02 Sep 2026
A new AI-powered planning tool could help small rural businesses reduce delivery costs, make better use of vehicles and cut carbon emissions.
Developed by researchers at the University of Manchester in collaboration with the National Innovation Centre for Rural Enterprise (NICRE), the prototype is designed to help businesses coordinate deliveries and explore opportunities to share transport.
Small food and drink businesses in rural areas often manage their own deliveries, sometimes using vans that are only partly full. This can increase costs, take business owners away from other work and create avoidable emissions.
Using real logistics data from food and drink businesses in North East England, the new tool allows users to map their delivery networks and compare different options based on cost, journey time, vehicle use and carbon emissions.
These options include shared deliveries, rail freight, electric vans, e-cargo bikes and potentially using spare capacity on passenger buses. The project’s business survey found that logistics costs averaged 17% of respondents’ total costs, while more than 60% expressed an interest in shared delivery services.
The project suggests that rural freight could be coordinated more efficiently by making better use of existing vehicles and transport networks, without necessarily requiring significant new infrastructure.
However, the technology is not yet ready for general use. It has reached the validated prototype stage, meaning it has been tested using real business data in a controlled setting but has not yet been trialled through live delivery operations.
The researchers are now seeking further funding to test the tool with logistics operators and regional businesses on real routes. This next stage will help establish whether the potential savings and environmental benefits can be achieved in practice, and whether the approach could eventually be used in other rural areas and sectors.
