Swiss Post: Customizations and Co-Development

Swiss Post was one of the first major national postal operators to co-operate with Oxygen and demonstrated to have a very serious and professional testing process. In 2006, two pre-production models of the Postscooter Extended Range (120 km) were tested in Schaffhausen for approximately 2 months. Swiss Post wanted to test the overall fit of the scooter for their use with particular interest in the ability of the Postscooter to travel uphill with an average mail load. Swiss Post and Oxygen worked together to adjust torque and speed to optimize the scooter performance for the specific Swiss operations.

A second order of 12 scooters was distributed across 6 different post offices to test the scooter in daily operations during the winter season and assess Oxygen’s capabilities in the after-sale service. Swiss Post and Oxygen together developed a way to properly attach a small trailer to the back of the PostScooter weighing on average 80 kg (trailer and mail load), thereby further increasing load capacity.

Further enhancements include the evolution of Oxygen’s saddle: Swiss Post requested that Oxygen develop a lower saddle to fit the needs of shorter postmen and women to extend the applicability of the scooter to the whole Swiss Post fleet. In spring 2007, Swiss Post professionals tested a prototype of the saddle and provided valuable feed-back on how to increase comfort-level in line with best ergonomic standards. Now the lower saddle has been industrialized and is available to all customers.

The PostScooter went through 18 months of tests and customizations. Giorgio Feitknecht (Mobility Solutions) says: “Swiss Post is very keen on environment issues but we needed to test the fit of the PostScooter to mail delivery in a country like Switzerland characterized by harsh winters and uphill roads.” Swiss Post publicly announced their intention to purchase a significant number of electric scooters.

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