Toll Group is beefing up its parcel delivery capabilities by building a $150 million freight sorting facility. The company reckon it will be the largest of its kind in Australia. Work has already started on the 71,000 square metre building on 20 hectares in Tullamarine, next to Melbourne Airport. This development reflects the expectation of much higher parcel delivery volumes in the future, as online retailing increases its footprint. The new facility will be a focal point for Toll’s dedicated online parcel delivery service, Toll Consumer Delivery.
“The custom-designed facility, with its highly specialised sortation system will triple our current parcel sorting capacity in Melbourne to an unprecedented 35,000 parcels per hour,” said Brian Kruger, Toll Group Managing Director. “Given the growth we’re seeing in online retail, it is important we continue to improve our already-extensive national network to make it second to none.”
The facility is reckoned to enable the Toll operation to improve safety, fleet productivity, parcel sorting speed and accuracy, along with offering energy and cost efficiencies. The new site is expected to be operational by the end of 2015. Toll has worked with Melbourne Airport, the Victorian Department of State Development, Business & Innovation, and Hume City Council to bring about this project. The facility is being developed in conjunction with Australia Pacific Airports, with Toll investing $50 million and Melbourne Airport $100 million.
Toll stated it decided Tullamarine, with its immediate access to the airport and key arterial roads, was the most suitable site following an extensive 12-month modelling process. The process considered infrastructure and demographic data and projections, freight task data, growth rates, and customer and industry trends. The new facility will see Toll employees, currently working at three sites in Altona and Dandenong, moved to the new Tullamarine facility.