AeroScout Delivers World's Largest Wi-Fi-Based Active RFID Tag Deployment to City Link

AeroScout, Inc,has announced a major deployment of its asset tracking tags for express parcel delivery firm City Link, the UK's carrier of choice for high-value delivery services.

In the first stage of deployment, AeroScout and its UK Partner JDH Consultancy Limited installed 15,000 specially designed Wi-Fi tags with an extended battery life, which will be used at City Link's depots around the UK. These rugged, Wi-Fi-standard tags jointly designed by AeroScout and JDH Consultancy Limited are being used to manage the company's dynamic inventory of 'roll-cages', which house and protect its high-value parcels during transit.

At any moment in time, up to 300,000 parcels in 15,000 cages at 70 UK locations can be monitored and located in real-time from City Link's National Distribution Centre in Wednesbury, West Midlands over the City Link Cisco Wi-Fi network. By maintaining accurate and real-time visibility of roll-cages, City Link has improved the efficiency and speed of its delivery services.

"City Link is one of the UK's premium high-value express delivery providers, specializing in time-critical services," said Alec Cormack, IT director for City Link. "We have a history of technology innovation, being one of the first UK carriers to utilize two dimensional barcodes on all our parcels. We are very pleased to be the first company in the express delivery market to roll out Wi-Fi-Based Active RFID tag tracking across our business."

Cormack added, "The implementation has already proven successful in optimizing our overnight trucking schedule and is helping us to continue to improve our industry-leading delivery performance. We look forward to extending the technology later in 2007 and working in partnership with our clients to provide truly innovative real-time tracking solutions, tailored to our clients' requirements."

"City Link is the largest Wi-Fi deployment of its kind in the world, and demonstrates both the very real need for such solutions within the logistics sector, and the scalability of the AeroScout solution," said Andris Berzins, managing director, EMEA at AeroScout. "With this deployment, City Link has taken an innovative approach to improving business efficiency and cementing its position at the heart of an extremely competitive market."

The project was delivered through systems integrator JDH Consultancy Limited, which evaluated several companies in the Active RFID marketplace. AeroScout was selected due to the strength of its complete solution, including the high functionality and reliability of its tags, its innovative location software and its ability to use Wi-Fi across a remote set of facilities.

"City Link has shown great foresight in the way it plans to improve the efficiency of its delivery operations by using Wi-Fi technology," said Richard Roberts, director, Wireless Sales Business Development, Cisco. "The size of this implementation demonstrates that Wi-Fi location-based services are not only effective within small areas, but can also be used to improve operations across a large network of disparate sites."