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This is anecdotal, but I've asked about twenty or so UPS drivers that I've met over the years whether they avoid turning left or not, and they all just laugh an

This is anecdotal, but I've asked about twenty or so UPS drivers that I've met over the years whether they avoid turning left or not, and they all just laugh and say "No, that's dumb." Either they're messing with me, they just aren't following "the rules", this "UPS drivers don't turn left" thing is urban legend. I'm kind of leaning toward the latter. Not so much that it never happened, but more that it was something that some data scientist said was a good idea, but never actually works I practice, and so UPS drivers don't actually follow this. Maybe it's a policy. I don't know. I don't have a list of UPS policies handy at the moment. But of the (admittedly small) sample size I've discussed it with, every single one says they do not follow that policy, or is it something they were instructed to do. Which makes me kind of roll my eyes whenever I see these articles or podcasts or what-have-you. They pop up fairly frequently, but... it feels more like clever marketing by UPS than an actual policy.

bigbubba 6y ago
Maybe UPS drivers ignore it, or maybe UPS no longer does it, but it's not an urban legend: https://www.ups.com/us/en/services/knowledge-center/article.page?kid=aa3710c2 https://www.ups.com/us/en/services/knowledge-center/article.... (This link claims they had 55,000 drivers using the system in 2016.)
- Jemaclus 6y ago
  Fair enough!
nraynaud 6y ago
My thinking is that it could be more subtle. (in the US) In very suburban streets in the middle of the day, nobody cares about turning left in an empty street. In more congested and wider streets it could get more delaying. But if the planning has been done by a software before the driver took the truck, the software might have avoided as many left turns as possible without telling the driver, and without having any need to ask the driver to micro-optimize themselves, they just follow the GPS (you probably can't do better), or the most sensical path ca't do better), or do a slight detour to get a snack (unforseeable). Long story short it might be a software policy without being a driver policy, that would be enough to have a significant statistical result, I don't think drivers re-plan their shift.
- db48x 6y ago
  Exactly, all you have to do is reorder the list of stops to make left turns less necessary. You don't need even tell the drivers about it.
- garrettgrimsley 6y ago
  >software before the driver took the truck The UPS route-planning system is called ORION. >they just follow the GPS I'd reckon that anyone on a bid route or other route that they are familiar with can do better than what ORION gives us. We aren't taking solely distance into account, that would be far too simple. We're considering other factors too, including hard time constraints like next day air commit times, regularly scheduled pickups, irregular pickups, business hours, and whether we can even physically access the packages [0, 1] that the system wants us to deliver. >I don't think drivers re-plan their shift. We most certainly do, we wouldn't finish the day if we blindly followed trace. [0] https://youtu.be/fMeBkPd8ZJk https://youtu.be/fMeBkPd8ZJk [1] https://youtu.be/Oi4DW04_D5o https://youtu.be/Oi4DW04_D5o
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    My understanding from someone who contributed to the development of ORION is that drivers are encouraged to try to “beat” ORION’s route guidance and those improvements are incorporated into the route planner. Any truth to that?
    - garrettgrimsley 6y ago
      Simply put, there's no way this is the case. There's a route that I and everyone else I've spoken to all run a certain way and improvements have not been incorporated into the route planning. On this particular route if you run the apartments when ORION wants you to then you'll arrive there after Amazon and FedEx have filled the parcel lockers with their delivery volume, and you'll spend an hour delivering your volume to each individual apartment door. On this route you need to deliver certain dense and volume-heavy areas before your pickups so that you'll have enough room to fit the pickups into the vehicle. I would love to see ORION automatically learn about when streets and such are added, removed, or otherwise changed, but that's a manual process. I can ask the dispatcher about what you're talking about, but as a driver I have seen no such behavior.
mc32 6y ago
Not turning left in leafy suburbs would mean driving a few miles to make a riskier U-turn just to make a right. So it definitely would be counter productive if it were a strict rule.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  U Turns are left turns so would be avoided so the routing software would never have someone make a U turn to avoid a left turn.
  - treeman79 6y ago
    Miss a turn. GPS turn right in 3 miles. Umm, I’ll do a u turn. Used to happen all the time.
    - ogre_codes 6y ago
      We were talking about routing choosing to avoid a left turn. What you are describing isn't a routing software choice, that's you missing a turn. Not equivalent
      - treeman79 6y ago
        My routing software was trying very hard to avoid lefts and especially u turns. This leads to it picking absurd routes. So it’s a tangent on the topic of routing and left turns.
  - mc32 6y ago
    Ah true, the alternative would be six right hand turns or try to circle back trying to find a parallel road from which you could make a right turn. In any case, a left turn in this situation is preferable in suburban and semi rural areas.
nullsense 6y ago
I'm not a UPS driver, but roughly follow this rule when driving and pick routes based on it. I've done so since before I heard about the whole UPS thing, as it makes sense to me, so when I heard that UPS did it too I was like, oh so it's not just me. But alas... maybe it truly is just me.
ogre_codes 6y ago
> This is anecdotal, but I've asked about twenty or so UPS drivers that I've met over the years whether they avoid turning left or not, and they all just laugh and say "No, that's dumb." Either they're messing with me, they just aren't following "the rules", this "UPS drivers don't turn left" thing is urban legend. This article is more about the way routes are planned than the individual choices drivers make along those routes. There isn't a lot of room for agency in route choosing, drivers are given a stack of packages and deliver them in the way the route is built.

bigbubba 6y ago

Maybe UPS drivers ignore it, or maybe UPS no longer does it, but it's not an urban legend: https://www.ups.com/us/en/services/knowledge-center/article.page?kid=aa3710c2 https://www.ups.com/us/en/services/knowledge-center/article.... (This link claims they had 55,000 drivers using the system in 2016.)

Jemaclus 6y ago
Fair enough!

nraynaud 6y ago

My thinking is that it could be more subtle. (in the US) In very suburban streets in the middle of the day, nobody cares about turning left in an empty street. In more congested and wider streets it could get more delaying. But if the planning has been done by a software before the driver took the truck, the software might have avoided as many left turns as possible without telling the driver, and without having any need to ask the driver to micro-optimize themselves, they just follow the GPS (you probably can't do better), or the most sensical path ca't do better), or do a slight detour to get a snack (unforseeable). Long story short it might be a software policy without being a driver policy, that would be enough to have a significant statistical result, I don't think drivers re-plan their shift.

db48x 6y ago
Exactly, all you have to do is reorder the list of stops to make left turns less necessary. You don't need even tell the drivers about it.
garrettgrimsley 6y ago
>software before the driver took the truck The UPS route-planning system is called ORION. >they just follow the GPS I'd reckon that anyone on a bid route or other route that they are familiar with can do better than what ORION gives us. We aren't taking solely distance into account, that would be far too simple. We're considering other factors too, including hard time constraints like next day air commit times, regularly scheduled pickups, irregular pickups, business hours, and whether we can even physically access the packages [0, 1] that the system wants us to deliver. >I don't think drivers re-plan their shift. We most certainly do, we wouldn't finish the day if we blindly followed trace. [0] https://youtu.be/fMeBkPd8ZJk https://youtu.be/fMeBkPd8ZJk [1] https://youtu.be/Oi4DW04_D5o https://youtu.be/Oi4DW04_D5o
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  My understanding from someone who contributed to the development of ORION is that drivers are encouraged to try to “beat” ORION’s route guidance and those improvements are incorporated into the route planner. Any truth to that?
  - garrettgrimsley 6y ago
    Simply put, there's no way this is the case. There's a route that I and everyone else I've spoken to all run a certain way and improvements have not been incorporated into the route planning. On this particular route if you run the apartments when ORION wants you to then you'll arrive there after Amazon and FedEx have filled the parcel lockers with their delivery volume, and you'll spend an hour delivering your volume to each individual apartment door. On this route you need to deliver certain dense and volume-heavy areas before your pickups so that you'll have enough room to fit the pickups into the vehicle. I would love to see ORION automatically learn about when streets and such are added, removed, or otherwise changed, but that's a manual process. I can ask the dispatcher about what you're talking about, but as a driver I have seen no such behavior.

mc32 6y ago

Not turning left in leafy suburbs would mean driving a few miles to make a riskier U-turn just to make a right. So it definitely would be counter productive if it were a strict rule.

ogre_codes 6y ago
U Turns are left turns so would be avoided so the routing software would never have someone make a U turn to avoid a left turn.
- treeman79 6y ago
  Miss a turn. GPS turn right in 3 miles. Umm, I’ll do a u turn. Used to happen all the time.
  - ogre_codes 6y ago
    We were talking about routing choosing to avoid a left turn. What you are describing isn't a routing software choice, that's you missing a turn. Not equivalent
    - treeman79 6y ago
      My routing software was trying very hard to avoid lefts and especially u turns. This leads to it picking absurd routes. So it’s a tangent on the topic of routing and left turns.
- mc32 6y ago
  Ah true, the alternative would be six right hand turns or try to circle back trying to find a parallel road from which you could make a right turn. In any case, a left turn in this situation is preferable in suburban and semi rural areas.

nullsense 6y ago

I'm not a UPS driver, but roughly follow this rule when driving and pick routes based on it. I've done so since before I heard about the whole UPS thing, as it makes sense to me, so when I heard that UPS did it too I was like, oh so it's not just me. But alas... maybe it truly is just me.

ogre_codes 6y ago

> This is anecdotal, but I've asked about twenty or so UPS drivers that I've met over the years whether they avoid turning left or not, and they all just laugh and say "No, that's dumb." Either they're messing with me, they just aren't following "the rules", this "UPS drivers don't turn left" thing is urban legend. This article is more about the way routes are planned than the individual choices drivers make along those routes. There isn't a lot of room for agency in route choosing, drivers are given a stack of packages and deliver them in the way the route is built.