World Courier regularly reviews its service controls to make sure they add value and match real transportation risks. As part of this work, we want to let you know about a planned update to how we manage real-time monitoring (RTM) devices for metro shipments, which are shipments where the origin and destination are in the same metropolitan area.

In summary

For metro shipments, RTM devices will no longer be deployed. Your shipment handling, chain-of-custody controls, security, and delivery standards remain entirely unchanged.

Why we made this change

Following a formal risk assessment and a review of historical performance data, we concluded that RTM devices do not provide meaningful risk mitigation for metro shipments, based on the following:

• Continuous custody. Metro shipments remain under the direct, uninterrupted custody of a single World Courier driver from pickup through delivery, with no handoffs to airlines, ground carriers, or third-party providers.
• Short transit duration. Metro shipments are typically completed within a few hours. Because RTM devices record location at periodic intervals, these shipments often generate only a single data point during transit, providing limited actionable information.
• Strong historical performance. A review of historical Metro shipment data found no shipment loss events during the review period, and RTM data was never required to locate or recover a Metro shipment.
  The data confirmed that metro shipments are closely managed, quickly completed, and consistently delivered without incident.
  Operational and environmental benefits

Removing RTM from Metro shipments eliminates non-value-added handling steps including device preparation, placement, retrieval, and processing, without affecting any of the controls that matter for your shipments.

This change also supports our sustainability commitments. Reducing device use where it provides no meaningful benefit decreases unnecessary electronic consumption and associated environmental impact.

What stays the same

This update does not affect any of the following:

• Established handling 
• Security 
• Chain-of-custody 
• Delivery protocols
• Temperature monitoring (where applicable)
• Real-time monitoring for non-metro shipments will continue to provide meaningful visibility and risk mitigation

Our commitment to you

We believe the most effective controls are those applied where they add the greatest value. This change reflects that approach and our confidence in the strength of our metro operations.

If you have any questions about this update or would like to discuss how it applies to your specific program, please do not hesitate to reach out to your World Courier representative directly.