Oct/Nov 2006

Advanced real-time vehicle and consignment tracking could prove the key to solving the problem of failed home deliveries. So says CMS Global Technologies, a specialist in vehicle tracking and telematics systems.

The company's equipment features in a tracking system recently set up for Royal Mail's same-day courier operation (m.logistics, issues 22 and 23), in which business customers as well as the carrier can track the progress of deliveries online in real time. Position updates are provided as frequently as every xx minutes.

Now CMS says a similar system could save consumers having to wait in at home for hours in anticipation of a delivery that might never come. It says an early version of the system is already being used by "a major company" making deliveries across the UK.

According to CMS managing director Jason Airey: "In the future, using this system it should be possible for companies to do away with delivery time windows." Instead, he says, they will be able to direct customers to a special Web site, where they can see the delivery status is and determine "a pretty accurate delivery time".

 

Presumably such a system will require a degree of integration between CMS and the retailer's and carrier's customer-facing Web sites, so that consumers can trace the name of the carrier and therefore track any given consignment.

Some online retailers already do give consumers details such as carrier name and tracking number of consignments, enabling them to check periodically on delivery progress; but few if any give detailed minute-by-minute tracking information, or extrapolate from this to enable consumers to work out an estimated delivery time from the details provided.

CMS's Airey maintains that once carriers see a demonstration of the system, "they will soon want to rethink the way they go about delivering goods to customers."