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Tianjin University introduces smart parcel pick-up lockers

Dealing with 4,000 Packages Every Day

College students are an important group using on-line shopping. Considering the large number of express deliveries sent to the universi every day, how to ensure the safety of the campus environment and to make it convenient for students to pick up their packages has become a concern of universities and colleges. A Master's degree candidate from Tianjin University said, "The express deliveries were originally stacked at the northwest gate of the university. The large amount of them made it difficult to find your own parcels. What’s worse, if you were late to fetch your items, you had to go for them again on the second day.” But now, students from Tianjin University are no longer worried about such a situation.

With the smart parcel pick-up lockers put into use, you will not see a stack of deliveries at the northwestern gate like before. For the moment, there are eight package pick-up stations inside the campus distributed in different student dormitory areas. With 2,038 small separate lockers in total, the stations can deal with about 4,000 packages every day.

After an express delivery has been sent to the university, a delivery worker, knowing the recipient’s address, puts it into a pick-up station locker nearest to the address for the recipient’s convenience. Then the recipient receives a text message telling him or her the locker’s address and password. He or she will only need to go there within 24 hours to pick up the item using the access code.

In addition, night lighting and a free WiFi service are provided in the package pick-up stations so as to facilitate package delivery. In order to ensure the safety of delivery, monitors have been installed in the stations, the loading areas and the delivery warehouses. Moreover, the lockers are water-proof.

By: Wang Qiuju, Wang Kai

Editors: Sun Xiaofang and Ross Colquhoun