At Zoom2u, we wanted to see if there was a significant difference in the time it took to deliver parcels before Sydney’s major roadworks commenced compared to now.
The NSW Government commenced major roadworks in Sydney CBD to upgrade transport infrastructure on October 23, 2015. We felt that deliveries were taking longer to complete, therefore putting more pressure on our couriers to get jobs done (Don’t worry – we ensured your parcels were delivered on time – we just have fantastic couriers who worked extra hard to get them there).
We also felt that the number of bike couriers booked had increased in Sydney CBD compared with the number of cars/vans booked since the roadworks commenced and that generally, our car/van drivers were less inclined to accept Sydney CBD work.
To quantify our feelings on this subject, we looked at our bookings for VIP deliveries (VIPs as they are our immediate point to point delivery service), stretching back from 6 months prior to 23rd October 2015 and compared with data between 23rd October 2015 and 24th April 2016. The data was for cars/vans and bikes.  VIP deliveries get your packages delivered straight away. Our closest courier to you will pick up your parcel and have it delivered directly to your recipient.
Since there was likely to be differences in peak hour times, we then broke our data into peak hour times (combined bookings between 7am to 9am and 4pm to 6pm) and non-peak hour times (all other times).
To delve in further, we conducted a survey on all our Sydney couriers to understand their experiences when on the road.
We also contacted City of Sydney to see what they had put in place to help ease congestion during the roadworks.
Is there larger time constraints in travel since the roadworks commenced?
Yes. Figure 1 below shows that, on average, our couriers now travel at 6.47km/hr slower during the major infrastructure upgrades than prior to roadworks. When we broke the data down further into peak hour times and non-peak hour times and found that during peak hour the difference between travelling before roadworks and during was only marginal at a reduction in speed of 1.4km/hr, however in non-peak hour times the average reduction in speed was just under 8km/hr.
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Figure 1
To put this in perspective, on average between 9am and 4pm, a trip from North Sydney to Central used to take around 19 minutes and now takes 28 minutes.
Have our bookings proportions changed since the roadworks?
Yes. Our bike courier bookings for Sydney CBD have increased by approximately 10%, decreasing the proportion of car and van courier bookings by 10%. (See figure 2 below).
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Interesting findings:
One very interesting change that our data highlighted was that travel during peak hour has become faster since the road works commenced compared with non-peak hour.
After scratching our heads, we spoke to the City of Sydney council to see if they had put anything in place during peak hour to reduce congestion (they had not). When looking into our driver routes in peak hour vs non peak hour, we found that our couriers had started to go very different ways between these time periods. Figure 3 shows a day for a typical city car/van courier doing VIP bookings across different routes for different times of the day. The orange dots are routes during non-peak hour times and the purple dots are during peak hour.
The figure below shows that in peak hour our couriers are taking more direct routes to their deliveries, however in non-peak hour times they are avoiding the main roads in the city.  After surveying our couriers, we found that the couriers have proactively changed their routes to combat traffic and congestion for different times of the day.
Figure 3 – Routes our drivers take during peak hour vs non peak hour
What our Zoom2u drivers actually experience
- 90% of our drivers take a different route in peak hour since the road works commenced
- 95% of our couriers think traffic is worse since the roadworks started
- 50% of our drivers would prefer to drive at night rather than peak hour or daytime (non-peak hour)
- 75% of our couriers think that traffic outside of the CBD has been affected
City of Sydney initiatives
- City of Sydney send constant updates of road closures and changed traffic conditions via a mailing list to make sure courier companies and other transport services can plan their trips as best as possible
- City of Sydney has set up a hub so that our car couriers can drop parcels off in an area and our bike couriers can pick up parcels and deliver much easier
- City of Sydney have also set up parking allocations for our couriers (and other transport companies) for easy access to the hub
Conclusions
After completing the study, we concluded that the major upgrade has slowed our couriers down a substantial amount. Whilst we have seen a slight decrease in bookings for cars and vans in Sydney CBD, we have seen a spike in bike bookings and the proportion between the 2 has shifted by 10%.
The major roadworks need to take place to lighted congestion in Sydney CBD in the long run and the City of Sydney council have been very proactive in terms of managing these delays by assisting courier companies with designated parking areas and keeping a good stream of communication.
Our trusty courier network have bore the brunt of the changes with more difficult time pressures however we have found that rather than avoid Sydney CBD deliveries, they have proactively changed their routes to combat this depending on times of the day.
We are working together to get your parcels delivered to you as fast and as cost effective as possible and most certainly could not do this without our fast, proactive and all round fantastic courier network J.
Never tried Zoom2u before? Give Zoom2u a try! You can track your courier in real time and see exactly which route your courier takes, as well as contact them directly via our online messenger service.
References
https://mysydney.nsw.gov.au/
https://cartodb.com/
