Dive Brief:
- Amazon will deploy artificial intelligence technology in 1,000 of its electric delivery vans by early next year to increase driver productivity, the company announced last week.
- Vision-Assisted Package Retrieval, or VAPR, uses AI to help drivers quickly find the packages they need at each delivery stop. Amazon piloted the tech with contracted delivery partners and said it saw more than 30 minutes saved per route in early testing.
- Emptying a tote and organizing packages in a van for the next stop can typically take between two and five minutes, but that step takes roughly a minute with VAPR, said Bobby Garcia, a driver with Amazon delivery contractor Bloomfield Logistics, in the announcement.
Dive Insight:
VAPR uses computer vision originally developed for Amazon's fulfillment centers for item identification during stowing or picking operations. The technology can locate and decipher multiple barcodes in real time, removing the need to manually scan barcodes.
To optimize VAPR for an in-van environment, Amazon integrated it with delivery route navigation systems and paired it with automotive light projectors and cameras.
“We had to think about factors that are unique to the delivery experience, such as lighting and space constraints inside vans,” John Colucci, product manager at Amazon Transportation, said in the announcement.
VAPR will prevent drivers from having to spend time organizing packages by stops, reading shipping labels or checking identifiers like a customer's name or address to ensure they have the right packages, according to Amazon. Instead, the technology will project a green "O" on all packages to be delivered at that stop and a red "X" on the rest.
"Through an audio and visual cue, VAPR will prompt the driver, confirming it has found the right packages, before the driver needs to enter the cargo area," Amazon said.
Amazon is one of several companies leveraging AI to streamline and improve the delivery process. For example, FedEx uses AI to generate more precise estimates of when a package will arrive. UPS' DeliveryDefense offering leans on AI to identify at-risk shipments and potentially reroute them to alternate locations.
