Hebei Province is making concerted efforts to bridge the "last mile" gap in rural express delivery services, ensuring smooth delivery routes to villages and packages reaching doorsteps directly.

On September 11th, at the Tuxi Express Supermarket in Yang Village, Liucun Township, Shenze County, nearby residents were collecting packages from smart parcel lockers.

Rural postal and logistics services serve as crucial channels for agricultural products entering cities and consumer goods reaching rural areas. As of now, the province has established 40,800 village-level integrated postal and logistics service stations. From January to July, rural areas in the province processed 1.43 billion express packages and completed 1.23 billion deliveries, providing residents with convenient "doorstep" services while improving quality of life and driving the development of new business models such as rural e-commerce and live-streaming sales, thereby boosting rural economic prosperity and increasing farmers' income.

Recently, reporters visited multiple locations across the province to explore how these areas are tailoring their approaches to improve the construction of county, township, and village-level postal and logistics network nodes, making express delivery to villages more efficient.

**Technology Enhancement Improves Package Delivery Efficiency**

"Autonomous driving in progress, please maintain a 2-meter distance." At 10:00 AM on September 13th, an SF Express autonomous delivery vehicle departed punctually from the SF Express Shijiazhuang Luquan District Tongye store. Equipped with rooftop laser radar and 12 cameras mounted around the vehicle, this autonomous delivery vehicle possesses 360-degree road condition sensing capabilities. Carrying express packages for six villages near Shanyin Village in Luquan District, the delivery vehicle automatically drove to the transfer point following its predetermined route.

At 10:30 AM, the autonomous delivery vehicle reached its destination, where SF Express couriers retrieved packages from the cargo compartment and headed to their respective assigned villages for delivery.

Shanyin Village is located 11.5 kilometers in straight-line distance from the Tongye store. Previously, couriers serving this area had to make up to four round trips daily to the network point, with each trip taking approximately one hour. According to Li Kuanxin, manager of the Tongye store, this network point serves over 100 square kilometers for collection and delivery services across a vast area. In March this year, the Tongye store acquired two autonomous delivery vehicles. Staff at the express network point load the autonomous delivery vehicles and set destinations through a mobile app, after which the vehicles follow designed routes automatically.

The autonomous delivery vehicles are primarily used in the package transfer and transportation phase, not only reducing the labor intensity of delivery personnel but also improving package delivery efficiency. "Delivery personnel now have more time to better serve village customers in their designated areas," Li Kuanxin explained. Since the store began operating autonomous delivery vehicles, the business volume for couriers in related areas has been continuously increasing. Through technological enhancement, villagers enjoy faster and more convenient express delivery services, while network points achieve cost reduction and efficiency improvement.

Smart parcel lockers in villages operate similarly. At 8:00 PM on September 15th, Di Xiaoman, a resident of Yang Village in Liucun Township, Shenze County, rushed to the village express station after work. "I urgently needed a package today and thought the express station would be closed when I got off work, but surprisingly it was still operating," Di Xiaoman said. "One pickup code opens one compartment, so there's no worry about taking the wrong package. Having a 24-hour 'unmanned station' in the village is so convenient."

The "unmanned station" is a separate room created by Yang Village's Tuxi Express Supermarket using rolling shutters at their original station. The room contains neatly arranged smart parcel lockers with electronic screens clearly displaying operation instructions. Villagers simply input pickup codes, tap the "collect package" option, and the corresponding compartment automatically opens.

"Our station processes approximately 1,500 packages daily, with two concentrated loading sessions, while other time periods rely on intelligent systems for unmanned management," said Zhang Yue, manager of Yang Village's Tuxi Express Supermarket. Compared to traditional stations requiring 4-5 staff members for round-the-clock operations, now only one staff member is needed for warehouse operations, reducing labor costs while improving efficiency.

In the past, village express packages were stored on shelves, leading to incidents of wrong pickup and loss, and collection was time-dependent. Now, 20 sets of smart parcel lockers with 700 storage compartments not only support package collection but also enable self-service shipping, significantly improving terminal efficiency.

"Currently, we have installed smart parcel lockers at 15 county-level network points and 60 village-level stations in Shijiazhuang," said Jin Yunbo, terminal manager of ZTO Express Shijiazhuang Transfer Center's Network Department. They plan to continue increasing investment in smart parcel lockers to provide villagers with more convenient and efficient express delivery service experiences.

**Unified Warehousing and Joint Distribution Makes Village Express Delivery "Run" Faster**

At 10:00 AM on September 15th, at Shenze County's Storage and Logistics Distribution Center, courier Zhang Yu and colleagues began rapidly sorting packages in the Liucun Township sorting area. Packages from different express companies including ZTO, YTO, STO, and Yunda were sorted and placed into corresponding compartments for different townships.

In Shenze County, four express companies share sorting and joint delivery, implementing a "county-level storage and logistics distribution center sorting—township transportation—direct delivery to village-level service stations" model.

"Previously, express companies operated independently. Due to cost constraints, human resources and transportation capacity could hardly meet the scattered delivery demands in rural areas," said Li Han, a staff member at Shenze County's Storage and Logistics Distribution Center. Now, four express companies have established a joint distribution system that rapidly improves express service quality through centralized delivery and route optimization.

Postal-express cooperation makes village-bound express delivery "run" faster. To clear pathways for express delivery to villages, Wuji County Postal Branch merged traditional township postal routes with village-level postal routes, using express delivery as the main component and village-level stations as nodes. All express packages go directly from county to village, eliminating township sorting and postal management processes, saving time.

Since postal-express cooperation began, Wuji County's express delivery changed from postal delivery once daily and private express brands only delivering to townships, to twice-daily delivery reaching villages.

In recent years, Hebei Province has leveraged the advantages of rural passenger transport networks' extensive routes, wide coverage, and deep reach through "village-to-village connectivity," organizing postal and express companies to actively integrate and proactively connect, opening transport-postal-express cooperation routes and rural cooperation stations to achieve complementary and shared transportation resources.

**Passenger-Cargo-Mail Integration Creates Smooth Two-Way Urban-Rural Logistics Channels**

"Previously, shipping sweet potatoes to other places required a 20-minute drive to the township express point. Now we can ship directly from the base, saving time and reducing travel," said villager Liu Yanxia recently at the sweet potato base in Duanzhai Village, Qiu County, watching packed sweet potatoes being loaded onto a "bus express vehicle."

Currently, Qiu County uses the county-level joint distribution center as a hub, operating 20 passenger-cargo-mail bus routes with postal and express exchange points at bus terminals and transfer hubs, transforming buses into "mobile express stations" and creating a closed-loop "county-township-village" three-level distribution system that seamlessly connects passenger transport and logistics resources, enabling villagers to send and receive express packages at their doorsteps.

Express delivery to villages is a crucial link in bridging the "last mile" for industrial products going downstream and the "first mile" for agricultural specialty products leaving villages. Currently, the province has 653 rural passenger-cargo-mail integration routes and 6,340 stations, continuously expanding the passenger-cargo-mail network.

The integrated development of passenger-cargo-mail services can also promote deep integration between agricultural industrial chains and transportation networks. According to Wei County Deputy County Chief Zhao Jiangfei, through rural passenger-cargo-mail integration development, the county has helped sell over 200,000 pieces of more than 10 types of agricultural products including pears, grapes, tomatoes, and edible fungi, achieving sales exceeding 12 million yuan and effectively driving employment and entrepreneurship for 55,000 farming households and 180,000 people to share benefits.

Furthermore, Wei County has established a passenger-cargo-mail data center and digital management system, enabling real-time sharing and intelligent matching of express package information, passenger vehicle information, package tracking information, and station transfer information.

Rural passenger-cargo-mail integration development serves as important support for comprehensively promoting rural revitalization and is an inherent requirement for improving public service equalization levels. According to reports, Hebei Province will continue promoting rural passenger-cargo-mail integration development and accelerate construction of a new rural transportation service model that is "multi-functional at single points, multi-purpose for single networks, functionally intensive, convenient and efficient."