A shopping cart pusher tug or airport cart pusher tug is a small battery-powered pedestrian-operated load mover used by retail stores and airports to move long lines of shopping carts or airport luggage carts efficiently and safely. Instead of an employee manually pushing 4 to 6 carts by hand, one of the carts’ rear fixed cart wheels attach to the tugs’ cart wheel holder and pushes a nested line of carts from the parking lots or loading areas back to the retail store entrance or terminal baggage claim area.
You’ll commonly see them at airports, grocery stores, supermarkets, warehouse clubs, and big-box retailers like Walmart, Costco, or Ikea. They can either be walk-along units that push carts, like the highly popular V-move XL+ cart pusher, or ride-on tractors, like the V-move 650, that pull carts.
Typical walk-along cart pusher features include:
• Electric battery-powered drive systems, most common with 2x 12V deep cycle batteries
• A tiller handle, as well as a remote control for one-person operation
• Braking and variable speed-setting and limiting systems for safety
• Loud vehicle horn and 360-degree coverage flashing LED lights for safety
• Capability to move dozens of carts at once
• Optional all-weather design to operate pushing carts in rain, snow, or on icy surfaces
• Optional ability to push carts on slopes with a stronger motor and transaxle
• Durability of tug build to last a long time with little downtime from maintenance and repairs
• Battery capacity to last a day or ability to opportunity charge batteries to last a day
• Compact width design for closely lining up lines of staged carts for customers
Benefits for stores or airports:
• Reduces employee strain and injuries
• Speeds up cart retrieval to ensure carts are always available for customers. This will ensure you help maximize the metric of customers/hour.
• Improves safety in busy parking lots
• Fewer workers are required, leading to less labor costs.
These machines are also referred to as cart mules, cart retrievers, cart caddies, cart collectors, or shopping cart tuggers