Tailor Your Business in Lodz 2023

WAREHOUSE MARKET IN CENTRAL POLAND ŁÓDŹ AS A MODEL SMART CITY FOR URBAN LOGISTICS

Tests are being carried out on robots that enable sending a parcel (just like in parcel lockers). It takes Xiao G on average approximately 60 minutes to deliver all the parcels it has on its board. Similar vehicles travelling on public roads deliver packages both in China for JD.com and in Japan for Rakuten, which offers deliveries in as little as 30 minutes. The whole process - from order placement to the successful delivery of a parcel - is shown in a video available at: https://youtu.be/n8ncNUzILl0. Amazon is also at the forefront of this technology with Scout - a vehicle which regularly delivers packages to its customers in several US states. In Poland, deliveries by a robot developed by a Polish company Delivery Couple are offered by a chain of FitCake stores - https://youtu.be/RJvauPL7PNU. The robot which took about four months to construct is largely autonomous, uses a camera and a GPS to react quickly to what happens on the road. In the event of any unforeseen circumstances it can be remotely controlled by a cake store employee who monitors its whereabouts on an ongoing basis. It can travel for six to eight hours at a single charge and cover approximately three kilometres (up to five in the near future) within 15 minutes. Only several units have been produced so far, but at the beginning of the year, Delivery Couple obtained nearly PLN 1.5 million of financing from several investment funds for further development and promotion of the project. AGVs are not an exclusive domain for start-ups or giants from the Far East - they also attract interest from European market players. In early August 2023, DPD confirmed plans to roll out autonomous robot deliveries to 10 UK towns and cities in the next 12 months. It will launch more than 30 dedicated micro-hubs as depot locations and charging stations. In Lithuania, the delivery platform LastMile has introduced a small fleet of three delivery robots on public roads in Vilnius, which became the first European capital to permit them. Such robots travel at a maximum speed of 25 km/h, are equipped with an advanced system of cameras and travelled more than 2,000 km during three months of trials. Micro-hubs may also serve other functions. They will certainly be able to handle delivery drones which, however, are likely to be reserved for laboratories and hospitals. If parcels were to be delivered by drones, thousands of such devices would have to be up in the air in large cities right now. Micro-hubs are also likely to be used for 3D printing and returns consolidation or as dark stores or even a base for underground deliveries (see a project developed by Magway, which has already produced special pipes and built a network spanning 30 km for underground transport trials). A smart city is a city that is comfortable to live in and is perfectly organised in terms of last mile logistics. Łódź is very likely to become one. Time has shown that evolution is taking us from distribution centres being the last link in warehousing to an extended network of courier sorting facilities, urban warehouses and micro-hubs that will play a key role in the logistics of a smart city. This seems to confirm the view that 2D logistics is turning into 3D logistics. Consequently, not only the product itself and the delivery address will be increasingly important, but also the place from which it will be shipped to end customers.

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