Recent news has highlighted the ever important role of technology in the continued feature development of parcel operators’ offerings. InPost is expanding its locker network, specifically in public transport hubs; DHL is expanding its partnership with location company what3words, saving time and fuel for delivery drivers and Evri is offering a new feature via Quadient parcel lockers.
InPost is expanding its low-carbon delivery service across the continent by launching partnerships in Rome, Barcelona, and Manchester. The company will set up parcel lockers at public transport stops in these cities, making it more convenient and eco-friendly for customers to send and receive parcels. InPost’s Automated Parcel Machine lockers have already been introduced to over 60 sites in London through a partnership with Transport for London. Customers in Europe are increasingly using the company’s parcel lockers as they offer a convenient and environmentally friendly option, with InPost having been entrusted with 745m parcels in 2022 – an increase of 44% from the previous year. Using InPost’s APMs can cut carbon emissions by two-thirds compared to traditional door-to-door deliveries in urban areas. In Manchester alone, almost 6m passenger journeys are made on TfGM-operated public transport every day. In Rome, the Metro system operated by ATAC S.p.A carries 300m passengers every year, while Transport Metropolitans de Barcelona serves more than 425m users per year. The parcel lockers will be available at 21 sites spread across the Rome Metro’s three lines. At the end of last year, InPost operated 27,939 Automated Parcel Machines, including 19,306 in its home country of Poland and 8,633 internationally.
In separate news, DHL Parcel UK has expanded its partnership with what3words, a geocode system that assigns a unique three-word combination to every 3 sq. m of the world, allowing individuals and organisations to specify locations with extreme precision. DHL customers can now use what3words geocodes to offer deliveries to a specific location. With this new system, retail partners of DHL Parcel UK can accept a what3words address as a delivery destination, enabling shoppers to specify the exact location they want an item delivered to. This can also help couriers navigate to destinations with less ambiguity and reduce the risk of leaving an item in an unwanted or dangerous location. Inaccurate addresses, duplicate street names, broad postcodes, and difficult-to-find entrances are just a few factors that disrupt deliveries and can lead to recipients not getting their items on time. The what3words system can help combat these issues, as well as the problem of it taking up to six months for a new build to be registered with an address. DHL Parcel UK’s partnership with what3words aims to solve the problem of ambiguous addresses that can lead to delivery complications. According to the company, a quarter of people in the UK find that their full postal address doesn’t direct people, deliveries, or services exactly to their front door. With the use of what3words, DHL Parcel UK aims to avoid confusion and improve the quality of the service they offer to their customers.
Parcel delivery company, Evri, just announced its plans to offer the drop box and printer feature of Quadient to its smart lockers in the UK. The drop box and printer feature will come as a unit that can be added to new or existing configurations of the modular lockers. The module allows customers to place packages directly into the drop box by scanning a barcode label. Customers also can print standard shipping labels directly from the built-in printer. The cloud-based monitoring technology of Quadient captures each step of the process and gives carriers visibility of the parcel’s status at any time. This move will make Evri the first carrier in the UK to offer the drop box and printer capability to its customers. Evri’s open locker network has around 300 locker stations in operation in the UK, with plans to reach 5,000 units in the coming years at a rate of about 200 new locations per month. In the coming months, Quadient will also make the drop box and printer available to retailers and other carriers across Europe and North America.
Author: Paul Chapman
Source: InPost, DHL Parcel, Evri
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