Couriers Invest in Web Sites, Software, Networks

arcel couriers are consuming technology voraciously to provide their drivers with sophisticated hand-held delivery devices, route their trucks more efficiently and create appealing Web sites where their customers and their customers’ customers will choose to do business instead of making telephone calls to carrier personnel.

UPS Inc., FedEx Corp. and DHL Express — three of the four largest corporations on the Transport Topics 100 for-hire carriers list — are each in the midst of multiyear investment programs in technology-related capital that altogether add up to almost $1 billion, and have thousands of employees working in-house on information technology.

Smaller competitors that service niche markets, such as Dynamex Inc. and Eastern Connection, also said they have made investments to provide their customers with the electronic bells and whistles they would expect to find with the large parcel integrators.