Meet the innovator striding forward with walking deliveries

Cargo bicycles are becoming a familiar sight in large UK cities, as couriers look to reduce their reliance on commercial vans for the last leg of a journey. But more can be done to create a zero carbon fleet for the last mile of deliveries.

Delivering large parcels to high-rise buildings remains a heavy task; while narrow, historic streets and pedestrianised areas can be hard or impossible to negotiate from the saddle.

“Cargo bikes can replace vans at a certain level of population density, but if you’re looking for true zero carbon you have to ensure there’s a strong mix of tools for the job,” says Joey Grigg, Co-Founder of engineering design firm Osta Studios. “We saw something missing, to help cargo bikes and vans do their best work.”

To reduce manual handling and open up new ways of working in cities, the SME created the ‘Stride’ push cart and developed its offer through the Transport Research and Innovation Grants (TRIG) programme, delivered by Connected Places Catapult on behalf of the Department for Transport.

During the programme, Stride was progressed from Technology Readiness Level 2 (basic concept formulated) to Level 5 (advanced testing). “TRIG was amazing, and helped us get things off the ground,” says Joey.

The company was put in touch with several large couriers to test its prototype, and was also introduced to two cities – one in the Home Counties, and another on the south coast – to discuss future trials.

Soon after completing the programme, Joey received an ‘Inspirational Leadership’ award from the DfT’s Chief Scientific Adviser at the Connected Places Summit in March.

“I made it my mission to turn up and be as present as possible, and start conversations with others on the cohort,” he explains. “I tried to reach as many people as possible, see what they were doing, and ask what we could bring to their projects.”

Push cart takes the load

The push cart can carry two large 65 litre ‘tote’ boxes; secured to the chassis with a quick release mechanism. Stride can be taken in lifts inside buildings, has a tight turning radius of 0.8m and has been ergonomically designed to reduce muscular stress on the operative. It can also be folded for storage.

A second strand to the company’s service will involve placing lockable storage boxes in prime locations for vans to deposit goods, ready for pick-up and delivery by walking couriers. Joey is speaking to locker manufacturers and landowners with under-used space in city centres to create smart logistics hubs.

“The best outcome for walking logistics is that people in cities don’t notice that deliveries are being made,” says Joey. “Our system means that a van or cargo bike appears and is gone in moments, having deposited a load for walking operatives to complete their deliveries.”

Adding depth to the city conversation

Until two years ago, Joey worked for cargo bike manufacturer Electric Assisted Vehicles where he met design engineers Jonny Culkin and Oliver Turrell. The trio left to found Osta Studios.

“We spotted a broader opportunity while working on cargo bikes to add some depth to the conversation around how to improve urban centres, and make them cleaner and more liveable spaces,” Joey adds.

“It felt we had dived in on cargo bikes as an all-in-one solution for what the future of the last mile should look like – but it isn’t the only solution. One of the great overlooked areas in freight logistics is walking, especially in pedestrianised and ultra-low emission zones.”

There has been much hype around drones and robots delivering single parcels, he adds, “but we need humans at the heart of logistics, providing trust and a sense of community, as well as providing valuable work for people”.

Joey says that TRIG has a “proven track record of bringing through relevant and ultimately successful ideas” and hopes that being on the programme will give investors added confidence when Osta Studios seeks funding within the next 12 months.

“Having the authenticity of a Government backed grant behind us was critical to be able to go to large names in industry, who might not otherwise have given us the time of day.”

Being involved with the Catapult also “jump-started the process of developing hardware that people can believe in, and create something fit for the market.”

“We’ve heard about the requirements of one major operator and managed to have some good conversations. Thanks to TRIG, we were able to reach people making decisions.”

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Understanding people’s motivations

Joey was born in Bath and took an early interest in his father’s occupation as a technical illustrator of books depicting exploded cross sections of everyday items. He remembers his dad drawing in fine detail parts of a vehicle engine stood on a plinth in their garage.

He studied anthropology at Durham University and a Masters in applied cultural analysis at the University of Copenhagen, before working for an ethnographic consultant in Denmark to better understand what affects consumers’ buying decisions.

He moved to London and entered advertising, working on two award winning campaigns in his first year, including one for the Royal Borough of Greenwich called ‘Babies of the Borough’ where the faces of young children were painted on shopfront shutters to reduce antisocial behaviour.

Joey later joined an agency in Africa leading on work for Google, and came back to the UK to deliver campaigns for Unilever. Three years ago, he became Marketing Director of Electric Assisted Vehicles, before co-founding Osta Studios in 2024.

“Coming out of the COVID period, we were riding a big wave of optimism and innovation around how we could completely rethink cities, where new ideas emerged in terms of how people order their lives,” he says.

Joey’s earlier ethnographic studies served his company’s efforts well to design a push cart that does not place undue strain on the body, and is comfortable for use by operatives with a range of abilities.

He and his design colleagues would shadow logistics operatives; asking their opinions to better understand pain points and find out what was truly needed from a prototype – rather than building to meet surface-level observations.

As a result, he feels the Stride push cart is well positioned to help transform urban logistics for delivery staff, as well as consumers ordering goods and people in public spaces. “We want to create liveable cities with reduced traffic congestion at the kerbside, but also need to meet demand for increasing deliveries. Stride helps you to do both.”