Zhu Yanfeng, president of Dongfeng Motor Co, called for efforts in actively promoting unmanned delivery vehicles -- in remarks made recently to the official WeChat account of Wuhan Economic & Technological Development Zone, in Wuhan city in Central China’s Hubei province.
China’s express delivery industry has been developing rapidly, with a total of 63.52 billion packages delivered in 2019, WHDZ officials said.
According to Zhu, with the rapid development of online shopping and the online economy, the difficulties of the "last mile" of delivery have become increasingly prominent.
The distribution conditions are complicated; the efficiency of terminal distribution is low and the costs are high, he said. Meanwhile, the operations safety and service quality is difficult to guarantee and there may not be enough deliverymen.
With the improvement of the internet infrastructure, the development of mobile internet technology and artificial intelligence, unmanned delivery vehicles can provide an effective solution to the problem of "last mile" delivery, he said.
At present, unmanned delivery vehicles have begun commercial exploration in application scenarios such as express deliveries, cargo transshipments, as well as unmanned retail and sanitation operations.
Since the COVID-19 epidemic outbreak, in various contactless scenarios, unmanned delivery vehicles have been providing medical and living supplies for hospitals, isolation points and communities 24 hours a day, providing disinfection services.
Experts said the application of unmanned delivery vehicle improves efficiency, as well as prevents cross infection.
Zhu’s suggestions covered four aspects.
In terms of policy support, Zhu advised authorities to encourage the development of unmanned delivery vehicles. In terms of management, he advised the development of an effective management system.
In terms of standards, he called for the establishment of a technical standards system for unmanned delivery vehicles. In terms of applications, he called for the active promotion of demonstration operations for unmanned delivery vehicles.
