large, publicly accessible biogas filling stations. By running on our fully renewable and sustainable biogas, the postal service will be able to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by more than 85 %.”

The world’s largest publicly accessible biogas filling station in Avonmouth, England, near Bristol, will also be used to refuel trucks run by the retailer Lidl, online giant Amazon, the wholesale bakery Warburton’s and electronics retailer AO. Incidentally, the latter has just added 10 more CNG trucks to its fleet. In Avonmouth, 14 high-speed pumps able to refuel no less than 80 trucks per hour indicate that the biogas supplier CNG Fuels can expect to see strong growth in CNG vehicles in the coming years – and it is already well equipped to cope. (jas, 24 March 2022)

The British electronics retailer AO also relies on biogas for its logistics and has just added 10 more CNG trucks to its fleet. Source: AO