Next week is set to be the busiest this year for the home delivery sector with the average distance travelled by home delivery vehicles in this period to increase 20%.
The research of more than a billion home delivery vehicle kilometres by telematics and fleet management company Microlise also found 21 and 22 December have been the busiest days in each of the last three years, with an increase in distance travelled of 34% over the long-term average.
However, in contrast to expectations, the firm’s research has found the number of “harsh braking” incidents per kilometre, in which brakes are excessively applied, were 11% lower in the busiest week compared with the average.
“It’s not really a great surprise to see the week immediately before Christmas is the busiest,” said Matt Hague, executive director – product strategy, Microlise. “But a surge in distance travelled by more than a third does highlight just how much strain retailers and delivery companies are under during this busy period. The trend towards less harsh braking is a surprise – one might expect more traffic, and higher workloads, to mean more incidents.”
The research comes as the company ramps up to the launch next year of a new solution that will combine real-time vehicle data with information from other sources such as traffic, accident and weather report to trends in real-time to help fleet operators to clearly understand risk on the road.
