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> Most misleading quote of the article: "“What percent of your deliveries are truly urgent — 5 percent or 2 percent?” said Mr. Holguín-Veras, the Rensselaer pro

> Most misleading quote of the article: "“What percent of your deliveries are truly urgent — 5 percent or 2 percent?” said Mr. Holguín-Veras, the Rensselaer professor." Good call out, 80% of the outrage machine have no basis in numbers and uses erroneous logic like this.

acdha 7y ago
Is that really erroneous? It seems quite reasonable to me: is every truck 100% loaded or do they have many trucks traveling now with whatever needed to go out to hit the promised deadlines? Extra time gives them the ability to improve utilization of each truck, better route scheduling, and the possibility of off-hours deliveries avoiding peak congestion times.
- crazygringo 7y ago
  From what I read and observe, trucks are already basically maximally loaded to what can be delivered in a shift -- they adjust the number of trucks and their routes to fit whatever the load of packages is. The software is really good at this. In other words, they don't send out a truck out half-full when they could wait until tomorrow to send a full truck, which seems to be what you're suggesting. They just have a truck cover twice the area so it's full.
  - acdha 7y ago
    That means more vehicle-miles where it’s taking up space and likely drivers who are less familiar as well. My point was just that aggressive deadlines preclude options: if you live on 3rd St and I live on 4th, one truck can deliver both of our packages with only minimal increased distance but that depends on enough people ordering within the same delivery window. Otherwise you get what I see a lot, which is the same company showing up at the same houses every day of the week even if most people could have waited to improve efficiency. I suspect the long-term strategy might be to brand it as a pollution savings bonus, transforming a longer wait from something almost everyone sees as a negative into something which many people will feel good about.
    - fredophile 7y ago
      I doubt the last mile efficiency is a big factor here. I suspect that the real optimization is in the longer parts of the route. If you're shipping something a thousand miles to get to a customer it makes sense to have a few more trucks driving around a city if it means you have less planes, long haul trucks, etc. When I order something off Amazon and choose the longer shipping times I don't usually see it getting shipped from wherever it is to a warehouse near me and held for a couple days before delivery. Instead I usually see nothing being done until near the deadline when it ships from the warehouse. Occasionally I'll see it ship from the warehouse a few days early.
    - smallnamespace 7y ago
      Aggressive deadlines do not preclude options once you reach sufficient scale. There's a truck that will get to your street today. If you have a rush package on that truck, it goes along with all the other rush and non rush packages from N days ago.

acdha 7y ago

Is that really erroneous? It seems quite reasonable to me: is every truck 100% loaded or do they have many trucks traveling now with whatever needed to go out to hit the promised deadlines? Extra time gives them the ability to improve utilization of each truck, better route scheduling, and the possibility of off-hours deliveries avoiding peak congestion times.

crazygringo 7y ago
From what I read and observe, trucks are already basically maximally loaded to what can be delivered in a shift -- they adjust the number of trucks and their routes to fit whatever the load of packages is. The software is really good at this. In other words, they don't send out a truck out half-full when they could wait until tomorrow to send a full truck, which seems to be what you're suggesting. They just have a truck cover twice the area so it's full.
- acdha 7y ago
  That means more vehicle-miles where it’s taking up space and likely drivers who are less familiar as well. My point was just that aggressive deadlines preclude options: if you live on 3rd St and I live on 4th, one truck can deliver both of our packages with only minimal increased distance but that depends on enough people ordering within the same delivery window. Otherwise you get what I see a lot, which is the same company showing up at the same houses every day of the week even if most people could have waited to improve efficiency. I suspect the long-term strategy might be to brand it as a pollution savings bonus, transforming a longer wait from something almost everyone sees as a negative into something which many people will feel good about.
  - fredophile 7y ago
    I doubt the last mile efficiency is a big factor here. I suspect that the real optimization is in the longer parts of the route. If you're shipping something a thousand miles to get to a customer it makes sense to have a few more trucks driving around a city if it means you have less planes, long haul trucks, etc. When I order something off Amazon and choose the longer shipping times I don't usually see it getting shipped from wherever it is to a warehouse near me and held for a couple days before delivery. Instead I usually see nothing being done until near the deadline when it ships from the warehouse. Occasionally I'll see it ship from the warehouse a few days early.
  - smallnamespace 7y ago
    Aggressive deadlines do not preclude options once you reach sufficient scale. There's a truck that will get to your street today. If you have a rush package on that truck, it goes along with all the other rush and non rush packages from N days ago.