The Community becomes a benchmark for underground freight transport with Metro's "last mile" project

 On 8, 9 and 10 April, the Madrid Regional Government is holding an international meeting at the Madrid underground's headquarters with several companies, universities and foreign institutions that make up the European-funded FOR FREIGHT project, which aims to reduce pollution and congestion associated with freight deliveries in large cities. In this sense, Metro de Madrid is one of the main benchmarks after having undertaken tests and trials on its own network of the "last mile" project, which uses Metro trains for freight transport. 

Within the framework of this meeting, a pilot test will be undertaken on 9 April in the Metro, which will consist of a transfer from a central warehouse of a large company (located on the outskirts of Madrid) in a DHL lorry to the underground depot located in Villaverde. From here the parcels will be transported on line 3 to Embajadores station where they will be deposited in smart lockers where shoppers can collect their packages. 

The goal is to jointly test and evaluate to what extent the use of the metro network for parcel distribution in the centre of large cities will reduce pollution, avoiding surface movement of courier companies and traffic congestion. 

The FOR-FREIGHT project aims to maximise the utilisation of multi-modal freight transport capacity and reduce the average cost of transport by developing innovative solutions and integrating them with existing logistics systems. 

This will enable a more efficient and sustainable management of freight flows at airports, ports, inland terminals and various logistics nodes taking into account the requirements of all stakeholders and economic, environmental and social aspects. In the project, financed with European funds, Metro de Madrid will participate in the analysis of the requirements, the evaluation of the results and the validation of the Spanish test centre, and will facilitate the execution of the tests through its network. It will also take the opportunity to actively disseminate the main results of the project to its ecosystem.

In this sense, and as a consequence of this initiative, Metro de Madrid has been working for some months on its own "Last Mile" project, which was launched with the goal of also testing its effects on reducing pollution and traffic congestion associated with delivery vans. 

The trials began at the end of September with the courier company GLS Spain, which undertook its tests at Metrosur (line 12) and during the tests transported a total of 26,000 packages (700 on average per day) and then, in a second phase, with the distribution company CITYlogin, which was carried out at Embajadores station on line 3, transporting an average of 300 packages and a total of 7,000.

Metro de Madrid is collaborating with the New Delhi (India) underground in the implementation of the "last mile" initiative in its facilities. It is the first initiative of its kind in the South Asia-Pacific region, marking a milestone in metropolitan transport logistics innovation. 

This collaboration between the two companies, which began after the pilot project undertaken by Metro de Madrid, was consolidated at a meeting held on 27 March in Madrid. At this meeting, both parties exchanged knowledge and best practices in the field of urban freight transport, thus strengthening their cooperation in this innovative initiative. 

Furthermore, representatives of Metro de Madrid will travel to New Delhi between 21 to 25 April to observe the development of the project at first hand. The goal is to boost efficiency and sustainability in transport, contributing to the reduction of surface traffic and strengthening collaboration on innovative solutions for urban logistics.