Rural villages find unique solution to parcel delivery

All villages in China now have access to scheduled buses to benefit people's travel. However, some villagers still have to travel far to pick up their parcels.

A new mode to solve "the last mile" problem to facilitate the delivery of parcels in rural areas is to transport the parcels via the scheduled buses. Thus, parcels, as "special passengers", can also take the ride to the villages.

The new mode has been proven as efficient and successful in Yucheng county of East China's Shandong province.

At the bus station of Yucheng on the morning of Aug 30, trucks carrying parcels from Jinan, the provincial capital, arrived early.

Workers and machines were busy unloading and sorting parcels. Then those parcels caught a bus to villages and were usually placed at a local grocery store. Villagers can easily pick up their packages close to their home.

"Villagers usually did not write the detailed address to the villages. They just wrote the township's name (because the parcels were only sent to towns) and picked up their parcels in the town. But now many villagers write their addresses to the village since the parcels now can be delivered to the village, which is closer to their homes," said Liu Yu, director of the postal development center of Yucheng transport commission.

The county has 28 scheduled passenger bus routes carrying parcels, undertaking about 20,000 parcels everyday, according to Yucheng transport commission.

At a grocery store in Qiyao village of Anren town in Yucheng, there are many parcels from different regions of China lying on a stack, including mooncakes from the southern part of the country, snacks and daily commodities.

Local villagers stop by, find their parcels from the shelf and scan a code at the counter. Many of them were elderly people, some were children.

Li Jun's grocery store at Nansun village of Yucheng county has been more popular since June.

"Many local villagers come to pick up their parcels at my store," the 66-year-old said.

At about 10 am, Li receives parcels from the scheduled bus. He registers them and places the parcels on a stack, which makes easier for villagers to pick them up.

"In the past, villagers had to travel at least half an hour to pick up their parcels at the town. Now they just walk to my grocery store to pick up their packages," Li said, adding that there are about 100 to 200 parcels to be placed at his store everyday.

"It has improved the efficiency and reduced time in parcel delivery," said Ren Jianbin, who is in charge of a co-delivery center at Yucheng, which is at the bus station.

"All parcels arriving at Yucheng county can take the scheduled bus to be delivered to villages in 24 hours. No parcel stays overnight. But in the past, it took longer," he said.

China's parcel delivery sector has seen a rapid boom in the past decade, with more than 110 billion items handled last year. In 2012, the number was 5.6 billion.

Last year, about one-third of parcels were delivered and collected in rural areas, greatly supporting rural revitalization.