Hermes UK has announced a number of developments to support its predicted busiest peak period yet.

The company is estimating that year-on-year parcel numbers will be up by 14%, with 12.8 million parcels predicted in the first week of December alone.
 
In order to prepare for this, Hermes has implemented the largest peak capacity uplift in the industry, across all hubs, enabling its network to process up to 2.5 million parcels a day.
 
An additional 1,000 trailers and 3,200 scanning devices have been acquired and 560 drivers, 7,000 couriers and 32 peak managers will join existing teams to provide seasonal support. Deliveries will be made seven days a week from the beginning of December up to and including Christmas Eve.
 
In case of bad weather, dedicated teams will be monitoring road surface temperatures and forecasts daily, with grit and snow ploughs strategically placed across the network.
 
The company has also invested £1.4m in equipment that will enable it to significantly increase the number of returns it can process. This is part of a £21.5m investment to boost Hermes’ operational capacity across the business in the last 12 months.
 
Earlier this year, the business opened its third sortation tier at its Rugby hub to support the increased volumes. Hermes’ customer service bot, Holly, will also deal with customer queries.
 
Martijn de Lange, CEO at Hermes UK, said: “We started planning for the peak
period at the start of the year, working with our longstanding and committed retail clients. This ensures we have the required additional capacity to deliver increased parcel volumes at this crucial time of the year, in turn allowing us to deliver a premium service for our customers and clients.
 
“As a growing business which has made significant investment in the past 12 months, we are confident this peak will once again be a resounding success.”