Highlights: The construction of the VOMC Cloud Platform is vital for driving the high quality development of Internet Plus mail transportation, coordinating and optimizing transport capacity resources, improving the management and control of land transportation of mail and thus achieving a new leap of the informatization level of transportation management.

China Post Vehicle Operation Management and Control Cloud Platform (hereinafter referred to as the VOMC Cloud Platform) is an intelligent cloud platform which is developed on the basis of the Internet Plus initiatives. Focusing on the unified management and control of drivers, vehicles and transport routes, the Cloud Platform adopts a wide range of advanced technologies such as the private cloud of China Post, mobile internet, big data, visualization, Beidou navigation and so on, and realizes such major production and management functions as real-time monitoring of vehicle operation, automatic alarm of irregularities, transparency of transportation costs and scientific management of outsourced transportation, etc..

As of the end of May, the VOMC Cloud Platform had an average of 31,000 online users per day. It has cumulatively monitored the trajectories of 6.03 million vehicle trips and the driving behaviors of 2.63 million driver trips on the trunk routes. Meanwhile, altogether 250,000 self-owned trunk line vehicles and public vehicles for mail transportation have been connected to the Cloud Platform. Through real-time collection of transportation data such as the position, speed, route and loading status of the vehicles, road condition, drivers’ behaviors, etc., and with big data analysis, the VOMC Cloud Platform facilitates the coordinated management of routes, drivers, vehicles and mail items, and effectively improves the precision and accuracy of vehicle dispatching throughout the postal network.

As a result, the average daily mileage of long-distance trunk line postal vehicles has increased by 40% to over 750 kilometers, of which, some vehicles even have an average daily mileage of up to 1,000 kilometers. The delivery time of postal parcels addressed to counties and cities nationwide has been reduced to 57 hours, reaching the average time limit of the industry.

The VOMC Cloud Platform mainly has the following innovative functions:

First, the deep application of Beidou technology. Altogether 250,000 postal and public trunk route vehicles registered on the VOMC Cloud Platform adopt the Beidou system. Relying on the VOMC Cloud Platform and China Transport Telecommunications & Information Center, these vehicles participate in the testing and validation of the Beidou system. Taking advantage of the far-reaching and long-distance characteristics of mail routes, they help test the service capacity of the Beidou system, and provide data support for its extensive use in the transportation industry.

Second, the application of intelligent identification and remote intelligent monitoring. OCR image recognition technology is used to quickly identify, upload and verify relevant information in vehicle licenses and drivers’ licenses, thus making the manual entry operation simplified. Remote positioning and video monitoring technologies are used to perceive and identify in real time device offline, irregular stop, vehicle slow-down and other irregularities which may affect the timeliness of the tasks and the security of the shipments, then alert the fleet operators in time to reduce task risks, guarantee the timeliness of the tasks and the security of the shipments and ensure the overall operation quality.

Third, driving behavior analysis based on engine Canbus acquisition technology. By analyzing the data of vehicle operation, fuel consumption as well as drivers' speeding, rapid acceleration, sudden braking and other driving behavior data on the platform, the drivers’ driving habits can be precisely managed, thus aggressive driving behaviors such as sudden braking and rapid acceleration can be reduced, drivers' safe driving quality can be enhanced, hidden risks decreased, and targeted training enabled.

Fourth, upgrade from cost transparency to intelligent operation. With the help of Internet of things, big data and other technologies, and through the automatic collection, statistics and calculation of sundry driving data, depreciation and fuel expenses, the costs of single vehicle and mail route can be accurately analyzed, thereby facilitating the logistics enterprises to solve their financial operation problems, empowering them to rapidly upgrade to intelligent operation management, and helping the transportation enterprises to cut costs and increase efficiency.

Fifth, the scientific management and control of the outsourced transportation companies. The whole process of close-loop online management can be imposed on the outsourced transportation companies, vehicles, drivers and contracts from qualification verification, process monitoring to result assessment. The entry threshold for outsourced public vehicles can be strictly controlled to avoid irregular access to the postal network. Through algorithm and smart devices, operating vehicles can be monitored in real time, vehicle operation status can be objectively evaluated. Based on a dynamic evaluation ranking mechanism, a credit assessment mechanism for the outsourced transportation companies is established from time limit, quality, service, security and other aspects to help improve their logistics management standards.

Project researchers: Zhang Yanjun, Xue Zhigang, He Xuejun, Zhang Xiaojun, Zhang Liqiang, Li Zijian, Sun Shizhao, Su Wei, Di Li, He Qichao, Zhang Xiaoke, Tang Shujuan