Across six cities in UK, DPD has brought a new air quality monitoring program.

It is named Project BREATHE,and will place sensors on the top of DPD vehicles and pick-up stores- close to play areas and school in the cities of Glasgow, Birmingham, Cardiff, Manchester and Leeds by the end of May 2021.

In London alone, the number of mobile sensors will be operating are 100 along with 20 fixed sensors. This new DPD plan is expected to raise the number to around 400 in total.

Combine, these sensors can take 1.5 million pollution readings in a day, as each unit taking one every 12 seconds. This is done to measure particulate substances technically referred as “PM2.5”- minute particles less than 2.5 microns in diameter.

These tiny particles are a cause of many health problems including asthma and cancer as they cement in lung tissue.The gathered information, through the Polutrack AirDiag system, will be used to provide street-by-street air quality information for use by DPD customers, academics and local councils. The company will be able to start reporting on the data after completing two months of monitoring.

In future, DPD is aiming to launch the scheme all over Europe, with 2400 sensors before this year end.

Source: DPD

Now, airlines have the permission not to fly virtually empty flights  earlier they maintained just to keep their airport slots quota. The rule has been temporarily relaxed in the wake of coronavirus pandemic.

As per the current guideline requirement the airlines fly at least 80 percent of their planned flights, failure of which, will lead them to lose their slot at the airport. As a result, the airlines were under compulsion to run “ghost flights” just to safe their airport slots.

IATA (the International Air Transport Association) had requested to put temporary respite from the regulation of airlines which required to cut back on flights as demand flagged, but the request has been dismissed by the European Commission sighting that “solid data” was lacking.

But later, on 10th March, the president of the European Commission, Ursula Von Der Leyen, gave green signal and confirmed that suspension of the rules would go ahead.

“The coronavirus outbreak has a major impact on the European and international aviation industry,” von der Leyen said. “We see that the situation is deteriorating on a daily basis and traffic is expected to decline further.

“This is why the commission is putting forward very rapidly legislation regarding the so-called airport slots. We want to make it easier for airlines to keep their airport slot even if they do not operate flights in those slots because of the decline in traffic.”

The President also acknowledge that the step will benefit the industry and the environment.

Source : The Independent

In a judgement, the UK court of appeal directed to drop plans for a third runway at Heathrow Airport as they are illegal, since they did not satisfactorily account for the UK government’s climate change obligations.

Quoting the government’s goal of net zero greenhouse gas emission by 2050, Lord Justice Lindblom, stated: “The Paris Agreement ought to have been taken into account by the Secretary of State. The National Planning Statement was not produced as the law requires.”

Plan B, a charity supporting legal feats opposing climate change, brought the case against the government, and the third runway plans were from one of a number of challenges.

The government affirmed that there is no scope of an appeal to the verdict.

In the past, Prime Minister Boris Johnson fervently opposed the Heathrow third runway, he even stated that he would lay himself down in front of bulldozers to stop construction. However, he was away from the country at the time when the parliamentary vote on the expansion happened in 2018, the time he was Foreign Secretary.

Favoring the government’s proposal, the Parliament voted by a majority of 296, with support bestowed from across the aisle, and the backing of trade union GMB and Unite.

The fresh verdict, however, is the first among all the nations, to be based on the Paris Agreement, and further it can set a worldwide precedent for legal course opposing government policy on carbon-intensive industries and investments.

Source: The Guardian

Image Courtesy: Simone Hutsch

Following the turmoil of Storm Dennis, a deserted cargo ship washed up off the coast of County Cork, Ireland.

Constructed in 1976, the MV Alta 80 meter cargo ship, began its tribulation in September 2018 while on a voyage from Greece to Haiti. The vessel left drifting at sea for twenty days, after it endured a complete power loss at 1,300 miles southeast of Bermuda.

The food was delivered by the US Coast Guard in the wake of diminishing supplies on board, but impending hurricane prompted the rescue of the ten crew members, and then leave the ship abandoned.

In the course of the next year and a half, the ship seems to have floated covering thousands of miles across the Atlantic Ocean, before it landed in Ireland last week and find herself stuck on the rocks close to the village of Ballycotton.

After investigating, County Cork Council confirmed that there is no sign of visible pollution leaking from the Ship. They also share an account of a person who came forward declaring to be the ship’s owner.

Source: BBC News

Digitalization of air cargo sales was the topic that took the top spot at this year’s Cargo Facts EMEA event, held in Frankfurt earlier this month with its center at air freight.

Vice president of global sales management at Lufthansa Cargo, Silke Neimann, discussed on innovation at a round-table, and stated the amount of estimated bookings about 80 percent for normal services are presently done via the carrier’s website.

But, human sales executives at present deal with the vast chunk of transactions, and customers are keen to strike the correct balance between the ease of digital platforms and human sales support.

Further Neimann indicated that automation and digitalization should be seen two different technologies for this reason, however, one of the recent survey held by Lufthansa pointed out that there may be growing trend towards automation, which includes features like real-time spot pricing.

At present, companies are focus on building up online booking platforms, in a business which has been fast enough to adopt modern digital technologies—specifically when compared to passenger carriers.

Source: Cargo Facts

In a fresh development, the Amazon R&D team has filed patents for the designed delivery robots with a function where they wait while customers try clothes and shoes.

So here how it works, the users will ajar a compartment crafted on an Amazon Locker on caterpillar tracks, by facial recognition or smartphone code. Then he will be able to put any unwanted purchased item back in the locker. This makes it ideal for trying on a variety of clothes sizes.

The waiting bot’s chief objective is to curb the need of separate return deliveries. Amazon aims that the users would have the access to scan for a refund; it is a process which will be supervised remotely by a human representative.

For the delivery to the recipient’s address the “storage compartment vehicles” would be operated from the depot by GPS. It would be competent to move over on the terrain by road, water or air; using tracks; submarine propellers; helicopter rotors and more.

Amazon stressed that the patent filings “do not necessarily reflect current developments to products and services”.

Source: Evening Standard

FedEx is transferring some of its Express parcels to its Ground network for last-mile deliveries, so it can use fewer trucks in areas with a high density of parcel deliveries.

FedEx Ground will make selected day-definite residential deliveries, initially only in Greensboro, North Carolina.

It’s part of FedEx’s strategy to tackle the thorny issue of growing business-to-consumer (B2C) demand and ballooning residential delivery costs as a result of e-commerce.

“This move makes residential deliveries more efficient by putting the right package in the right network at the right cost to serve our customers,” said Raj Subramaniam, president and COO of FedEx.

“We continue to flex our network to stay ahead of e-commerce growth, and that includes adjustments to better handle the demand for residential deliveries while lowering our cost to serve.”

Express will continue to focus on business-to-business (B2B) deliveries and B2C deliveries of a time-sensitive nature, leaving for Ground to fulfil the less urgent B2C deliveries.

However, they will remain separate entities.

Source: FedEx, Supply Chain Dive

Image Courtesy: Zain Saleem

Last week, at a top level forum of the Universal Postal Union (UPU), Bishar A. Hussein, the agency director of the, at the start of his address, indicated that the agency is open to more input from the private sector.

Hussein admitted that it is vital for postal sector to remain “competitive, innovative, and prosperous” like it was remodeled by global e-commerce and privatization.

“We are open to dialogue,” he told delegates that included representatives from parcel delivery companies. “This forum is a key milestone in our history, and I am here today to listen, to take note and to benefit from your experiences.”

The UPU is a division of the United Nations. Among all 192 participating nations the UPU co-ordinates mail service policies. It places the regulation for cross border mail exchanges, which also include “terminal dues”, the price which international shippers should pay to the designated local postal operators of any country–for instance, Deutsche Post, Royal Mail, or the United States Postal Service.

Threatening, the US said that it will withdraw from the agency in 2018, for the reason that She felt that certain nations were receiving “unfair subsidies” at Her expense. But later an agreement was met whereby the US was in a position to set its own postal fee at the expense of $40 million fund of the UPU for the period of five years.

Under the shade of the Universal Service Obligation (USO), the UPU also makes sure that all citizens of member of nations have access the same basic rank of service.

Hussein also shared that, there a task force has been launched to enhance private sector engagement and bring a fresh set of commercial players on board. And the remaining committed to the USO, with a tactic for the upcoming four year to be in consent by member countries in the summer.

Source: PostandParcel

A freight analyst Sea-Intelligence estimated that the coronavirus could lead to a loss of $350 million a week to container shipping lines.

There has been a significant shortfall in weekly export demand from China, estimated as low as 300-350,000 TEU (20 foot equivalent unit, a measure employed in sea container transport). The occurrence is the result of a void (cancelled) sailings and partial-loaded vessels from Europe are yet sail east.

Sea-Intelligence worked out the figure of the head-haul sailing which had been void as of last Friday; due to the coronavirus outbreak; further in expectation of dropping demand post the conclusion of the prolonged Chinese new year holiday.

The Loadstar also reported that a big volume of exporters has taken a hit by a spike in rates from carriers who are mending ways to recoup the price, irrespective of contracted rates.

Sea-Intelligence cautioned exporters those who are sending goods to Asia to be prepare for rate spikes as well as capacity issues.

Source: The Loadstar

The outbreak of coronavirus has led to an extended holiday period. In the aftermath of the event, cargo space shortages are expected in China in the face of re-starting of offices and factories, whose opening are slated for February 10, 2020.

The cancellation of flights has reduced the air freight capacity. CH Robinson, an international logistics provider, is forecasting a hurry to translate ocean freight to rail and air after factories reopen and resume production to win the battle of meeting customers’ requirements. All the rush could impose immense pressure on logistics operations.

Rail freight has experienced cancellations and delays in deliveries. Chinese ports are also going through a tough phase of congestion, for a shortage of stevedores, resulting in slow loading, unloading and discharging; and constrained land transport to and from the seaports.

Carrier such as OOCL and CMA CGM have declared a relief from detention and demurrage fees till February 9th; for every consignment at present resting at depots and ports in China.

Source: The Loadstar