study Archives

UK Parcel Delivery to Lead Europe This Festive Season

Posted on 18 November, 202429 July, 2025 by David Priestman

A new study released today by FedEx, forecasts that parcel carriers will collectively distribute 1.29 bn shipments across the UK between October and December 2024, 10.9% more than in the same period in 2023.

The independent study was conducted by Effigy Consulting, which analysed its courier, express and parcels (CEP) database with 500,000 data points on more than 300 carriers in 41 countries.

The data shows a significant increase on the UK figures for 2023, up from 1.17bn parcels to 1.29bn in 2024. The UK will be the busiest market for parcels this Peak season, representing 21% of the total deliveries made, equating to 12 parcels per person across the UK and Europe.

Germany and France will be the second and third busiest markets, with Germany accounting for 17% (1.1 bn) and France making up 8.4% (524 mil) of the total parcels delivered across Europe. This growth is being driven by a rise in e-commerce which accounts for nearly 70% of shipments going directly to consumers across the European market.

Alun Cornish, Vice President Network Operations at FedEx commented: “Peak season is a critical period for UK businesses, with many relying on transportation and logistics to meet increased demand and deliver for their customers. Online shopping, ecommerce, and a shift towards deferred services will continue through this year’s peak, reflecting changing consumer behaviour and ongoing cost-consciousness in the market.”

FedEx’s networks will scale and adapt to meet the UK’s increased demand, with options for air and road transportation, as well as more predictive technologies to manage potential disruptions and make the ‘golden quarter’ a success.”

Across the whole of Europe, 6.2bn shipments will be made between October and December 2024, 9.0% more than in the same period in 2023. The UK is one of the fastest growing major European countries with a growth of 10.9% on last year, outpaced only by Portugal and Poland and countries such as Turkey, Croatia and Bulgaria.

To illustrate the scale of the Peak, the total European volume (4.878 bn cubic feet) would equate to filling the entire structure of Wembley Stadium thirty-four times over. The total weight of goods transported across Europe at this Peak will be almost 7.5m tonnes, which equates to around 15 kg for every person living in the EU and the UK.

The countries with the highest volume of shipments during this Peak season are the UK (1.3bn) and Germany (1.1bn), followed by France with just over half a billion (524m), with twelve parcels sent for every person in the UK and EU during the three-month period.

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Navigating Black Friday Logistics

Covid impact on transport study published

Posted on 28 June, 2021 by Keith McKinley

The outbreak of coronavirus in March 2020 has utterly changed the road freight transport landscape. Only transport professionals themselves can explain how they have dealt with this situation and describe what perspectives it holds for the coming months.

For this reason, the Alpega Group, the leading logistics software company offering modular solutions to cover all transportation needs, backed by 35 years of experience in the market, conducted a macro-survey where more than 1.200 logistics and transport companies across Europe participated through its freight exchanges, Teleroute and Wtransnet. From this survey a complete analysis has just been published.

The conclusions of this study show that the worst is over, and that the sector is moderately optimistic as it awaits future events before considering the crisis to be over.

At a time when challenges such as the recovery of the industry, digitalisation and Brexit are already on the agendas of many companies, professionals rate their degree of optimism about transport for the next few months at 6.2 out of 10.

While the majority of respondents acknowledge having experienced a significant reduction in transactions in 2020 compared to 2019, there are expectations for the sector’s recovery. An encouraging future can also be seen when talking about transport prices, where we find that a third of the responses even point to an increase in prices.

The pandemic has also highlighted the need to advance in the process of digitalisation of the transport companies. Digital tools have played a key role in recent months. The use of freight exchanges has increased, a trend that responds to the need to find alternative routes, as well as to find return loads from unusual destinations amidst growing demand for transport.

The coronavirus crisis has coincided with the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union. As the study shows, this has caused a sceptical reaction among European hauliers. Excessive bureaucracy and lack of information are the main reasons given by the respondents for a possible reduction in the activity.

Road freight transport is a sector that did not stop during the most difficult moment of the crisis. This will continue even more strongly now that we can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

CLICK HERE to access the complete study.

Study raises hopes for increasing digitalisation

Posted on 20 May, 2021 by Keith McKinley

The latest trend report from the optimisation specialist INFORM reveals a positive development in internal logistics in German production companies. For a long time, they did not have technologically advanced or optimised in-plant logistics processes in place, but today, digitalisation seems to be a priority for specialists. However, the actual implementation is still slow.

“76% of the 121 surveyed specialists and executives find in-plant transport jobs relevant or very relevant to the overall success of the company,” says Torsten Inkmann, Director of Industrial Logistics at INFORM. “Only 10% completely agreed that production is the core of the company and logistics are only a necessary secondary function. They consider increasing productivity (80%), adhering to schedules (73%) and ensuring the reliable supply to production (65%) as the largest challenges.

“Production in many industries is becoming ever more flexible, with greater options, and at the same time, increasing demands on deadlines for supply capacity. These developments also require transport that is more flexible and thus real time control over the ability to plan and react. Digitisation offers answers to exactly these questions.“

The key results of the study:

Digitalisation projects: The companies surveyed identified the following as the most critical solution strategies over the short to medium term: JIT/JIS supply (48%), driverless transport system (DTS) implementation, (47%), and transport control system implementation (42%).
On-site transports: More than 100 transport orders per day must be managed by 71.5% of the surveyed companies. They are faced with a complex transport planning situation. Typically, stackers (95%) are still used for transport in these cases, followed by tugger trains and towing vehicles (34% each) and lastly DTSs (25%).
Logistics-IT: Only half of the companies see themselves in a position to plan internal transports in advance. Yet, most companies use only warehouse management and ERP systems for transport control and material flow tracking. At least 80% of those surveyed do not use technologies with intelligent functions such as real time management, algorithmic optimisation, or planning against tangible limited capacities.
Spiraling costs: Yet two-thirds of companies never record the costs they incur for individual transport jobs or they simply assign them to a general cost centre. A mere 7% of those surveyed are able to provide information about the costs of individual transport jobs when asked.
Cloud systems: Half of the companies surveyed are open to cloud services for in-plant transportation management; however only 5% of the surveyed companies currently use these types of systems.
Compared to the results of a similar study conducted by INFORM in 2013, for example the percentage of companies relying on DTSs (25%) is almost twice. “It appears to me that the perspective has changed,“ watches Inkmann. Nevertheless, the study shows that many digitisation projects are still in their infancy.

The study surveyed 121 specialists and executives at German companies, primarily employed in the areas of logistics and supply chain management. They participated by completing an online questionnaire from the end of October 2020 until the beginning of January 2021. Three quarters of the companies that participated in the study are production companies from various industries, and one quarter of the participants are trading companies.

DOWNLOAD the study here: https://www.inform-software.com/logistics/transport-control-system/study

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