Background:

There are a few medical centers affiliated with the University of Washington recently closed down their own printing services earlier this year. In other words, these medical centers especially Seattle Children’s Hospital would need UW Mailing Services’ service. With the increasing demand of mail delivery, UW Mailing Services is planning to increase the capacity of mail preparation as well as the bike delivery service in response to serving new business customers.

UW Mailing Services is looking to obtain 2 Cargo boxes.

The Rhino-Berlin cargo boxes can help the Mailing Services electric bicycles to increase the delivery capacity and enhance the performance in general to benefit all UW departments. As UW Mailing Services start having new business with multiple medical centers in Seattle Area, we are looking into obtaining more vehicles and equipment to meet the increasing demand. Mailing Services would potentially be hiring two student employees to get involved in this program.

As for now, we are hoping to get the fund to buy two new cargo boxes for the electric bikes to meet the demand of two runs a day to Seattle Children’s Hospital. Without the electric new cargo boxes, Mailing Services would have to use trucks to deliver mails multiple times a day, because the current cargo boxes are not user friendly enough for the entire Children’s Hospital and would be a pain for bikers to ride over there.

Benefits of having these two new cargo boxes:

1. Increasing the electric bikes capacity by 50% so the bikers can carry mail 1.5 times as much as before.
2. Decreasing the demand of using trucks to avoid 0.02 metric tons/gallon GHG emittance.
3. Exposing Mailing Services’ dedication to sustainability and showing staff of Seattle Children’s hospital and even people in the U-district the electric bike program to promote sustainability.
4. Having potential student riders to experience the electric bikes with trailers and promoting such great sustainability idea all over the campus.
5. Increasing sustainability awareness of staffs at the medical centers that partner with us and helping them out if they want to implement similar program.
6. It's easier to maintain the new sliding style cargo cap over old hydraulic style.
7. The cargo boxes can satisfy the increasing demand of delivering packages due to the campus shut down.

Overall, having these two new cargo boxes would definitely increase the mail delivery capacity of UW mailing services and avoid using trucks to deliver mails to Seattle Children’s Hospital multiple times a day which would be really environmentally friendly. Plus, it is a great way to promote sustainability off campus and would be a great opportunity for us to mentor our partners if they want to implement a similar program.