Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles and Hermes Europe have joined forces to launch the Future Logisitics Challenge with the support for start-up accelerator, betahausX.
Running until September 23, the contest aims to draw out innovative solutions that redefine the delivery driver experience and smart delivery vehicle to support the work of tens of thousands of parcel delivery operatives all over Europe and make them more efficient.
Ten start-ups will be selected from the pool of applicants and will then be able to thoroughly test their ideas with experts from Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles and Hermes and finely tune their proposed solutions during a two- day boot camp on 21 and 22 October in Berlin.
On 5 November, the ten finalists will have the opportunity to present their proposed solution to a high-calibre panel of judges in betahaus Berlin.
The two most promising approaches will receive support of up to 125,000 euros, enabling them to continue developing their solution with Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles and Hermes Europe to produce a proof of concept.
“The delivery vehicle is crucially important in the everyday routine of package couriers and is one of the key working resources,” explains Susanne Brand, Head of Innovation at Hermes Europe. “The environment on the ‘last mile’ is tremendously important for parcel logistics and is becoming more and more demanding: the quantities of consignments are growing while space within inner cities is becoming increasingly scarce and the search for couriers ever more challenging. Digital concepts that connect vehicles, couriers and logistics processes with each other to the optimum and in a new way offer great potential for making the work of parcel couriers easier and at the same time more efficient.”
