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Why UPS Trucks Rarely Turn Left
- guelo 13y agoIt's interesting that UPS drivers have to solve the traveling salesman problem every morning with additional real-world constraints like this one.
- Lewisham 13y agoThe drivers have a navigation system that maps the direction for them. I knew a guy who worked on it and making sure it turned right a lot :)
- kitd 13y agoHa, wondered why they've never caught on here in the UK.
- protomyth 13y agoFrom the article: "While the no left turn rule has an appealingly simple and algorithmic quality to it, you will see UPS drivers take left turns on occasion, especially in residential neighborhoods without much incoming traffic." So, no, they do turn left. More title mythology.
- rplnt 13y ago+there are times when you are not blocked by oncoming traffic, so I guess it's OK to turn left there. And many other cases like that... And I doubt this is a global rule.
- aaronem 13y agoWell, sure, when there's no traffic against which to have to turn, the cost of making a left is negligible -- especially in American residential neighborhoods, which are often laid out so as to prompt suspicion that they weren't intended to be navigable at all. (And this is not even entirely false! A city neighborhood with access from multiple traffic arteries, and with straight, minimal-distance routes between them, invites through traffic to employ those routes as shortcuts, which is tantamount to inviting rush hour into everyone's driveway.)
- protomyth 13y agoI'm just annoyed we have another article with an inaccurate title that doesn't actually have any examples in the article (like a map of different routes) that show the how and why. Its basically a UPS fluff piece with no substance. It really bugs me because this something to show folks the value of math and analysis. What types of problem solving go on that can really be improved by application of maps and big data. Heck, even the linked article doesn't have a map explaining why this is important.
- Avshalom 13y agoNot to defend the article too much but the title is accurate. It's imprecise but accurate. "UPS routing algorithms have an extremely strong weighting against left turns outside of residential non-through streets" is well within the errors bars of "UPS trucks don't turn left" when using a tool like conversational English. In fact the less data the article gives the more it should prefer "UPS trucks don't turn left" you shouldn't report falsely precise digits.
- protomyth 13y agoThe article has the phrase I quoted that says the title is inaccurate. This is HN, shouldn't we at least have some meat and an article that doesn't directly say the title is wrong?
- dang 13y agoSince the title was false, I changed it to "Why UPS Trucks Rarely Turn Left".
- KC8ZKF 13y agoIt wasn't false. "Why UPS Trucks Don't Turn Left" is not "Why UPS Trucks Never Turn Left." If a truck does not turn left at an intersection, you can ask why it didn't turn left, even if it has and will turn left at other intersections. But really, who cares? What is the obsession with the titles?
- PythonicAlpha 13y agoI just wondered, if the parts of the trucks (specially wheels and steering parts) have uneven wear (off?) by this practice. Apart from that, sounds like a good engineering/optimization result. PS: But there is a solution to that problem, as I see the other posts around .... just bring the trucks with uneven wear to the UK after a while ...
- caw 13y agoYes you do get some uneven wear, but I'm sure UPS's fleet maintenance keeps track of that too. For the tires, you can rotate them on a regular schedule to reduce repeated wear patterns and spread it more evenly on all of the tires before they're replaced.
- PythonicAlpha 13y agoThanks, so for the tires are two possible solutions: Rotate them, or bring them to the UK, if rotation is to much work. ;-)
- api_or_ipa 13y agoa standard tire rotation should handle most of the asymmetric wear on the tire. I'm not sure about the steering system.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- grannyg00se 13y agoIt's hard to imagine that a high number of intersections are so bad for left turns that a three right turn detour is warranted. I've seen some left turn lanes get severely backed up during rush hour on the busiest of streets, but as a general rule I'd expect the left turn would win. I'd be curious to see more data on this.
- ceejayoz 13y agoIn most situations I'd imagine the routing systems can avoid the three-right detours just as much as avoiding left turns. Another truck can likely handle the other road on its route.
- georgemcbay 13y agoDepends on a lot of factors and as mentioned by ceejayoz, the routing is likely a lot more complicated than that, taking into account different trucks operating in the same areas, but I know of quite a few intersections (stop-light controlled rather than stop sign controlled) in my neighborhood where I prefer multiple rights to a left because right on red is allowed (if no oncoming traffic) and you can often make the 3 right turns much faster than waiting for the one left turn at a light.
- ableal 13y agoAside from route optimization, something else that the tracking devices may allow is recording acceleration, braking and instant fuel consumption. This in turn makes possible to train and reward drivers for more efficient driving. It's a big selling point for systems sold to trucking and public transportation companies.
- pcurve 13y agoAmount of fuel saved is actually negligible. With a fleet of 100,000 trucks, it comes out to be less than 1 gallon per truck per year in savings.
- Igglyboo 13y agoThey said they saved 10 million gallons of gas, that's 100 gallons per truck which is $30 million with 3 dollar gas. I think you did your math wrong.
- blinkingled 13y agoFrom TFA - it's not just the right turns that saved them that much fuel though - > As of 2012, the right turn rule combined with other improvements -- for the wow factor, UPS doesn't separate them out -- saved around 10 million gallons of gas and reduced emissions by the equivalent of taking 5,300 cars of the road for a year.
- pcurve 13y ago10 million gallons is since the program was implemented, which was 10 years ago. Even so, my math was off.
- mikeash 13y agoAt $3/gallon that still makes it worth employing a couple of people full time just to work on this.
- dm2 13y agoIt probably only applies to deliveries in dense cities with a grid-like street layout. Anywhere else and it's probably faster to just make the left turn.
- pcurve 13y agoGood point.
- kristiandupont 13y agoIn Denmark, the term højresvingsulykke (right turn accident) is common, meaning when a car, typically a truck, turns right and hits a bicycle. Lots of people are killed from this every year. One theory is that it is primarily foreign truck drivers who are not accustomed to the high number of cyclists in Copenhagen. When I initially saw the title, I was expecting it to be a mistake and actually say "Why UPS Trucks Don't Turn Right". I guess the problem is less severe in the rest of the world.
- rudedogg 13y agoIt's reversed in the US. Lots of accidents occur when people make a left hand turn and don't see a motorcycle/bicycle going straight in the oncoming lane.
- eli 13y agoIndeed. A big problem in DC is cars making U-Turns (i.e. a hard left turn) and cutting across the bike lanes that run along the center of Pennsylvania Ave.
- jonemo 13y agoI think this can be generalized to: Turning and/or crossing lanes results in more potentially dangerous situations than traveling within a traffic lane.
- jnazario 13y agoas a cyclist in the US there's a very common scenario here, too - turning right, looking left, not looking into the turn and bam, cyclist at high risk. TO CLARIFY - the situation i am most referring to is a cross street, where the car is perpendicular to your path and would be coming from your left as a cyclist.
- snarkyturtle 13y agoIsn't that pretty much why you always cycle with the direction of traffic? As a runner, I've been told to run against the flow for safety but almost always run into these types of situations (which is why I mostly go out of my way to run behind the cars stopped at intersections.)
- KC8ZKF 13y agoMythbusters covered this. http://youtu.be/ppCz4f1L9iU http://youtu.be/ppCz4f1L9iU
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- mck- 13y agoIf you're running a business, and would like to apply route optimization to manage your fleet, have a look at Routific [1] Disclaimer: I'm the founder of Routific [1] https://www.routific.com/developers https://www.routific.com/developers
- michaelfeathers 13y agoIn the movie 'Cop Land' Ray Liotta's character (a cop) repeatedly uses the phrase "Don't fight, go right" to refer to a tactic fugitives use: avoiding left hand turns. Apparently, if you know that you can chase better. I think it was meant as a double entendre too - referring to one's moral compass.
- ntoshev 13y agoYou really need a data driven approach in this. Gather statistics of actual vehicles going from point A to point B so that you know the best way to do it in the future. I'm running a routing optimization service (http://fleetnavi.com http://fleetnavi.com if you are curious, but it's only in Bulgarian for now, although Chrome translate works really well on the site). The routes a mapping service like google maps will give you are not that great really, in many cases the data needed to do a perfect route are just not available. We aren't using the stats from routes in the past yet, but it's a next step that would clearly be beneficial.
- mistermann 13y agoId very much like to know why they don't send a text+email prior to a physical delivery so I can confirm whether I will be home to take delivery and potentially offer a reroute address or simply say do not attempt, rather than the current approach of making three unsuccessful attempts.
- oneeyedpigeon 13y agoThat's an excellent point - surely missing a delivery offsets the benefits of a LOT of no-left-turning.
- phillmv 13y agoI imagine it'd depend on the density of deliveries. Once the truck is loaded and navigating a town, the marginal cost of a re-delivery is probably negligible compared to the logistical problem of recomputing optimalish routes and attendant schedules on the fly.
- chewxy 13y agoI recently consulted with a logistics company. Turns out reroutes and missed orders are expensive. Really expensive for the company. Since the company also used owner drivers, the cost of the reroutes are put on the drivers themselves. Naturally, the incentive is not to reroute. Actually, after working with them for a bit, I am a lot more sympathetic to posties who just leave stuff at the door.
- DirtyAndy 13y agoI'm working on this exact issue with a delivery company currently. The biggest question they have is "would you pay for it?". Would you pay extra to receive a message to advise of delivery time, and would you pay extra to have that delivery delivered at another time or elsewhere? Whilst missed deliveries are costly they obviously don't feel that is justification enough to develop a better solution.
- Dwolb 13y agoMy own personal opinion is no, I wouldn't pay for this service. However, maybe the costs can be driven down by simplifying the solution. Instead of 'deliver wherever the customer wants,' only present the customer three options: 'Receive at home,' 'Receive at work,' 'Don't deliver, I'm out of town'. This solution perhaps reduces the complexity in customizing delivery location (fewer possibilities), pushes down delivery costs (fewer missed drop-offs), and increases customer satisfaction (receive package with less hassle).
- Link- 13y agoHasn't this been confirmed on Mythbusters (in SF) as well (Episode 145)?
- techsupporter 13y agoYes, and the article even embeds the video. "If you don't believe it, well, that's why Mythbusters exists."
- tungwaiyip 13y agoMythbusters did not prove anything. They have done just one experiment. It has no statistical significance.
- WalterBright 13y agoIt'd be nice if consumer GPS navigators offered an option like "prefer right turns".
- jakobe 13y agoI'd be happy if my GPS just stopped sending me on detours through residential areas...
- WalterBright 13y agoFor fun I've used my GPS navigator for parts of the city I know well. I've not found its selected routes to be very optimal, though a couple times it suggested a better route I'd never thought of. I suspect what it needs are 'hints' from human users familiar with the areas.
- jzwinck 13y agoWe could use data from other drivers' recent trips to suss out good routes. If I designed a GPS navigator I would add two buttons: Like and Dislike. Users would just tap one to indicate if a route seemed especially good or bad. I mostly want this for my cycling GPS but it could be useful for cars too.
- thaumasiotes 13y agoIt's already a GPS... why not just time the routes directly? (Assuming you're concerned with time, which I assume is at least often the case. For convenience and other 'softer' amenities, hints make much more sense.)
- tehabe 13y agoI can imagine that in a typical American city, but I wonder how this would work in a typical European city. Where you don't usually have so nice even blocks like in the US. I could get to my parents w/o a left turn. So I don't think it is impossible to avoid left turns in a European city but I think it is much, much harder to do so.
- edemay 13y agoCould this inform urban planning? Shouldn't we ban left hand turns more often for everyone?
- hnal943 13y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_left http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_left
- towski 13y agoI have a theory that traffic in cities would be much reduced if we removed left have turns all together. Although I guess in San Francisco most left turns on busy intersections are prohibited, so maybe they already solved this. Then if you make traffic in the alternative direction go over or under then there would be no stopping ever.
- cpwright 13y agoAt least in NYC, they don't ban left turns, but the majority of streets are one-way; and they alternate street by street (or avenue by avenue). So you often need to put together 3 rights to make the left. There are exceptions (e.g., 42nd, 34th, and 23rd are all two way streets); but not too many.
- PeterisP 13y agoIn my city, many largest streets have left turns prohibited at all minor crossings - if you're "getting off the main road" and need to be on the opposite side, then three rights is the only way to get there.
- lutusp 13y agoApropos left turns, former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover was involved in a left-turn accident early in his career, after which he ordered that his drivers never turn left when he was in the car. http://www.fwweekly.com/2011/11/22/tapping-in-to-the-bureau/ http://www.fwweekly.com/2011/11/22/tapping-in-to-the-bureau/ Quote: "A small army of agents spent days planning details of the trip. The supervisor drove the car with Hoover and Tolson. Hoover insisted on riding in the back seat, on the right side. He’d once been injured in a car wreck while sitting in the left rear seat, and he refused to sit there again. Also, the accident occurred during a left turn, and Hoover no longer allowed his drivers to make left turns. This complicated the route to Austin in those days before interstate highways."
- bunkat 13y agoI have a friend that is a UPS driver and he always rolls his eyes when somebody mentions this to him. UPS trucks definitely turn left. Sure the delivery order generally tries to reduce left hand turns, but on the routes that he drove he saw very little difference in the route when comparing them before this 'change' and after it. The biggest cost savings were done by reducing the driver and truck counts and paying the remaining drivers overtime to deliver more packages.
- will_work4tears 13y agoI always get a mental jolt when I see a UPS truck turn left because of this "rumor" or perception or whatever it is. I certainly see it, and remember it when it happens because of the idea that they never do turn left.
- claus1860 13y agoInteresting article! I remember watching the mythbusters episode on it. It all depends on what's more efficient routing wise. Time is money. Not all left turns are bad...
- ritchiea 13y agoActually if you read the entire article it addresses the fact that while UPS finds most left turns inefficient there are some instances where their routing software recommends a left turn.
- oneeyedpigeon 13y agobut the article claims a ratio of 9-1 in favour of right turns, whereas the comment you're replying to implies it's much less than that.
- fnordfnordfnord 13y agoCutting out left turn makes a bigger difference in cities where turns are more frequent and often require waiting due to oncoming traffic. It saves fuel for UPS, else and for everyone who isn't waiting in a lane blocked by a UPS truck that is waiting to turn left. Now if we can just get others to stop turning left (when it requires blocking a lane). Since not all routes are in cities with dense traffic, not all routes will get the same benefit.
- noisedom 13y agoI'm reminded of the one time I drove through New Jersey. Major arterials are all set up like interstates and left turns aren't an option. Usually you have to go further than your destination and take a right to get on an overpass that spits you out in the opposite direction on the arterial. It's very frustrating if you manage to get lost.
- shortsightedsid 13y agoOr you make a Jug Handle turn.
- steven_pack 13y agoI hope they refer to that as the "Zoolander" policy at UPS. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_EacLppMW0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_EacLppMW0
- rdl 13y agoWhenever I get annoyed at labor unions and think they're mostly inefficient rent-seekers, make work, etc. (which they tend to be, in declining industries), the counter-example of UPS comes to mind -- they're unionized, but in a stable or growing industry, and seem to have both fair (not too high, not too low) wages and great performance.
- jonalmeida 13y agoFor people who don't live in North America: If you're at a stop, you follow a "free right" rule where you're allowed to go right even if the traffic lights are red, but as long as there aren't pedestrians crossing. I can see the free-right policy also being a major factor in this as well but I don't see it mentioned.
- jonemo 13y agoWhat most people in North America seem to conveniently forget about this rule: You have to come to a stop first. Another piece of trivia about free right: In all of New York the free right is allowed as long as no "No turn on red" is posted. In New York City, however, the free right is prohibited unless a "right turn on red" sign is posted. In Germany the NYC-style free right exists, with a small sign showing a green arrow on black background indicates that free right is allowed.
- js2 13y agoThis article reminded me of the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_left http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_left
- kissickas 13y agoDon't forget about the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey_left https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey_left (Jughandle, apparently?)
- notfoss 13y agoI guess it would be rather easy to identify an off-duty UPS driver, just by analyzing his/her driving pattern.
- AYBABTME 13y agoAs a teenager, I joked that for political reasons, I prefered turning 3 times right rather than going left. Note: This says nothing of my political views, it was only a joke.