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I worked as a "UPS Delivery Helper" in college during the holiday breaks. I was assigned to a UPS truck and my job was to take the packages from the truck to t

I worked as a "UPS Delivery Helper" in college during the holiday breaks. I was assigned to a UPS truck and my job was to take the packages from the truck to the door while the driver scanned the next package to be delivered so he never had to leave the truck. I remember that as we got close to Christmas the packages were packed in the trucks so tight that there was little rhyme or reason to their placement. The entire "aisle" in the back of the truck was filled to the brim. We would literally just choose a random package that was blocking the aisle and go deliver it, often driving back and forth across our area in a very roundabout manner. Once the aisle got cleared and we could actually get to the shelves, the packages could be delivered in a more sane manner. It always struck me as terribly inefficient but perhaps to UPS the last mile doesn't matter as much because the driver is basically committed to getting his route clear no matter how long it takes.

themodelplumber 9y ago
I wondered about this. A truck was doing the weirdest little pattern around our neighborhood recently. There were two men inside, one older guy doing some kind of tasks inside the van, and another who looked like an off-season track star grinning at people and running these big boxes sometimes a full block to the shipping address.
- LMYahooTFY 9y ago
  The man inside was presumably just sorting packages. They train drivers to occasionally rearrange the next bunch of packages in order on the top passenger side shelf for quick access. And this time of year the trucks are so over packed it takes a while to simply find some packages due to clutter and misloaded packages.
kjrose 9y ago
This seems like a combinatorial problem that would very much be worth solving. I can actually come up with some fun mathematics already to deal with it.
- FabHK 9y ago
  The Traveling Salesman problem is very well known. What other problem do you have in mind? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travelling_salesman_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travelling_salesman_problem
  - kccqzy 9y ago
    The travelling salesman problem in its classic formulation simply wants the shortest path. But there can be other optimization goals like minimum fuel consumption, which might favor dropping off heavier packages first. Or perhaps minimum total time spent, which entails considering the dynamic traffic conditions like Google Maps or Waze does. Even in the classic problem, there is of course a crucial step of first using a Floyd–Warshall like algorithm to figure out the distances between your destinations.
- elliotec 9y ago
  I’m sure UPS will be hiring for holiday shifts next year, you can put it to good use!
  - make3 9y ago
    I'm not sure what you're implying, this would actually be extremely worth while for UPS
    - nagVenkat 9y ago
      He is being sardonic. UPS employs some of the best minds in optimization. The case you mentioned is probably not that complicated for UPS.
- viraptor 9y ago
  Looking at truck size, this doesn't even look like a very hard problem. You can essentially solve it per neighbourhood / post code and then inside each of those sections separately for a good approximation. The interesting question is: why doesn't UPS think that's worth doing? Or are there some fun constraints we're not aware of? Or specifically: why don't drivers get a preferred route along with their packages?
drdeadringer 9y ago
I believe this. The small business I interned at had similar stories of their UPS deliveries during this holiday time. They'd be expecting some business deliveries, the brown truck would pull up, and the driver had the task of un-building an Incan stone structure out of the back just to get a few packages.
WalterBright 9y ago
I always thought the route was precomputed for maximum efficiency.
- 8note 9y ago
  I'm surprised the packages are put in with the route in mind
- mathattack 9y ago
  But by a model made for the other 364 days per year.
sliverstorm 9y ago
Surge models can afford to be inefficient, they are needed rarely and the other 364 days a year your don't want extra overhead.
- Fnoord 9y ago
  364 days is going to differ per model though. (Actually, reading the part of the article which I can, says: "[...] The initial sign ups are voluntary and usually set weeks before the busiest periods." so even here the peak isn't merely 1 day.) For example, an apothecaries here are very busy in december (insurance-related) so they have spikes throughout entire december. That's when employees are expected to not take free days off. We also got flex workers who are asked (practically demanded) to show up during peaks. During lows they stay home and don't get paid. The uncertainty attached to such (highly) fluctuating income, together with night shifts (in factories) is a killer. Bad for your stress levels and health. My partner worked in an apothecary and the stress levels of everyone turned through the roof in december. So it may seem we should applaud UPS to push their output, but I highly suspect that in reality these white collar workers are just supporting the overburdened blue collar workers. Even if it just mentally supports them because they know they're being helped.
joelrunyon 9y ago
I did this too. Trying not to slip on ice, break packages, or get chased by dogs made for an interesting winter.
hbosch 9y ago
Adding my experience. I was a driver helper at one point too, and my driver would deliver all the commercial/business packages first, then park in an empty area (residential side street or parking lot) and we would handsort the remaining packages along his personally directed route. We'd unload each package one by one, the driver chucking them to me from inside the truck with the words "right" or "left" and I'd form two piles depending on the word, then I'd toss them back. First one pile, then the next. He had his route memorized and after reloading delivery was super efficient. It blew my mind that we wasted an hour or so every day just to optimize something that could be automatic via a machine or at least implemented by the loaders... Sad to see it still hasn't changed.
- equalunique 9y ago
  It's almost as if you all sorted your own binary search tree of UPS packages.
  - halflings 9y ago
    Even better than that: a literal traveling salesman problem! At least building a binary search tree is O(n.log(n))... what they were solving is NP hard (for the optimal solution).
cgb223 9y ago
where do I sign up for something like that? How’s the pay?
chaostheory 9y ago
Worked as a trainer to teach new employees how to load trucks in college at a large UPS distribution site. There is an ideal way to load trucks for safety and efficiency i.e. heavy items on the bottom, small light items on top, and hazmat on the bottom sides. This is easy to achieve when the package traffic is light and possible even during moderate package flow. You can think of this process as physical Tetris, which is a great workout. Unfortunately when the package load is very high, loaders just end up hapzardly loading trucks to keep the package flow going and to meet nightly deadlines of filling x number of trucks. This problem was compounded by a high turnover rate, which didn't exist before the addition of health insurance effectively cut hourly salary in half. This process may be more efficient today with better scanners, that hopefully no longer requires loaders to manually key in tracking ids.
peter303 9y ago
I am surprise the trucks dont have randomly loaded internal shelves like Amazon warehouses. Less compact packaging. But always know where everthing is. Plus there are near optimal traveling salesmen algorithms for minimizing driving. Exact optimal path are NP incomplete. But you can get fairly close. I wonder if the white Amazon vans do any of this.

themodelplumber 9y ago

I wondered about this. A truck was doing the weirdest little pattern around our neighborhood recently. There were two men inside, one older guy doing some kind of tasks inside the van, and another who looked like an off-season track star grinning at people and running these big boxes sometimes a full block to the shipping address.

LMYahooTFY 9y ago
The man inside was presumably just sorting packages. They train drivers to occasionally rearrange the next bunch of packages in order on the top passenger side shelf for quick access. And this time of year the trucks are so over packed it takes a while to simply find some packages due to clutter and misloaded packages.

kjrose 9y ago

This seems like a combinatorial problem that would very much be worth solving. I can actually come up with some fun mathematics already to deal with it.

FabHK 9y ago
The Traveling Salesman problem is very well known. What other problem do you have in mind? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travelling_salesman_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travelling_salesman_problem
- kccqzy 9y ago
  The travelling salesman problem in its classic formulation simply wants the shortest path. But there can be other optimization goals like minimum fuel consumption, which might favor dropping off heavier packages first. Or perhaps minimum total time spent, which entails considering the dynamic traffic conditions like Google Maps or Waze does. Even in the classic problem, there is of course a crucial step of first using a Floyd–Warshall like algorithm to figure out the distances between your destinations.
elliotec 9y ago
I’m sure UPS will be hiring for holiday shifts next year, you can put it to good use!
- make3 9y ago
  I'm not sure what you're implying, this would actually be extremely worth while for UPS
  - nagVenkat 9y ago
    He is being sardonic. UPS employs some of the best minds in optimization. The case you mentioned is probably not that complicated for UPS.
viraptor 9y ago
Looking at truck size, this doesn't even look like a very hard problem. You can essentially solve it per neighbourhood / post code and then inside each of those sections separately for a good approximation. The interesting question is: why doesn't UPS think that's worth doing? Or are there some fun constraints we're not aware of? Or specifically: why don't drivers get a preferred route along with their packages?

drdeadringer 9y ago

I believe this. The small business I interned at had similar stories of their UPS deliveries during this holiday time. They'd be expecting some business deliveries, the brown truck would pull up, and the driver had the task of un-building an Incan stone structure out of the back just to get a few packages.

WalterBright 9y ago

I always thought the route was precomputed for maximum efficiency.

8note 9y ago
I'm surprised the packages are put in with the route in mind
mathattack 9y ago
But by a model made for the other 364 days per year.

sliverstorm 9y ago

Surge models can afford to be inefficient, they are needed rarely and the other 364 days a year your don't want extra overhead.

Fnoord 9y ago
364 days is going to differ per model though. (Actually, reading the part of the article which I can, says: "[...] The initial sign ups are voluntary and usually set weeks before the busiest periods." so even here the peak isn't merely 1 day.) For example, an apothecaries here are very busy in december (insurance-related) so they have spikes throughout entire december. That's when employees are expected to not take free days off. We also got flex workers who are asked (practically demanded) to show up during peaks. During lows they stay home and don't get paid. The uncertainty attached to such (highly) fluctuating income, together with night shifts (in factories) is a killer. Bad for your stress levels and health. My partner worked in an apothecary and the stress levels of everyone turned through the roof in december. So it may seem we should applaud UPS to push their output, but I highly suspect that in reality these white collar workers are just supporting the overburdened blue collar workers. Even if it just mentally supports them because they know they're being helped.

joelrunyon 9y ago

I did this too. Trying not to slip on ice, break packages, or get chased by dogs made for an interesting winter.

hbosch 9y ago

Adding my experience. I was a driver helper at one point too, and my driver would deliver all the commercial/business packages first, then park in an empty area (residential side street or parking lot) and we would handsort the remaining packages along his personally directed route. We'd unload each package one by one, the driver chucking them to me from inside the truck with the words "right" or "left" and I'd form two piles depending on the word, then I'd toss them back. First one pile, then the next. He had his route memorized and after reloading delivery was super efficient. It blew my mind that we wasted an hour or so every day just to optimize something that could be automatic via a machine or at least implemented by the loaders... Sad to see it still hasn't changed.

equalunique 9y ago
It's almost as if you all sorted your own binary search tree of UPS packages.
- halflings 9y ago
  Even better than that: a literal traveling salesman problem! At least building a binary search tree is O(n.log(n))... what they were solving is NP hard (for the optimal solution).

cgb223 9y ago

where do I sign up for something like that? How’s the pay?

chaostheory 9y ago

Worked as a trainer to teach new employees how to load trucks in college at a large UPS distribution site. There is an ideal way to load trucks for safety and efficiency i.e. heavy items on the bottom, small light items on top, and hazmat on the bottom sides. This is easy to achieve when the package traffic is light and possible even during moderate package flow. You can think of this process as physical Tetris, which is a great workout. Unfortunately when the package load is very high, loaders just end up hapzardly loading trucks to keep the package flow going and to meet nightly deadlines of filling x number of trucks. This problem was compounded by a high turnover rate, which didn't exist before the addition of health insurance effectively cut hourly salary in half. This process may be more efficient today with better scanners, that hopefully no longer requires loaders to manually key in tracking ids.

peter303 9y ago

I am surprise the trucks dont have randomly loaded internal shelves like Amazon warehouses. Less compact packaging. But always know where everthing is. Plus there are near optimal traveling salesmen algorithms for minimizing driving. Exact optimal path are NP incomplete. But you can get fairly close. I wonder if the white Amazon vans do any of this.