If you have read our blog more than once you will know that we are big fans of using technology in our courier business.
We are early adopters of a lot of common place pieces of technology that drivers use today, and this article by Jo Bourke over at RoadTRansport.com caught our eye.
Citilink are investing in camera’s for their vehicles, in the cargo holding area and in the front of the vehicle. The Cameras will send images directly into the control room of Citilink, and if your delivery is lost they will be able to see exactly where it has gone.
From the article…
The implementation follows a three-month pilot across a number of depots, where as a result of the cameras, there were no losses of parcels, no road accidents, no damage to vans or no recorded health and safety incidents.
Russell Mannix, City Link’s head of security, says: “If a customer tells us that a parcel has not been delivered we can quickly work out what has happened. VanCam will clearly play a significant part in reducing losses and claims.”
In addition, the firm believes the security device will act as a preventative measure against attacks on drivers.
The use of the cameras is enabling the drivers to work more efficiently, more productively and drive safer. If these results are accurate, then this is a business case for all parcel companies adding van cams to their vehicles. It may mean a decrease in business for us (we get a lot of business based on parcel carriers losing or breaking items), but overall it can only be a good thing for the customers.
It’s also mentioned that the investment comes as Citilink have had to prosecute staff for parcel theft. In this scenario I feel that Citilink is partially responsible, they are responsible for what they pay their drivers, their training and how they treat them. Happy, content staff do not steal. We have never had a staff member steal, so we are very fortunate our recruitment policy is working. Staff that are paid enough and treated like adults don’t steal from their employers, and I am hoping that this was a minority for Citilink although the level of investment would indicate otherwise.
Safer driving is always to be welcomed and if part of the VanCam investment produces safer driving, then it’s worthwhile.
On a positive ending, we are looking to trialling some new pieces of kit soon, GPS tracking sensors through fleet management expert Nigel Grainger. If all works out, we’ll be using this instead of Tom Tom fleet which we were planning to upgrade to in October.
We’ll keep you posted about the trial.
Kevin
The roads have started to get busier and it’s not just the bank holiday that increases traffic.The kids going back to school also increases local traffic and more people going back to work after summer breaks also increase it. Together that’s a lot more traffic on the roads.
. Jasmine is very strong will (can’t imagine where she gets that from) and she doesn’t want to wear a uniform, even though we explained that a uniform makes you smarter, and then people will know what school she is from. We showed her our work uniforms. She’s not impressed.
We’re talking about…