无人机“快递小哥”在贵阳山区上线，5公斤邮件可飞行30分钟 | Drone mail delivery

Weicheng Town is under the administration of Guiyang City, capital of China's southwestern Guizhou Province. The area has nearly 30,000 residents, some of whom live in villages scattered around the mountains. 

贵阳市卫城镇是一个小镇。几个村子散落在镇子附近的山中，整个地区住着大约两、三万人。

Wang Hua is a staff member at the branch post office in Weicheng. There are about 300 letters and parcels for him to deliver on a daily basis. Usually he carries the 40 kg mailbag on the motorcycle and tramps over the mountains. "Some of the parcels are fresh fruits from the folks' children, which could go bad very quickly,” Wang said. “The parcels also include emergency medicines, ID cards people need urgently for their business."

王华是卫城镇邮政支局的工作人员，每天要送两三百个邮件。平时，他把七八十斤的邮包挎在摩托车上，翻山越岭挨家挨户地送。“有的是孩子孝敬父母的新鲜水果，不能久放；有的是网购的急用药品；有的是邮递到老家办急事用的身份证、户口本。”

Wang begins work at 8 a.m. He has to walk about 100 km per day to cover all the villages, and finishes at about 6 p.m. It takes longer when the weather is bad. Knowing that the parcels are eagerly expected, Wang take good care of them as if they were of his own. "The job is about earning people's trust." he said.

早八点，王华就出发了。要走完所有的村子，一天大概得走一百公里，直到下午五六点才能送完。有时候，遇到刮风下雨，就更耗时间。不过，想到大家都在盼着快递快点到，王华依然像保护自己的东西一样保护着包裹和信件：“我送快递其实送的就是一份安心。”

He takes the same route three times a week and he is quite familiar with the villagers, whom he often runs into and has brief chats with.

这样的路途，王华每周要走三次。因而，他和村民们混得很熟。一路上，都能碰到和他拉家常的人。

In January of this year, Wang's duties changed a lot. A pilot drone delivery project was launched at the branch post office where he works.

今年1月起，王华的邮递之路便有了极大的改变。因为，他所在的邮局成为了使用无人机向边远山区投送邮件的试点。

The course of the drone is set by a R&D company in Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province. Wang is in charge of the takeoff procedure. In the morning, he lays a blue and red blanket on the ground. It's a positioning device for takeoff and landing. Then he mounts the packages under the belly of the drone and checks the battery before he sets it off by scanning the QR code on the machine.

无人机的航线由位于杭州的研发公司设定好，王华负责具体的起飞操作。早上，他将一块红蓝相间的毯子铺在地上。这是无人机起飞和降落的定位毯。随后，王华把无人机机腹下方的邮包装载好，检查电池情况，用手机app扫码让无人机起飞。

A fully charged drone can fly for 30 minutes carrying the cargo of 5 kg, enough for it to reach the nearby villages. There's a relay person in every village who guides the drone with another blanket, gets the mail and replaces the battery. In this way, the parcels are delivered across the town with efficiency.

充满电的无人机大约能载着5公斤邮件飞行30分钟，这足够到达附近的村庄。每个村庄有自己的接收员。同样利用定位毯辅助，他们在无人机降落后负责取邮件并更换电池。就这样，无人机和操作员们用接力的方式，将邮件送到周边的所有村庄。

While it took a day to deliver the mails, the drone can do it within an hour.

从前，需要一天才能完成的投递，现在用无人机，一个小时就能完成。

"Once, an old lady in Lianhua Village had her daughter buy her some emergency medicine on line. It would've taken me 3 hours on a motorcycle to deliver it. But with the drone, it took less than 20 minutes," said Wang.

“有一次，莲花村有个老太太，让她女儿在网上买了药。她又急用。如果我用摩托车给她送过去，就要三个多小时。用无人机十几分钟就送过去了。”王华说。

Many villagers had never seen a drone before. "At first, people were astonished. They gathered in our place just to watch how it works." Some of them asked about the timetable and went to watch several times.

很多村民都是第一次见到无人机。“刚开始的时候，老百姓都觉得很稀奇，都到我们平台上来看热闹。”有的人甚至专门询问无人机起飞的时间，来看了好几次。

Now that the drone delivery is well accepted, only the heavy parcels are delivered using motorcycles. The R&D company collects data of the drone's performance in the town in the hope that the service could be introduced to more remote villages.

现在，村民已经很习惯用无人机送快递，只有大件还在用摩托车送。根据无人机在镇上的表现，研发公司也在加紧研究，希望能把无人机送货普及到更多人力难以到达的边远山村。

"No matter what tools I use to deliver, I'm always closely connected with the villagers," says Wang. Technology may change many things, but the principle of a postman to deliver fast and reliably will always be the same.

“不管用哪种方式送快递，我和老百姓的感情还是和从前一样。”王华说。为了快，为了安心，邮递员的宗旨也未曾随科技改变。

Cameraman: Lu Xuebing

Film editor: Zhou Xin, Ma Mingyuan

Story written by: Zhu Siqi

English editor: Bertram Niles 

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