LOGISTICS T
heir report found the UK economy would lose an estimated £7.64 billion, with road transport and logistics among the hardest-hit sectors. Here, Manuel explains why
global navigation satellite systems (GNSS), which includes GPS, are not just tools of convenience, but critical components of modern logistics. The calculation of a £7.64 billion hit, if
GNSS was down for a week, highlights the importance of this technology to the economy, but for most delivery operators, the issue isn’t the total loss of satellite navigation; it’s the frequent, localised inaccuracies that arise in complex environments. Imagine a delivery driver navigating a busy city centre. The building canyons bounce satellite signals in unpredictable ways and the GNSS receiver can be off by tens of metres. The driver might arrive at the wrong side
of a block or be directed to the rear entrance of a building rather than the front door. After circling the area for ten minutes and calling the customer, the parcel is eventually handed over, but the schedule has already slipped. Multiply that by hundreds of deliveries per day, across thousands of vehicles, and the cost of unreliable positioning becomes clear.
THE URBAN CANYON CHALLENGE Accurate location data has become the determines route optimisation, estimated arrival times, proof-of-delivery records and customer visibility. Yet in dense urban areas, where demand is greatest, traditional GNSS receivers are most likely to struggle. Multipath interference, where signals
reaching the receiver, can create positional errors of several metres. Trees, tunnels and even heavy vehicles can further degrade signal quality. These errors are often invisible to operators; a driver’s app may still show them on the map, even if they are tens of metres away from the correct location. The result is wasted time, rising fuel consumption and customer frustration. The scale of the challenge is growing. The
World Economic Forum predicts that the number of delivery vehicles in cities could rise by 61 per cent by 2030, as e-commerce loses just a few minutes per hour to poor positioning, the cumulative effect across a and environmentally. These challenges aren’t limited to
human drivers. As logistics companies test
URBAN CANYONS AND DELIVERY DELAYS
When the UK Space Agency and London Economics modelled what would happen if satellite navigation were switched off for a week, the results were eye-opening
autonomous delivery vehicles and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), the demand for trustworthy navigation data becomes even greater. For these technologies to be deployed safely and at scale, GNSS performance must be reliable in the most complex real-world conditions.
SMARTER NAVIGATION FOR RELIABLE LOGISTICS At Focal Point Positioning, we’ve focused on addressing these challenges directly. Our patented S-GNSS technology enhances the accuracy and reliability of existing GNSS receivers, improving their ability to handle Crucially, this is achieved through software, without the need for new hardware, allowing logistics operators to upgrade performance The result is positioning data that is not
only more accurate, but more reliable. With improved signal processing, S-GNSS helps the vehicle’s true position with a reliable challenging ‘urban canyon’ environments. For logistics operators, this translates into
36 DECEMBER 2025/JANUARY 2026 | FACTORY&HANDLINGSOLUTIONS
reduced idle time and more predictable delivery schedules. Reliable positioning also strengthens the
broader ecosystem that supports logistics. increasingly expect operators to verify their data integrity. As autonomous systems mature, the ability to prove where a vehicle essential to safety, compliance and public trust.
now depends on the quality of invisible infrastructure in orbit above us. The UK value of GNSS, but on the ground, it’s the micro-failures that quietly erode productivity every day. With smarter, more resilient satellite navigation, logistics operators can reclaim those lost minutes, cut costs and improve customer experience, turning the urban canyons, once unreliable scenarios for logistics systems, into scenarios where those systems continue to work seamlessly without disrupting the delivery chain.
Focal Point Positioning
www.focalpointpositioning.com
THE HIDDEN GPS PROBLEMS SLOWING LOGISTICS By Manuel del Castillo, VP, Focal Point Positioning
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