Royal Mail reportedly pilot tests real-time delivery tracking

Royal Mail reportedly ran a small-scale pilot late last year providing customers with real-time delivery tracking. In an article published yesterday (6 January), Tamebay  – the e-commerce intelligence and news service – said that it invited Royal Mail to comment on an “interesting rumour” that the postal operator had started GPS map tracking on parcels and received this reply: “We ran a very small trial in November and December among a group of volunteer recipients and postmen/women on selected delivery routes. Participants in the trial received SMS/email notifications on the day of delivery of Tracked 24 and 48 parcels with 2D barcodes, linking to a live map of their delivery route.

“A position in the delivery queue was given eg, ‘we are 5 deliveries away’. However, no estimated delivery window was provided. Participants could follow their delivery in real time, allowing them to plan their day in the knowledge that they had visibility of when the delivery would be made. This was small trial. The results are not yet available and we have no current plans to roll it out further.”