Self-employed neighbourhood couriers at Yodel are reporting fuel and time savings thanks to a trial of web-based scheduling technology from Route Monkey.

Independent parcel carrier Yodel is working in partnership with Route Monkey to develop their new online route optimisation and scheduling tool and offer it to its self-employed workforce.

The largely home-based couriers can access Route Monkey via a web portal, which schedules their deliveries in the lowest possible cumulative mileage.

They can then print out the route schedule with a couple of mouse clicks.

So far trials have achieved average savings of 19% in fuel use and 6% time, offering significant benefits to Yodel’s couriers.

A Yodel spokesman said: “Route Monkey has developed a tool that is incredibly easy for our self-employed neighbourhood couriers to use.

“It saves them time and money, making them more efficient and enhancing our customer service levels.”

Yodel has over 60 locations nationwide and handles over 135 million parcels per year on behalf of the UK’s top retailers.

It has a peak workforce of 16,000 including employed drivers, agency workers and self-employed couriers.

Colin Ferguson, CEO of Route Monkey, said: “Our online scheduler is generating substantial efficiency benefits for Yodel’s self-employed couriers.

“In order to build on this initial success, our next step is to offer a fully integrated app. This means each courier can download his or her personal schedule straight to their smart phones.”

Yodel is one of the first customers to benefit from Route Monkey’s web-based scheduler since its launch in December 2013.