Route optimization for mail carriers in collaboration with ETH Zurich

It’s not just a question of distributing parcels among individual vehicles and employees. The order in which the mail carriers deliver their consignments must also be determined. Other factors, such as customers’ preferred delivery times, the location of roadworks and the traffic situation, make planning even more difficult.

Swiss Post is working with a research team from ETH Zurich to further the development of route planning technology and to adapt it optimally to changing conditions. Aurimas Vilkelis, responsible for cross-unit cooperation, explains how this collaboration works and what added value it offers.

Aurimas, why is optimized route planning so important to Swiss Post?

Our customers expect fast and reliable delivery. To ensure this, we have to improve our route planning continuously. We take many factors into account, such as traffic data, delivery times, our employees’ experience and their shift plans. The better our route planning, the more efficiently we use resources and the more flexibly we can react to changes.

What are the specific benefits?

Efficient route planning reduces both carbon emissions and transport costs. If we can also take individual customer requirements into account, e.g. fixed delivery time slots, ultimately everyone will benefit: customers, the environment and Swiss Post. At the same time, we are contributing actively to our sustainability strategy. Our aim is to be carbon neutral in our operations by 2030 and to achieve net zero across the entire value chain by 2040.

You have decided to collaborate with ETH Zurich. Why?

Route planning has been a research topic for over 100 years. There are already lots of findings, but there are still many unanswered questions – some of them quite fundamental. The real difficulty lies not in the classic question of transport from A to B, but in the many restrictions that need to be taken into account in order to meet the increased market expectations for delivery services. With ETH as our partner, we can bring scientific know-how into our processes and ask the scientists the questions that arise from these processes.