Why are delivery drones popular?
Time efficiency is an important criterion for measuring courier services. In less than 24 hours from placing an order to receiving the goods, this is the speed at which Wuxiang peaches from Wushan, Chongqing, are now flying out of the mountains and reaching the rest of the country. Among the contributors to the smooth transportation of Wuxiang peaches are Chongqing Postal Cargo Drones, which have played a crucial role. From the orchard to Wushan Airport, the use of cargo drones has reduced the 2-hour land transportation time to just 7 minutes, not only greatly improving the efficiency of Wuxiang peach transportation but also marking the first time that China Post has achieved "air-to-air intermodal" large-scale, regular operations in Wushan.
In fact, drone delivery is not a new concept. Since Shunfeng received its first drone air transportation operation license in 2018, drone delivery services have gradually entered the public eye and have been expanding to logistics delivery scenarios such as medical supplies, disaster relief, fresh and cold-chain products, and cross-sea transportation. Currently, Shunfeng Fengyi drones have achieved large-scale, regular operations in the Greater Bay Area. In June this year, the daily transport volume exceeded 20,000 tickets, doubling from the beginning of the year.
There are two main factors that cannot be ignored in the popularity of drone deliveries. The first is demand-driven. In recent years, as the logistics industry has accelerated its equipment upgrades and efficiency improvements, "half-day delivery", "hour-long delivery", and "minute-long delivery" have been constantly redefining people's perceptions of delivery speed. Compared with traditional transportation methods, the biggest advantage of drone delivery is efficiency, especially in congested urban areas, drones can bypass ground obstacles and deliver packages to customers on time. Especially for fresh agricultural products delivery, drone delivery can greatly improve the turnaround efficiency and ensure the freshness of agricultural products. For logistics and express companies, continuously exploring the application of drones will help the company win more advantages in the fierce market competition.
The second is policy promotion. In February 2021, low-altitude economy was officially proposed in the National Integrated Transportation Network Plan, and this year it was included as one of the "new growth engines" in the Government Work Report. With a series of policy measures being implemented, as an important carrier of low-altitude economy, drone delivery is taking root in more and more cities. In Shenzhen Luohu Water Bay, a gold and jewelry trading and distribution center, drones fly over tall buildings every day to deliver gold jewelry, helping small and medium-sized gold and jewelry enterprises reduce costs and increase efficiency; in Zhengzhou, Anyang and other places in Henan, drone logistics urban distribution pilot projects have also been launched, and measures to support the opening of low-altitude logistics delivery routes have been successively introduced.
As an important supplement to ground transportation capacity, drone delivery has brought new breakthroughs in transportation efficiency and delivery experience, but the task of bringing drone delivery into every household is still arduous. Limited by weather and other climate factors, most cargo drone operations on the market today are "weather-dependent". Logistics companies must continue to increase their research and development investments to break through and achieve regular operation in adverse weather conditions, and solve the demand for people to use drone logistics at any time and place. Local governments should also take a pragmatic approach and relax the application of drone delivery scenarios, and in areas with high demand, they should densify low-altitude logistics flight network to enable more and more people to enjoy convenient and fast postal services.
As a new track, the relevant laws and regulations for drone delivery are not yet complete, and the industry standards for product materials, batteries, and venues are different from each other, urgently requiring further clarification and standardization. Related departments should include cargo drones in the smart city construction planning and continuously improve the public infrastructure for drone delivery, such as control centers, take-off and landing pads, and low-altitude flight route marking. In this way, drones can fly farther and be better controlled during flight.
