A J&T Express Brasil, integrated logistics services company, announced the launch of its new delivery service using drones on the North Coast of São Paulo. Unprecedented in the express logistics segment for e-commerce in Brazil, the initiative was developed in partnership with Speedbird Aero, a delivery drones, and included an investment of R$330 thousand.
The carrier's expectation is to deliver up to 9 thousand packages, between the months of May and July, through this new modality, reaching a volume of approximately 15 thousand packages delivered with drones, by September. The company's pilot project will be implemented in the stretch between the municipalities of Caraguatatuba and Ilhabela, with a daily handling capacity of up to 150 orders.
According to Eduardo Caires, responsible for Network Management at J&T Express Brasil, in this first phase of testing, the carrier intends to reach a monthly average of 3 thousand packages delivered with the help of RPAs, in a route divided into three stages. “The idea is that the drones will depart from J&T's operations base in Caraguatatuba and land at a collection point in Ilhabela, where the packages will be picked up by a delivery person, who will be responsible for this last part of the journey (last mile), in which the order is sent to the final consumer’s home”, explains the executive.
“After the delivery person collects the volume at the collection point in Ilhabela, the RPA automatically returns to our base in Caraguatatuba. In this way, we optimize and significantly reduce delivery time, without harming our employees and customers. Furthermore, with the help of drones, we were able to cover the crossing between the two municipalities, which can last up to six hours during high season periods, in an interval of just eight minutes”, adds Caires.
Still in this sense, in addition to the agility in the delivery process and the reduction of traffic and traffic jams in urban centers, the benefits brought by the use of drones in express logistics processes also include the reduction of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere and the expansion of service to places that are difficult to access by land.
According to research by the consultancy Emergen Research, in 2020, the drone delivery market was already valued at US$553,6 million, with prospects of moving more than US$18,6 billion by 2028. For the German Drone Industry Insights (Droneii), specialized in sector research, the annual growth rate of the global RPA market is expected to be 13,8%, between 2020 and 2025, when it should reach the US$43 billion mark.
In Brazil, the estimated annual revenue for the segment is US$373 million. As a result, the expectation is that the drone sector will continue to generate new jobs, especially in the areas of information technology and software development, given the increase in service requirements that this new delivery model should bring to the logistics market.
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