Package Trips: Bikes And Drones Give Faster Delivery

Whether bikes or drones, delivery firms are looking for ways to get packages to customers quicker as electronic commerce is revolutionising the retail market

Madrid, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 22nd Nov, 2017 ) :Whether bikes or drones, delivery firms are looking for ways to get packages to customers quicker as electronic commerce is revolutionising the retail market.

Geopost, the parcel delivery unit of France's La Poste, is testing out drones and experimenting with neighbourhood mini-depots and bicycle delivery to help beat urban traffic gridlock. Its subsidiary SEUR in Madrid is developing mini-facilities where packages are brought before being distributed to customers nearby -- an alternative to the current system where delivery vans are loaded at bigger centres, often located outside the city.

Parcel delivery was the first to be liberalised in Europe, but it is the former monopoly postal services of France and Germany that have come out on top. Geopost is second to leader Deutsche Post's DHL, which is also testing drones in rural areas.

US giant FedEx, trying out robots as well as drones, has bought TNT from the Dutch postal service.

While email has eroded the volume of letters, e-commerce has led to a boom in parcel delivery.

"The market remains marked primarily by the growth of business to consumer, which accounts for 95 percent of the increase," said Geopost's director Paul-Marie Chavanne Geopost saw its sales rise 8.6 percent last year to 6.2 billion Euros ($7.3 billion), with more than three-quarters coming from outside France.

It now accounts for more than a quarter of the La Poste's total revenue. The challenges delivery firms face vary by the area, urban or rural, as do the solutions they are looking at. "The trend, in all European countries, is to deploy these mini-depots to adapt to the constraints posed by the greater traffic" in cities, said Yves Delmas, the deputy CEO of Geopost for Europe.

In Paris, the company sees the need for around 80 mini-depots, which in some cases could be installed in parking garages or even in post offices.