Royal Mail said its in-house designed automatic trailer unloader had cut the average time taken to unload an HGV from three-and-a-half hours to just six minutes.

Created and built by Royal Mail engineers in just nine months, the innovation was unveiled at the company’s North West parcel hub in Warrington.

It said that previously, unloading loose-load trailers – which hold up to 8,000 parcels – could only be done manually.

The new unloader turbocharges the process by fitting trailers with conveyor belts, providing a seamless connection to the parcel sorting systems inside the hub, which process around 800,000 parcels a day at speeds of 40,000 parcels per hour.

The first automatic trailer unloader is now live and a second will be introduced to the Midlands parcel hub in Daventry in the coming months.

They will be available to some of Royal Mail’s large account customers, as part of the company’s strategy to roll out more automation to boost efficiency and meet growing demand for next-day deliveries.

Neil Chaplain, Royal Mail’s engineering and process design director, said: “Our new automatic trailer unloader dramatically decreases the processing time for loose-load trailers by removing one of the few manual steps at our parcel hubs.

“There is no technology on the market that solves this issue in a way that fully satisfies our needs, so our team of engineers designed our own solution.”

He added: “It is a fantastic opportunity for our large account customers, enabling consumers to order even later in the day for next-day delivery.”