Could An App End Traffic Misery for Courier Drivers?
Traffic congestion is a big problem for any courier. Jobs become harder, less profitable and, ultimately, costly. But could an app end the misery?
(firmenpresse) - To the average ‘Joe’ on the street, becoming a courier can appear a pretty sweet gig. Minimal stress, driving around town listening to your favourite tunes and being the master of your domain behind the wheel sounds quite appealing. However, one must also be realistic and consider the challenges of courier jobs. While all the good things about the profession mentioned are true, every driver shares oneheadache:the problem of traffic.
Everything about traffic congestion is hard work for a driver, but when your livelihood depends on it, it can sometimes be a nightmare. However, there just may be a light at the end of the bumper-to-bumper tunnel -could there really be “an app for that”?
One Man’s Vision
There may indeed be an app for not only avoiding traffic in the future, but also one that might help prevent congestion in the first place. Couldn’t courier jobs be executed more efficiently, cost-effectively, and in a more environmentally-friendly and less stressful way if drivers and fleet managers had a magic crystal ball telling them routes to avoid due to high volumes of vehicle congestion?
The annual cost of congestion is projected to be around £30bn, when fuel and time spent is taken into account. This dizzying number could be substantially higher if your business relies on the roadways moving smoothly to be able to make a profit. Enter entrepreneur, Richard Cartwright, who believes that road data and analytics could be used as a low-cost way of helping drivers avoid traffic jams.
How it Works
Cartwright proposes extracting data from the millions of CCTV cameras already placed around the country that monitor the roads. He says that currently the data received by these cameras is not utilised efficientlyand his proposal suggests a ‘smart city concept’, whereby the monitoring of the cameras was automated and the information received was analysed to extract patterns.Ultimately, he says, the system would be able to spot an accident in real time and alert traffic managers accordingly.
Cartwright believes that his system could be the way forward. “Computer vision, combined with machine learning, has grown as a field considerably in the last 10 years, and it has made analytics on this stuff possible that wasn’t before,” he says.
Road Bumps Ahead
Although this innovative idea appears to be the golden egg that every road user has ever sought, the idea is being met with some reservation. Cartwright himself understands the caution, saying,“The (CCTV) cameras were originally installed for traffic managers to look at. Now they would be used to anonymously count traffic information in the background. But as you can imagine city authorities are wary of that.”
In the current age where cameras are trained on every angle of our lives, critics warn that this could be yet another encroachment on personal privacy, despite its potential to alleviate one of the biggest stressors associated with commuting and the transport industry.
Forging Ahead
For cities like Manchester and Newcastle, which have cautiously agreed to forge ahead and explore the potential of Cartwright’s app, it could mean the beginning of the end of those unproductive hours spent behind the wheel at a standstill. Cartwright’s business plan, called FlowX, could realistically have the potential to greatly increase the number of courier jobsa company can take on, as their efficiency increases with less time stuck in traffic.
Cartwright explains, “My big vision is to enable any city, anywhere, to better use its existing information to manage that traffic and reduce congestion at a low cost. We want to enable cities to react faster to issues on the road. If you can do that, that should lead to real, tangible benefits to drivers, and everyone else.”
For those who make a living doing courier jobs, the question now becomes whether sacrificing some of our personal privacy is worth the benefit of less road congestion and consequently less impact on the environment.Interesting times ahead…
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Norman Dulwich is a correspondent for Courier Exchange, the world's largest neutral trading hub for same day courier jobs in the express freight exchange industry. Over 5,300 member companies are networked together through the Exchange to fill empty capacity, get new clients and form long-lasting business relationships.
Datum: 25.06.2018 - 11:44 Uhr
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