China Introduces Smart Logistics Express Project

A July 7 PRNewswire.com press release says, “Guangdong iBosst Ltd. launched ‘the first smart logistics express,’ a project dedicated to building a smart logistics express cable rail system covering the urban and rural areas of China, aiming to achieve same-day delivery of goods nationwide and one-hour delivery city-wide, and halve the cost through the ‘cable rail + shuttle robots’ pattern.”

The story notes that Guangzhou is developing its "IAB" project, “i.e., the strategic emerging industries including information technology, artificial intelligence and bio-pharmaceutical, rapidly accumulating high-end factors like talents, technology and capital driven by technological innovation and supply-side reform. And the ‘smart logistics express’ is just an epitome of this trend.”

In May, says the report, the first 15-km-long smart logistics express was completed in Xin'an Town, Huazhou City, Guangdong Province, providing a pilot solution for the current supply-side innovation of the logistics industry. The report said, “Based on low-altitude static cable rails, the Express forms an ‘expressway’ in the air to carry unmanned shuttle robots loaded with small [amounts] of goods within 100 kilograms. It allows the robots to make turns and shunt, making it possible to deliver the parcels to their destinations rapidly, with low energy consumption and low cost.”

Huan Yushan, former Vice Minister of Goods and Materials and former Vice Chairman of All China Federation of Industry and Commerce, believes that the smart logistics express project has set an innovative and practical example for the transformation, upgrading and breakthrough in development of China's logistics sector and that the project can drive series of innovation investment in smart warehousing, infrastructure construction, shuttle robots production, etc., according to the report.