Royal Mail is rolling out telemetry technology to an additional 11,000 small vans to encourage more fuel-efficient driving styles across the UK. The latest expansion will be using the Trimble Telemetry system.
The initiative, which will be complete later this year, will mean that the majority of the Royal Mail fleet will be fitted with the technology aimed at further reducing its carbon emissions.
Additionally, all new Royal Mail collection and delivery vans purchased moving forward will contain some form of telemetry technology.
Why Telemetry?
Telemetry systems encourage more fuel-efficient and safer driving styles by monitoring the driver’s acceleration, speed, turning and braking patterns, and giving them positive feedback.
You might thing that this is just dobbing in drives, but it’s more useful that that, in the Trimble telemetry system, real-time feedback is provided to the driver on harsh braking and acceleration which wears tyres quicker and generally produces higher emissions. This information is used to compile regular reports, which then create positive, tailored coaching for drivers in each Royal Mail Delivery Office involved.
Since 2019, the system has saved the Company approximately 177,000 litres of fuel within its small vehicle fleet, leading to a reduction of 459 tonnes of CO2e.
A responsible Company
This initiative forms part of Royal Mail’s ongoing commitment to reduce emissions associated with its operations. With the UK’s largest “Feet on the Street” network of 90,000 postmen and women across the UK, Royal Mail already has the lowest reported CO2e emissions per parcel amongst major UK delivery companies.
The expansion of telemetry capabilities, alongside various recently announced low-emission vehicle trials, is designed to help the Company inform its long-term environmental strategy, and to meet its goals of delivering a cleaner future.
“As a Company, we are committed to making changes to our operations that reduce our environmental impact. The wide-scale expansion of telemetry in our fleet enables us to ensure our drivers are given positive feedback and training on how to drive in the safest and most environmentally-conscious way possible, while allowing us to continue to deliver letters and parcels safely, efficiently and responsibly.”
– James Baker, Chief Engineer and Fleet Director, Royal Mail
“Sustainability is one of the defining issues of our generation. By expanding the use of Trimble’s integrated fleet, driver and mapping solutions across its fleet, Royal Mail will have the real-time telemetry tools needed to reach its long-term operational sustainability goals. Trimble is excited to be part of Royal Mail’s journey to help reduce its environmental impact while delivering first-rate service.”
– Rob Painter, President and CEO, Trimble
4 Responses
I’ll mention it to my postie when he collects later and be sure to post his expletives.
I have never in my life seen a delivery van whether Amazon, Royal Mail etc doing “Environmental” driving. They are always being pushed to deliver more items and quicker.
Well that made me laugh…. out postie now comes from another city as RM decided it was cost effective to move business collections away from the city they were based in to another one some distance away. As such the people planning the routes have no idea about them, even more so as it seems this is all done by office people using digital map software which is incapable of knowing local traffic conditions.
When it changed our new postie said his route showed him at ours at 4.20pm, then a few miles up the road, in the busy city centre, during busy time, within 4 mins. Now not only can you spend alot longer than that getting that short distance due to multiple junctions and traffic lights like you wouldn’t believe, but also the places next to visit are in a shoppping centre for which you can not park outside and then have to walk into the centre and round to the rear access. Where you call security who then escort you to the business to collect the mail and get back to the van, load up and be off! For this bit you are given less than 5 mins.
The whole system was a joke.
Then there is the issue of vans are not allocated to routes, so on some occassions a route with businesses who generate alot of mail, are visited with a small van which can’t take it all because all the larger ones have been taken!
I do wish RM would listen to there posties and get management sorted before starting on the other stuff. I don’t hold my breath, i have been hearing of the same issues for several years now.
We have this is our vans. We have had it for over 2 years now. It is nothing to do with saving the environment either trust me that is just corporate PR blah blah blah.
It is to do with reducing the risk to the company for speeding and accidents. Fact that half the van we get a total kips these days does not seem to matter, but if you go 3mph over the speed limit all hell breaks loose as some middle manager gets a blob on a spreadsheet.
Some drivers seem to have an awful time with the system. It has never really bothered me I do not rush anywhere for anyone….20 drops in the middle of god knows where last night all heavy half them Covids just take my time gets done.
It is AMAZON vans that should have this sort of system as they are the ones in ditches because they are pressured by the greedy people (seen about 3 last week with the snow along with the standard collections of Rage Rovers and BMWs)…
who knows they may even add Consignia logos to upgrade the vans