Recently, the first pilot project of whole-area drone delivery in Hubei province was launched and put into operation in Guandu town of Zhushan county, Shiyan city, and Guandu has thus become the first pilot town in Hubei to provide drone delivery service across the entire town. Hubei Postal Branch smoothed the last-mile express delivery in rural areas through “low-altitude plus logistics” means, bringing a brand-new service experience to villagers for their better lives.

Since the beginning of this year, Zhushan county has seized the new opportunities brought by the development of low-altitude economy, and proposed to take the lead in constructing the first pilot town with whole-area drone delivery service in Hubei province, so as to address the issues of long land transport time and high pickup costs of express items. In the project, Hubei Postal Branch has planned seven flight routes, utilizing an ARK 150 drone, which has a maximum payload capacity of 50 kilograms. As is introduced, the drone delivers mail and express items from postal enterprises and private courier companies to the convenience service stations in villages every day, and takes the return items from the villagers to a temporary sorting center. This accelerates the transport of the items to and from villages while effectively reducing the transport costs. Since its maiden flight, the drone has been delivering over 180 items daily, with a delivery time of 8 minutes to the nearest village and 16 minutes to the farthest one.