DHL Says Its SmartTrucks Save Money, Time and CO2

Since Apr. 1 of this year, two specially modified delivery vans belonging to the DHL fleet have been piloting the technologies in Berlin. Each vehicle has been outfitted with a Symbol (Motorola) XR 480 RFID interrogator connected to an onboard computer. When asked, neither Motorola nor DHL would reveal the cost of the equipment or the RFID portion of the trial.

"Most of the time, you have fixed readers in a warehouse," said Ward Vermoere, a Motorola account director who worked on the project. "Having it on wheels is pretty unique." Once gathered by the RFID system, the van's inventory data is linked to DHL's network via the vehicle's onboard computer, so that real-time data on the packages is available for customers. Currently, manifest information is kept up to date through bar-code scans.

Each van has been outfitted with a Symbol (Motorola) XR 480 RFID interrogator connected to an onboard computer.

To ensure maximum communication between the tags and readers, the Sprinter vans' cargo bays are wired with six Motorola RFID interrogator antennas, and the steel shelving used to hold packages has been replaced with carbon-fiber shelves, in order to reduce interference caused by metal. To lessen the impact of road vibration, the antennas are mounted on a special plate to the wall of the van.

The RFID labels, which operate at 865-868 MHz and comply with the EPC Gen 2 standard, are supplied by GM Consult IT and are made with UPM Raflatac inlays containing chips from NXP Semiconductors. Currently, the labels are applied to the packages by hand. Were the system to be more widely deployed, said project leader Boris Paul, packages would be automatically tagged once DHL receives them.

According to Paul, the interrogators accurately track packages when "a few" are being removed from the vehicle at a time. The less-than-100-percent read rate issue stems from the types of conditions that delivery drivers often face in the field. When drivers hastily pull out a stack of variously sized envelopes, Paul said, the devices often have difficulty scanning items in the middle of the stack.

"You have to imagine that in the express business, there are lots of parcels that come in large envelopes—CDs, books, that sort of thing," Paul explained. "When the driver arrives at a delivery address with multiple parcels stacked together to deliver, they just jump out of the van and go."