Jan/Feb 2005

It had to happen. With the arrival of always-on GPRS data transmission and highly accurate GPS positioning, consignment tracking has been getting ever more immediate and more detailed.

Now a new courier management systems provider, eCourier, has launched a system that aims to provide end users with a constant online real-time view of the location of couriers as they progress towards their destination.

That's not its only claim to fame, either. The company also says its auto-allocation system can choose which courier should do which job far more effectively than a human controller. It claims that the system enables a single controller to manage "upwards of 150 couriers".

The company says it has achieved this by using neural networks and learning algorithms that draw information from a range of sources - GPS satellite-tracking systems, plus live weather and traffic feeds and a real-time picture of the disposition and activities of the fleet.

 

It says the technology draws on research by the Universities of Calabria and Lecce in southern Italy and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US, as well as that of in-house developers.

Behind the system are Christian Bock, an advertising and PR man and veteran US political campaigner; Tom Allason, a shipping industry specialist; and Jay Bregman, who has Internet experience with AOL/Time Warner, Oxford Internet Institute and elsewhere.

The company says that in association with the University of Calabria and a French mapping provider, it has now applied for 1.2m euro EU grant for further development.