In many industries, renting textiles has long been established as a convenient alternative to the “do-it-yourself” approach. A specialised service provider supplies customers with professionally processed workwear and protective clothing, hotel linen and hospital textiles, mats and mops in return for a monthly rental fee. The service generally also includes a delivery operation, exchanging soiled rental textiles for clean ones. Depending on the country, similar services are also available to private customers. For example, people in India or the USA who do not wish to take care of their personal laundry can delegate this task to a laundry or dry-cleaning chain – including collection and delivery. Customers schedule, pay for and track the status of their items via an app. However, with endless traffic jams in megacities and overcrowded motorways, delays are always a possibility. Commercial customers – especially those located in city centres – can no longer freely decide when their laundry should arrive either: traffic-calmed and low-emission zones impose access restrictions on delivery vehicles, and violations may result in fines.
