Palletways chosen as Parcelforce's freight partner

Palletways has struck a deal with Royal Mail’s Parcelforce Worldwide to deliver palletised express freight on behalf of the parcels company.

Speaking to Motortransport.co.uk, James Wilson, chief executive at Palletways, said that many of the national postal companies across Europe struggle to deliver express freight, especially the sorts of heavy, irregular items typically moved through pallet hubs.

With the pallet network now providing collection and distribution services across 20 countries in Europe it has become “rapidly quite attractive to a lot of postal companies”.

A spokeswoman for Parcelforce said of the latest deal: “There are many customers who want one supplier to provide both a parcel and pallet service, so we have partnered with Palletways who operate a high quality palletised network, with leading scanning and pallet tracking systems.

“The partnership with Palletways enables us to provide customers with a full range of UK timed, next-day and two days plus pallet services. We remain committed to being customer focused and believe that partnering with Palletways allows us to extend our product offering.”

Palletways already partners national postal operators in France, Norway and Sweden. “It’s an interesting development that I am delighted with,” said Wilson.

• A new ‘sign on screen’ service compatible with all smart phones has been made available across Palletways’ European network . This enables delivery of the consignment to be recorded on a device by providing an image of the proof of delivery, which is made immediately visible to members and customers. The network has estimated time-savings of 90 minutes per member will be saved on paperwork and filing of consignment information at depots each day. Taken across the UK network of more than 100 members, this equates to more than 49,000 man hours saved per year.