Courier transport

Parcel delivery, a major branch of the freight transport business, is based on the grouping and sorting of parcels for routing to specific distribution zones. Its operation relies on the coordination of regional grouping and ungrouping platforms, which radiate outwards in a hub-and-spoke pattern along interconnecting lines. Today, this complex network organization is the key feature of our business.

Transport networks are a way of organizing flows that is as old as transport itself, whether of passengers or goods. They are still being created, and have been expanding at a steady pace over the last few decades. The explanation is simple. This mode of organization meets the growing demands of customers who need to distribute their products quickly and reliably within a given geographical area.

It should be stressed that not all transport is organized on a network basis. The transport of full loads, batches or bulk, the transport of tourist passengers and school buses do not operate as a network, but rather from point to point, without a break in load. For a network to exist, a set of points must be connected. The notion of a network therefore applies when several points in the same territory need to be served in a coordinated way, whether the area covered is a city, a region, a country, Europe, the United States or the surface of the globe. Although networks vary in size, they all obey precise rules of operation and organization. This is particularly true of courier and express services, which are growing steadily all over the world, using sophisticated techniques for both organizing physical flows and managing information exchanges.

The most significant difference between courier and express transport lies in the guaranteed delivery of the advertised performance. Express delivery times are expressed in hours or half-days. The guarantee is formal and applies to every shipment. This is the service of choice for all sectors of the economy, where urgency and reliability are paramount, as are the frequency of orders, the dispersion of customer bases, and the number of products or references. Traditional courier services, with average consignments of around 80 kg, are the transport service of choice for mass production, traditional distribution and mass retailing.

The aim of this dossier is to understand the objectives of these two components of courier transport, their mechanisms, their techniques, the elements of the complete transport chain, and to explain the systems for managing relations between network members in their legal, financial, IT and marketing aspects.

A network (courier or express) is technically structured around operating centers that send, receive or distribute parcels and information....