Beverley Wise, Sales Director UK & Ireland, Webfleet Solutions, explains how telematics can help fleets cut the financial and environmental cost of the last mile and casts an eye over some of the disruptive innovations that could revolutionise the future of deliveries.
As businesses look to serve more and more customers with greater volumes of goods, the financial and environmental cost of the last mile has become an increasing challenge.
According to pre-pandemic estimates from the World Economic Forum, demand for last mile delivery was expected to rise by 78 per cent by 2030, with a resultant increase in emissions of 30 per cent. These figures may now need to be revised upwards following the huge growth of the industry over the past 18 months.
In a bid to curb transport-related emissions, clean air zones are being rolled out across UK, with the government set to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel LCVs from 2030, and then HGVs a decade later.
The pressure is building on businesses to act.
Thinking green
Although the middle mile, from depot to store, generally calls for long haul journeys outside the reach of current commercial EVs, the last mile is proving easier to electrify.
Research conducted using Webfleet Solutions’ Fleet Electrification Planning Report has revealed that 65 per cent of LCVs currently being used commercially in the UK could be replaced by electric models – based on the premise that an EV could offer a suitable alternative to a fossil fuel vehicle driven less than 300km per day.
The published ranges of EVs can be lower in ‘real world’ conditions, with load, temperature, terrain and driving behaviour all affecting performance. Using such telematics tools, maximum daily ‘real world’ mileages for incumbent fleet vehicles can be selected by managers within their software reporting solutions, along with criteria from road types to standstill times, to signpost their fleets’ true EV potential.
Support for the electrification of last mile fleets can then continue with the ongoing management of eLCVs. Telematics solutions can constantly monitor battery levels and remaining driving ranges, signalling charging point options and helping optimise charging strategies.
All the while, advancements in eLCV technology are being mirrored in the engineering of van tyres, which are being developed to minimise rolling resistance.
Bridgestone’s Nano Pro-Tech TM compound, for instance, deployed in the Duravis All Season van tyre, alongside design details such slim beads and buttresses, has been proven to reduce energy loss.
Using rich data for smarter planning
The effective management of time-sensitive deliveries also calls for rich, interoperable data insights to digitise route planning and raise the bar in service standards.
Telematics software can enable the sequence of deliveries to be optimised with just a click of a button, for example, and customers can be kept up to date with automatic email or text notifications, making them aware of ETAs and changes to schedules as they happen.
Connected devices, such as WEBFLEET’s PRO 8 driver tablet, are also leading to improvements in service and communication. Not only can they be used to navigate drivers to their destination via the quickest, most fuel-efficient routes, they can digitally capture customers’ signatures for proof of delivery, with in-built cameras providing real-time visual updates on exact delivery locations.
From science fiction to science fact
The future is now for such telematics innovations to help businesses tackle the last mile, but transport deliveries also look set to be disrupted by other astonishing autonomous technologies.
The global testing and deployment of autonomous delivery robots, for example, continues apace with demand for contactless deliveries soaring in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Delivery droids that operate with computer vision and GPS to pinpoint their location, can already be found trundling along pavements of UK towns delivering groceries.
While technological challenges for the use of delivery drones must still be overcome – from urban landing space restrictions to power and payload limitations – trials for drone flights ‘beyond the line of sight of pilots’ have now been given the green light by the UK Civil Aviation Authority.
Elsewhere, companies are looking to commercialise concepts that could see cargo pods being transported at high speed in networks of tunnels and tubes. Elon Musk famously described his own futuristic hyperloop concept in this space as “a cross between a Concorde, a railgun and an air hockey table”.
With exciting tech developments showing few signs of abating, faster, more efficient and sustainable mobility models look set to continue helping forward-thinking businesses find meaningful solutions to overcoming the last mile challenge.