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The new regional parcel center in Rümlang has been in operation since Friday. The machines sort 5,000 packages per hour.
Clothes, cosmetics, furniture, household appliances: these and other products are increasingly being bought online. The corona pandemic gave online trading additional impetus. The latest forecasts show that this will hardly lose momentum. The convenient click on the order button also has major consequences for Swiss Post: year after year, more parcels are sent in Switzerland, in 2021 it was already over 200 million.
Swiss Post is therefore investing heavily in new parcel sorting centers, amounting to over 250 million francs in recent years. A sustainable investment? “It’s our answer to the parcel boom,” says logistics manager Stefan Nolte. The regional centers would be needed to continue to master the flood of parcels in the future.
We need the regional centers to handle the flood of parcels.
The latest parcel center is in Rümlang, in a former industrial building. Unadorned, but functional. The first of its kind in the canton of Zurich. Reason enough for Zurich Economics Director Carmen Walker Späh (FDP) to attend the opening. “A nice decision for the canton of Zurich and a commitment to the municipality of Rümlang,” she says with satisfaction.
A nice decision for the canton of Zurich.
The modern sorting system manages around 5000 packages per hour. The machine does about 50 percent of the work, the other half is done by the 78 employees. For example, they first place the parcels on the conveyor belts and after sorting them in the respective roll containers with the destination.
Legend:
The very first package is sent on its way to the sorting center in Rümlang.
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Swiss Post has invested eleven million francs in the conversion of the hall and created around 60 new jobs in Rümlang. Also to the delight of Economics Director Carmen Walker Späh. In addition, online trade will continue to increase, and so will parcel shipping. “The canton of Zurich is now prepared for this logistical challenge.”
More efficient and more environmentally friendly
The new center also makes ecological sense, says logistics manager Stefan Nolte: “In the past, parcels from the region were often processed in Frauenfeld or in Urdorf”, which was not always ideal in terms of distance and traffic with the Gubrist tunnel. “Now parcels from the region can be processed in the region”, which saves costs and protects the environment. The hall is also close to the autobahn. “It doesn’t generate any additional traffic,” says Carmen Walker Späh. The population will not be affected.
Legend:
In the new parcel center in Rümlang, 5,000 parcels for the greater Zurich area are sorted every hour.
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Rümlang is by no means the only new sorting center. In recent years they have sprung up like the proverbial mushrooms in Cadenazzo (TI), Ostermundigen (BE), Vétroz (VS) and Untervaz (GR). With the new location in Rümlang, there are a total of eight parcel centers. Another is scheduled to go into operation this year in Buchs, Aargau.
Letter mail has been declining for years
While parcel shipping is constantly increasing, letter post is going downhill. Although in 2021 around nine times more letters than parcels were sent, namely 1811 million, the numbers are declining. In the last 10 years, letter volumes have fallen by a total of around 30 percent.