Mark de Klerk (50), bicycle courier in Antwerp and employee of the year, has been delivering parcels and documents by bike since 2014. About time to put him in the spotlight!
Go Green
By 2050, DHL Express aims to be completely CO2 neutral. And that’s a challenge! We’re trying to green our services in different ways. Travelling the ‘last mile’ in an environmentally friendly way is an essential part of our mission. We do this by, for example, deploying more and more bicycle couriers on our routes.
Because we are not only involved with the environment, but also with the wellbeing of our employees, we ask a real old-timer about his experiences as a bicycle courier.
Mark is one of the first in our country to switch from van to cubicycle. After riding in a van for 20 years, he was ready for a new challenge. Mark was already present at the pilot project in Antwerp in 2014. In the beginning they still drove a bullitt cargo. These are bicycles with the loading body at the front. After they had seen a new model bike, with the container in the back, in Utrecht in 2015, they were eager to try it out. After a week of testing, the couriers in Antwerp were convinced. You sit more comfortably and people react more positively to it. This is because they see the bicycle courier first and then the container. Fortunately, the management was also quickly convinced to switch.
With the Cubicycle through the city
In Antwerp there are always a lot of cars. The result: traffic jams and loss of time. This in combination with the lack of parking space causes a lot of stress for the couriers. As a courier, you have to constantly recalculate the optimal route to arrive at the next location as soon as possible, depending on the traffic.
With a bike you don’t have this problem. The city of Antwerp is putting a lot of effort into constructing new cycle paths and making the shopping streets car-free. The cubicycle fits perfectly on the cycle path and is allowed in the car-free zones. As a result, you can always stop almost right in front of the customer’s door to make a delivery. In addition, the time is also easier to estimate. If you know that you had to cycle two minutes today to a next destination, the same route will take the same amount of time the next day.
Social contact as a bicycle courier
Mark also loves the social contact. “Being outside in the fresh air instead of behind a car window is so much nicer! People laugh at you, children wave and you can have a chat with other cyclists or walkers. People are curious and ask questions about the bike. With dot on one: “Is it electric?”. People also often ask for directions. I feel like a city guide.”
“The customers I bring packages to are also very compassionate. In the summer they ask me if I’m not too hot and offer me a nice cold drink. In winter they ask me if I’m not too cold and they want to know if I feel like a cup of coffee. When it rains they look worried. Then I usually answer that there is no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothes”.
This article is based on an article by Velove.
