DISPELLING THE E-COMMERCE AND URBAN TRANSPORT ENVIRONMENTAL DOOMSDAY FORECASTS: A COUNTER INTUITIVE AUSTRALIAN CASE STUDY - THE POSTAL TRANSPORT NETWORK RESTRUCTURE, 1995 TO 2000

摘要

Since the McKinsey Company first forecast, in 1994, that home shopping via the internet, would change our lives forever, there has been a continual concern that this demand would generate both more Business to Business (B2B) road transport trips, and a quantum leap in the Business to Consumer (B2C), householder delivery trips. This was also additional to the growth expected in most major capital cities over the next fifteen to twenty years. Although there is much discussion as to when the internet began to generate, or most likely substitute existing business into either smaller B2B pulses to customers, or beginning the household e-Commerce deliveries, by 1998 the internet was generally accepted as having had an impact. In Australia over the half decade, 1996 to 2001, demand was growing, however there were some astonishing and counter intuitive fleet developments emerging within the largest transport network operator in the Australia, namely, the domestic Postal Corporation. In the face of increased workloads, the fleet size fell in three transport segments: long distance prime mover operation, urban rigid operations, and within the light commercial vehicle sector. Fleet vehicle numbers fell 14%, kilometres travelled by 2% and fuel consumption by 7% in this five-year period. Overall a large incumbent network transport and delivery operator may well be able to draw upon economies of network density to, in fact, become far more efficient than most commentators would believe. The re-configuration of the fleet vehicle types and new fleet productivity measures drove these changes. The changes relied on changes to several fleet policies and changes in the construction of the serviced operations network.