Implications of collection/delivery points for transport and logistics

Failed first-time home deliveries may result in carrier's repeated delivery journeys and also consumer's trips to retrieve their failed deliveries from the carrier's depot. Home shopping is rapidly becoming a significant generator of logistics activity, and efforts are being devoted to identify the transport and environmental implications of those failed home deliveries. The attended collection/delivery point (CDP) concept is one solution to deal with the first-time delivery failures, using a variety of locations (for example, convenience stores, post offices) as alternative addresses to receive deliveries. Using two databases of households from across Winchester and West Sussex (UK), this article confirms that certain benefits might accrue from using networks of Local Collect post offices, supermarkets and railway stations as CDPs, compared with the traditional delivery method where the carrier may make several redelivery attempts to the home, with the customer making a personal trip to the carrier's depot in the event that these attempts also fail.