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UPS Using Software To Eliminate Left Turns
cybermage writes "The NY Times has a story about UPS using software to dramatically reduce the number of left turns their drivers take. With a fleet of vehicles their size, the time and money saved by pre-planning routes that try to eliminate left turns means big savings." Some CS major probably figured this out instead of traveling salesman.
Three rights make a left. Ok, were's my check?
You insensitive clod!
Wikileaks, no DNS
If they enter a circle/roundabout do they get stuck in an infinite loop?
Who's idea was this? Derek Zoolander's?
Left!
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Last year, one of my coworkers told me the same story.
He also said he knew a place that was virtually unreachable unless you took a left turn. It was not uncommon to see a UPS truck circle around the place a few times before they arrived.
WWTTD?
There's a difference between concept and implementation. Traffic shaping on highway onramps can help reduce congestion on the highways itself. This must be inplemented with some sort of feedback loop between traffic flow on the highway and the number of cars allowed onto it.
If you are waiting a long time when no traffic is on the highway then the implementation is flawed.
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
...it seems FedEx has decided to cut costs simply by not delivering packages.
Said FedEx spokesman Dewey Shippit, "We've found that there is a significant savings in randomly tossing packages into a large warehouse and not delivering them. The cost of delivering those packages far exceeds the cost of repeatedly 'issuing a trace' to locate the missing item."
I generally plan my routes to avoid left turns. I have since I first learned to drive. However, if I must make a left turn, I find making it at a stop light with a turn lane is much faster, safer and easier than making a left turn without a light on a busy street. Stop lights also save more time and energy than stop signs. Maybe UPS should consider that next.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
In case people don't know why the parent made that post - you can't make any sort of turn on red in the UK. Red means stop, and stop is what it means. No wiggle room.
I remember driving in San Francisco, my first time driving in the US. I only got caught the once being beeped because I'd just stopped at red and didn't turn right although it was clear, but my other local transgression was a lot worse. We came up to some flashing red lights - I had no idea what they were for. There was one car in front of us before the lights, it stopped for a while and then went. I thought "ah ha - flashing red means stop and go if clear".
It doesn't. It means "tram coming". I found this out at the end of the week we stayed there, suddenly realising I'd spent the entire week running red lights against trams...
Cheers,
Ian
The article is actually about how UPS is going to lessen global warming or some such silly thing like that. They aren't, the increased distance the route can plot makes you drive as long (it doesn't truly matter if your diesel truck is idling at a light or driving in a circle). It is, however, easier for a driver to make less left turns and probably has some sort of psychological effect on other drivers to not see them in the left lane.
"Last year, according to Heather Robinson, a U.P.S. spokeswoman, the software helped the company shave 28.5 million miles off its delivery routes, which has resulted in savings of roughly three million gallons of gas and has reduced CO2 emissions by 31,000 metric tons."
The software is excellent, it makes great routes, can cut down on any number of hassles, but seriously the main point is NOT to eliminate left turns. The software is meant to get more packages out, more quickly, to more people, with less drivers, and more profit.
Silly NY Times writers.
"Write the bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble."
After the .Com bubble burst left the IT market in shambles, us contractors were scrambling for work. One of the odd jobs I wound up with in that time frame was doing exactly what the "Can you hear me now? Good!" guy did. Only I had a car, multiple phones, and a lap top with some really cool software.
I drove virtually every road from NW Chicago, to Door County Wisconsin, over to LaCrosse, and down to Iowa. And it only took a handful of days to start looking for route optimizations. We didn't have software to do it for us, we had state maps, plotter maps, and the laptop maps with GPS. Eliminating Left turns in busy areas, specifically those with out turn signals was always a high priority.
I can imagine the problem would be even more significant for UPS drives because of the number of left turns they will have to make in uncontrolled intersections. Turning left on a 4-lane avenue with no traffic lights into driveways, frontage roads, parking lots, what ever, can be a PITA in a car, let alone a straight-truck. The amount of gas they can save from idling, and gunning it hard to clear traffic probably adds up to a significant amount over the length of the day.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
I drove for UPS and will say I hope it works out. Any way to shave precious seconds off a delivery are welcomed.
However, having used the DIAD IV system, I can't see it working out too well. If you're not familiar with it, DIAD is the little brown LCD screen you sign whenyou get a package and has all the stops a driver makes in his day organized in an order that is suppose to be the easiest and quickest. The problem is very rarely is it done right. So you'll be driving on 4th, and the next stop will be on the same end of 3rd. The problem is 3rd is a one way and if you turn on it you'll be hitting oncoming traffic. So you either need to swing around the block (wasteful use of time) or deliver it later via a different route.
Fortunately nobody with half a brain relies on DIAD for their route info. A driver with enough experience will know their route and what stops to make when.
With that being said, it was easily the worst job I ever had. I ran all day and barely ate. In a 2-3 week period I lost 15 pounds.
Congress was working up a bill that would retrofit all the roads in the
US so we're either straight or turned right. The bill was dropped when
they discovered the principle designer, MC Escher had pased away and nobody
else was capable of drawing them.
Belthize
They work great here in Columbus, Ohio. They only go on during heavy traffic times, and keep the flow of traffic on the highway going at a relatively quick speed. In Cleveland, where they do not have them. During a green light merge frenzy, the speed of the highway easily drops below the speed of local streets.
I'm a wierdo, but of course if I wasn't I wouldn't be on slashdot. Nerds aren't exactly "normal" now are we? At any rate, at three bucks per gallon I've been driving in such a manner to minimize my gas useage. It annoys my passengers, while I'm annoyed at the dimwits who race to the next red light, only to be sitting there making me stop at a green light.
I found I wasn't unique, there is actually a name for people like me - "hypermilers". The EPA estimate on my large car (I'm not even a radical hypermiler) is 35 mpg on th ehighway, I can get 36 if I do 50MPH (which REALLY pisses people off, even though I stay in the right lane).
Any way, left turns onto a highway do, indeed, use gas, particularly if there's heavy traffic. But at an intersection, particularly with a left turn arrow, it uses no more gas than a right turn. You have to use as much gas idling to wait for traffic turning right from a side street as you do waiting for traffic turning left on to a side street.
But the seconds of idling don't use much gas at all. What REALLY uses gas is stopping, period. Every time you touch your brake you convert the kinetic energy you spent gas obtaining to heat and throw it away. If you're stopped completely you must overcome inertia, which takes even more energy.
So when I take my foot off the gas when the light ahead turns red, coast to it, and am forced to stop behind your stupid ass at a green light because you zoomed around me racing to the red light, I'm blasting my horn, you rich damned dumbass. Waste your own damned gas but waste mine and I'm pissed.
-mcgrew
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
While the implementation may well be flawed, it's also possible that the observer's perception of the situation is too limited to adequately judge it. By the nature of the problem, shaping traffic patterns can involve local actions that look non-optimal but have a positive effect on the overall system.
and your parents made a mistake