ZTO completes first drone delivery

ZTO Express has completed its first trial delivery using a drone in an industrial park in Zhejiang Province. According to a statement issued today (24 July) by ZTO, the drone flew 14 kilometres (km) from ZTO’s sorting facility in Le Qing county, Zhejiang Province to the office building of an enterprise customer located in an economic development park in the same county.

The drone used in the trial delivery has a maximum range of 30 km, is equipped with a 25-litre container, a maximum load carrying capacity of 10kg and is preprogrammed to fly to its destination and does not require a remote control.

“Drone delivery is an innovative new application of technology that we are developing to further optimize and increase the efficiency of last-mile delivery,” commented Meisong Lai, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of ZTO.

“This test successfully demonstrated that we can shave 60% off our traditional delivery times using drones. Using traditional ground transportation, this delivery would have taken approximately 50 minutes when taking traffic conditions, gate checks, wait times for elevators, etc., into consideration. We were able to do this in less than 20 minutes using a drone. We believe that drones can be best used for the delivery of parcels to rural areas in the future as they can improve accessibility, ease labor shortages, and reduce logistical costs and delivery time of the entire network.”