by Walther Ploos van Amstel
Parcel delivery has been subject to significant paradigm shifts over recent decades, caused by urbanization. The economic development in the mid-1990s led to the rise of faster-growing medium-large-sized companies that specialized in the delivery of small parcels, giving birth to the Global Courier, Express, and Parcel (CEP) market.
The e-commerce sector is working on sustainable deliveries of online orders. The delivery vans now quickly become electric. They try to deliver first-time-right. Focus on fewer returns. And, the warehouses are super sustainable. But how many large boxes are not delivered carrying only one silly little product?
While many postal companies are reducing the number of mailboxes on the streets, Royal Mail is converting theirs for parcels. Royal Mail is introducing the UK’s first ever parcel postboxes in 1.400 locations across the country after a successful trial.
Deutsche Post stops testing several new delivery technologies, says CEO Frank Appel in an interview in Tagesspiegel. In the foreseeable future, no drones will be used and no parcels will be delivered in the trunk of cars and behind the house door. Consumer interest is not big enough for profitable use of the new technology.
The delivery of packages ordered online can be made much more sustainable: “Unnecessarily large vehicles are essentially transporting air,” says Walther Ploos van Amstel, professor of city logistics at Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, on Twinkle. The way he sees it, there are twice as many delivery vans driving around in the city as necessary.
Lots of attention has been given in recent years to the “massive” increase in delivery traffic in cities and residential districts. Web stores and the vans that deliver their parcels often get the blame for that. My neighbors wonder if it really can’t all just fit into one delivery van. They see PostNL, DHL, Albert …
There is increasing interest into how horizontal collaboration between parcel carriers might help alleviate problems associated with last-mile logistics in congested urban centres. Through a detailed examination of parcel logistics literature pertaining to collaboration, along with practical insights from carriers UK research examines the challenges that will be faced in optimising multicarrier, multi-drop collection and …