Back in 2015, Microsoft veteran Benzi Ronen boasted that Farmigo, his online farmer’s market, was going to help kill off supermarkets. People would soon use their mobile phones to order non-perishables like toothpaste and toilet paper from Amazon and buy their humanely raised lamb chops and locally foraged ramps from Farmigo.
I gave Amazon.com a key to go into my house and drop off packages when I'm not around. After two weeks, it turns out letting strangers in has been the least troubling part of the experience.
In something of a reversal for San Francisco, a city that has served as a petri dish for disruptive innovations in recent years, lawmakers last week passed strict regulations to reduce the number of delivery robots that technology startups have introduced to the city’s sidewalks.
At Deutsche Post-DHL’s 2017 "Innovation Day" at its Bonn, Germany, Innovation Center, the winners of a series of technology "challenges" introduced new products, including autonomous warehouse robots, an online platform for package drop-offs and an internet of things (IoT) approach to online shopping, among other new logistics offerings.
Cyber Monday once again netted record-breaking online sales. E-commerce retailers slashed prices, and more shoppers than ever avoided the usual bedlam of brick-and-mortar stores — opting instead to shop online.
The delays show that delivery networks such as UPS, which are critical components of the e-commerce boom, are still struggling to cope with the busiest shopping periods despite heavy investment to build out and automate their operations and capacity.
UPS is testing a depot-to-door delivery system in central London. The Low Impact City Logistics project will reduce traffic congestion and emissions associated with urban package delivery by using a power-assisted delivery trailer. If successful, it could change the way packages are delivered in cities in the U.K.
Mercedes-Benz, conducting the biggest test using drones to ship everyday items like ground coffee and cellphones, said the mini aircraft completed 100 drop-offs to strategically placed vans in Zurich with a perfect safety record and more deliveries are planned for next year.
Interstate-95 is busier than any other freeway and among the longest. It runs through some of the country’s biggest cities and costs billions of dollars a year to maintain.
Earlier this year, the International Transport Forum (ITF) published a report on global action and legal issues pertaining to the transition to driverless trucks. While technology and innovation move at a swift pace, indeed regulatory and infrastructure changes will lag a few years behind.
