Britain’s Network Rail is trialling parcel shop services at its mainline railway stations inresponse to the e-commerce boom, with 4,000 new jobs to be created if the pilot phase proves
successful.After more than a year of research, Network Rail is testing the parcel shop concept with anindividual shop at each railway station to be called ‘Doddle’, available to all retailers,e-tailers, parcel carriers and shippers. The Doddle shops are not combined with other facilitiessuch as ticket offices, luggage storage or other shops.
The first parcel shop at Milton Keynes Central station will be followed by trial installationsat London Paddington and Woking stations, with other stations to follow throughout 2014. NetworkRail has 2,500 stations in total.
The Doddle initiative is a joint venture with the leading entrepreneur and philanthropist LloydDorfman CBE. He is best known for creating the Travelex Group which is now the world’s largestnon-bank foreign exchange business.
Network Rail said the parcel shops will be open seven days a week until late in the evening, tofit with people’s busy lifestyles so they can choose when and where they send and receive parcels.There will be a transactional website and advanced touch point notifications via mobile app, SMSand e-mail.
Doddle will enable parcel carriers to increase their home delivery capabilities in acost-effective way without a big investment to cope with the rising volumes as online retail salesare expected to increase by 69% by 2017. It will also reduce the number of failed first deliveryattempts affecting 100 million parcels each year and costing the industry around £1 billionannually by providing an alternative collection and drop-off point for collections and returns, therail operator added.
Peter Louden, Project Director, said: “Our initial conversations with both leading retailers andcarriers have been extremely positive with many indicating a desire to become an early adopter.They are excited by the fantastic locations and the guaranteed footfall which is expected toincrease by 30% by 2020. There are around 1.5 billion passenger journeys taking place every yearplus a large proportion of the UK population lives within five miles of a railway station. Thismakes it a highly convenient solution for many consumers.”
The British rail network today carries around 50% more people than it did a decade ago, withanother 400 million rail journeys to be made every year by 2020 and projected passenger growth toreach 36% in London by 2031, according to Network Rail.
