The government will start a program of giving points to shoppers who chose to have delivery parcels left outside their front doors, in a move to reduce the workload of delivery drivers.
The demonstration project is the centerpiece of the government’s emergency policy package, adopted Friday, to tackle the “2024 problem,” a term used to describe the anticipated truck driver shortages that may arise when new overtime regulations go into effect next year.
The policy package says that the points can be used for shopping and will also be provided to shoppers who choose to either collect parcels at nearby convenience stores or set delivery dates that give plenty of time to delivery staff.
In June, the government set a goal of halving the rate of redelivery — when a delivery driver must return a second time to hand off a package — from around 12% to 6% by fiscal 2024.
The policy package also includes a target of doubling the volume of shipments using trains or ships within 10 years. To promote such a structural shift, the government will support the use of bigger containers by the logistics industry.
The government will reflect these policies via comprehensive economic measures that it will compile at the end of October.
The revised labor standards law will reduce the upper limit for truck drivers’ overtime to 960 hours per year, starting next April. The measure means that the amount of cargo a truck driver can transport will decrease, possibly leading to logistics bottlenecks.