The city of Schwerin, in northeastern Germany, had been experimenting with an urban concept of rail freight by having parcels delivered by trams. After a little over a year, however, these special trams have stopped running due to a lack of demand and vandalism. The service was being carried out by local public transport company Nahverkehr Schwerin (NVS) and parcel delivery giant DHL.
NVS managing director Lothar Matzkeit announced the interruption of the service in an interview with German media SVZ. DHL spokesperson Jens-Uwe Hogardt told the newspaper that this test provided helpful operational insights and that such initiatives are not necessarily going to be excluded in the future, despite saying that delivering parcels via tram is not yet practical.
The project was launched in November 2022. Every day a tram would leave the depot in Haselholz, just south of Schwerin, and deliver parcels to three locations in the city: Kieler Straße, Platz der Freiheit and Hegelstraße. The trams would be customed by having all the seats of the middle car removed to make room for the parcels. Back then, DHL claimed it could transport around 450 daily packages in this way. Other than the lack of demand, Matzkeit stated that vandalism had an impact on the decision as well, as one of the packing stations at one of the stops was damaged.
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