Delivery Driver challenges Coventry Council over damage to his Delivery Van

One of the biggest issues for couriers and delivery drivers at the moment is the state of the UK's roads, and the huge outbreak in large, severe and far too many potholes.

One driver, John Lydon, sick of seeing his van damanged, and now off the road due to damage caused by potholes, is taking Coventry council to task.  And he's not alone.  757 other people also complained to Coventry council last week in just 5 days about potholes in their local roads.

Here at boxby we know that the potholes have been caused by unpredictablely severe weather, however we live in a country where much of our economic activity depends on the road network.  We need roads that are fit for purpose, and Boxby encourages all local councils to put the state of the roads high on its agenda.

Local Council blames Delivery Drivers for unsafe High Street.  Boxby blames the local council.

Local Newspapers report that Glastonbury Council are blaming delivery drivers for unsafe and congested high streets.  But here at Boxby we think that this is simply a case of bashing the delivery drivers, the people highlighting the pre-existing problems, not the people causing the problems.

The councillors claim that the drivers parking up to make deliveries to the local high street stores cause congestion and road safety issues.  But what are the drivers doing?  Simply delivering to the shops the products and stock that the shops need.  As all couriers, delivery drivers and anyone involved in the industry knows, schedules are too tight for any sightseeing or shopping, and drivers are parked up delivering for the minimum amount of time possible.

Instead of bashing the delivery drivers, Boxby suggests that the Town Council examines closely how it expects shops to sell without any stock deliveries.  And how it expects those deliveries to be made if it issues tickets left right and centre to any parking van, or even better, by pedestrianising the high street.  This is a classic case of short sightedness, and the type of approach to such problems that generates empty high streets and closed stores.

Why does the council not examine ways of re-routing non essential traffic?  Or perhaps invest some money into widening the road, and making it safer?  Perhaps it could build some loading bays where essential delivery traffic can park up and deliver safely.  Eitherway, knee jerk reactions to make deliveries harder doesn't seem a very good way to protect and encourage local high street businesses during a recession.

City Sprint courier firm expands delivery operations in the South East

Courier firm CitySprint purchases the operations of delivery firm Post Haste, expanding the citysprint operations in the South East, Dundee and Swindon.  A CitySprint spokeswoman says: "The acquisition represents a continued commitment to a bold, yet realistic, growth strategy."  Citysprint, who specialise in Next day deliveries and same day courier deliveries, expects to boost group turnover by around 6% through this acquisition.

Royal Mail Postal Strikes possible as early as next month

The Mail strikes back in October 2009 were resolved with a truce not to continue strike action over the essential Christmas period.  However, the truce was only a temporary one, and needs a permanent agreement to be reached between the Royal Mail and the unions before 22nd January 2010.  As things currently stand, no agreement has yet been reached, the Royal Mail are as keen as ever to press on with their original 2010 plan, and the mail workers are as opposed to it as ever.  All in all.

One of the biggest issues in the current disagreement is responsibility over the pension deficit, which is estimated around £10billion.  The unions are arguing that the government need to accept some responsibility for the deficit after taking a pensions contribution holiday.  The government state that they will only do so as part of range of measures to rationalise the Post Office and Royal Mail, including part privatisation.

If this does end up with more Postal Strikes, so soon after the last round, it will result in serious long term commercial damage to the Royal Mail, with the last lot of strikes resulting in an exodus of Royal Mail business customers to other couriers and parcel delivery firms.  If the Royal Mail lets this reach strike stage again, the many business may simply decide that using the Royal Mail is too risky and unpredictable and move their deliveries over to other companies.

P&O Announces End of Bilbao-Portsmouth Ferry Route

We just wanted to let you know of a change that will be taking place to P&O Ferries routes this year.  P&O Ferries has given notice that is it proposing to withdraw from the Portsmouth-Bilbao route at the end of September 2010, when the charter of the ship it uses for the service, the Pride of Bilbao, comes to an end.

The service will operate as scheduled up to and including the Bilbao-Portsmouth departure on Monday 27th September 2010 and any bookings up to this date will be unaffected.

Any customers with bookings beyond this date will be contacted as soon as possible.

Please click on this link for the official update from P&O Ferries

Here at Boxby we know that many of you use this route frequently for your courier trips down to southern Europe, it is a route that will be much missed.

HMR&C Warm Farmers to Check their Diesel before clearing snow.

We hear every day about the shortage of grit and salt, and the local councils' inability to grit the rural and minor roads, you would therefore think that the government would be behind the very many farmers who use their own vehicles and resources to help keep local and rural roads open and clear.

But sadly no.  HMR&C use this an oppportunity to remind farmers of the rules for using certain types of diesel for the individual stages of gritting and clearing roads.    Apparently, Farmers can use the Red Diesel to clear access but not to clear a local road that doesn't give access to their property.  They can use Red Diesel to grit roads within their property, but not outside of their boundaries.  They can use Red Diesel if gritting using a vehicle specifically designed for snow gritting, but not if they do so using a tractor and trailer.

These rules seem to completely go against goodwill of the countries many farmers many of whom have a very strong community spirit, and who spend significant amounts of time, money and effort in helping out their local communities, the very local communities that the local councils have left snowbound.  It's a shame to see that instead of the VAT man giving these guys a slap on the back for their generous community spirit, he is instead giving them a slap on the wrists for not checking the contents of their diesel tank first.

UPS Announces 1800 job cuts in administration and management

UPS and Fedex as seen as two barameters for the US economy, with there being a strong correlation for the demand for their services in delivering parcels, and the underlying economic activity generating the need and demand for parcel deliveries.

On Friday, UPS announced a cut of 1800 jobs from its US adminstration and management process, as part of a resturcturing change that also custs the number of number of regions and the number of hubs dealing with its domestic small parcel deliveries.  This is a cost cutting exercise, as restructure that should give the company the opportunity to minimise costs and overheads, whilst still competitively targeting new and existing business.

The Domestic parcel business appears to be the segment most troubling the major parcel carriers at present.  Last year DHL dramatically withdrew from the US domestic market, and only last week sold off both it's UK and French domestic small parcel operations.  The profit for the parcel carriers is in the International Express delivery segment, however, getting customers for this market is usually via the more less profitable domestic parcel route. 

The domestic small parcel business looks as if it's going to be the hot potato of the year, as the courier firms need to address the increasing problems of rising fuel prices, and delivering to empty houses, and a group of customers that seem to require the drivers to have a high degree of telepathy in working out what they want the customer to do with parcel when the customer is not at home.  Whilst that same customer base chases minimum price and still expects an exceptionally high level of service.  Balancing all of these different requirements will be challenge for the parcel carriers, and the UPS route of consolidating the cost base looks a good starting point for some rationalisation in the domestic parcel delivery market.

Severe snow fall and business as normal - for Seoul, that is!

After watching the BBC news of the UK slowly grinding to a standstill because of the snow, it was amusing to read in the Yonhap News today that despite South Korea suffering the highest ever recorded snowfall in a 24 hours period of over 27cm, that the everything to do with roads, transport, distribution, and airways was all working as normal by the next day!

The Koreans managed to "normalize" this within less than a day; Maybe we should invite them over here to give us some tips!!

Home Delivery Network (HDN) has announced a deal to buy DHL's UK parcel operations as it looks to capitalise on the boom in deliveries from internet shopping.

The deal, which was for an undisclosed sum, will create a business with more than £600 million in annual sales.  Merseyside-based HDN said it would retain all 4,700 staff employed by DHL Domestic.

DHL Domestic, which is DHL's UK parcel arm largely specialising in deliveries between businesses, will also transfer over its 71 service centres, a headquarters in Heathrow and five hubs in Hatfield, Manchester, Bristol, Leeds and the Midlands.

Business-to-business delivery firms have been branching out into the consumer delivery sector as the recession hits the business market hard. Royal Mail has also been expanding its parcel business in an attempt to focus away from the declining letters market.

DHL said it decided to offload the business, which accounts for around 9% of its UK workforce, to exit the "highly competitive" UK parcel market, adding it would instead focus on its international parcel business and remaining UK brands.  HDN chief executive Brian Gaunt said the acquisition "provides greater security to people within both organisations".

It will initially retain the DHL Domestic brand after the deal completes, which is due by the end of the first quarter.

HDN boasts a client list including many major UK retailers, such as Argos Tesco, Sainsbury's and Marks & Spencer.

DHL Domestic largely operates in the business-to-business market, although it also makes consumer deliveries. It was bought by DHL five years ago from Securicor.

Monday night was the year's busiest for FedEx Corp (FDX.N), with its Memphis facility receiving, sorting and spitting out 1.7 million packages in 3-1/2 hours, the highest volume of any of the shipper's hubs.

The company is forecasting an 8 percent increase in peak day volume amid the nascent economic recovery. It also recently announced an increase in its expectations for quarterly profit.

Both FedEx and rival United Parcel Service Inc (UPS.N) handle such a huge chunk of the world's shipping that economists consider them bellwethers.

Below are some facts and figures about FedEx' Memphis air hub;

FedEx handles 7.5 million packages on an average day and almost twice that on its peak day. About 13 million shipments hit the system on Dec. 14, its busiest day of 2009.

A FedEx package is scanned up to 18 times between intake and delivery.

On an ordinary night, the company flies five empty planes it calls "sweepers" to assist with unexpected volume surges, mechanical failures or inclement weather. On peak night, it flew eight.

Because at least one FedEx plane is always in the air at any moment, the company staffs at least one of a team of 15 meteorologists round-the-clock at the Memphis hub.

More than 15,000 people work at the Memphis facility.

The hub's automated systems can sort up to 500,000 packages an hour.

It has more than 300 miles of conveyor belts spread across 500 acres.

A FedEx Express plane touched down every 48 seconds on Monday.

FedEx is one of the largest airlines in the world and has 660 jets. The largest is Delta Air Lines (DAL.N), followed by AMR Corp (AMR.N), parent of American Airlines.

Every FedEx plane bears the name of an employee's child painted on the side. The child is selected by lottery.

The average FedEx flight carries 110,000 pounds of cargo and takes 25 minutes to unload.

FedEx uses more than 1 billion gallons of jet fuel annually.(Reporting by Helen Chernikoff; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)

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