Singapore is leading the way in last-mile innovation. Singapore is planning a national locker network of 1,000 locations open to all the logistics players and to all e-commerce platforms. Results from a pilot in December 2018 showed that a driver was able to deliver up to 250 parcels per day to the parcel lockers, about four times more deliveries compared with doorstep deliveries. With more coverage and more volumes, this is expected to grow up to 550 to 600 parcels per day.
Singapore is going all-out when it comes to delivery. It is planning an island-wide network of carrier-neutral parcel lockers. Also plunging headfirst into out-of-home delivery is FedEx, which has announced that its parcels can now be collected at a range of third-party collection points and parcel lockers across Singapore. The goal is to place a locker station around five minutes’ walk from every HDB block. Users can collect their parcels on the way to work, or on their way home, any time of the day.
Each locker station will contain between 30 and 50 compartments and will be located in public locations such as HDB estates, MRT stations, and community clubs. All e-commerce and logistics service providers will be able to use the locker network. One thousand lockers for a city with a 5.6 million population is 1.8 locations per 10,000 inhabitants. European countries with the densest out-of-home networks, such as Poland and Finland, will have networks with similar density, as will China. The USA is still behind but catching up fast, albeit mainly via PUDOs as opposed to lockers.