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UPS Using Software To Eliminate Left Turns

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the you-can't-get-there-from-here dept.

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.

23 of 511 comments (clear)

  1. I have a solution. by suso · · Score: 5, Funny

    Three rights make a left. Ok, were's my check?

    1. Re:I have a solution. by calebt3 · · Score: 5, Funny

      And two Wrights make an airplane.

    2. Re:I have a solution. by LordSkippy · · Score: 5, Funny

      Don't forget the Nixonian Theorem:

      If two wrongs don't make a right, try a third.

      --
      My karma is in a nose dive
    3. Re:I have a solution. by CastrTroy · · Score: 5, Interesting

      That only works if your city is a grid. The town that I grew up in was not laid out in a grid, and hence, if you took 3 rights, you may not end up doing a left turn. There was even one street that intersected with itself. If you go on that street and keep on turning right, you'll be stuck in an infinite loop.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    4. Re:I have a solution. by Total_Wimp · · Score: 4, Funny

      We shouldn't need a private-sector solution. The government should be designing cites with far fewer left turns. Thank god for the Republicans. Their tireless efforts to turn our country to the right will not be forgotten.

    5. Re:I have a solution. by operagost · · Score: 5, Funny

      New Jersey: All the corruption of New York government, without the ingenuity.

      --

      Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
    6. Re:I have a solution. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      You can take a look at the Wikipedia information on the origin of the quotation:
      "Calwell's remark in Parliament in 1947 that 'Two Wongs don't make a White' is widely quoted. The remark was intended as a joke, being a reference to a Chinese resident called Wong who was wrongly threatened with deportation, and a Liberal MP, Sir Thomas White. Today the remark is seen as evidence that Calwell was a racist."
      [see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Calwell ]

    7. Re:I have a solution. by TrekkieGod · · Score: 4, Interesting

      We shouldn't need a private-sector solution. The government should be designing cites with far fewer left turns.

      I know you're joking, but Brasilia was originally designed like that. The idea wasn't to eliminate the left wing (heh, heh...the city was also designed in a shape that resembles an airplane or bird from an aerial view, depending on who you ask), but to make traffic lights unnecessary. Didn't quite scale as the city grew, and there are traffic lights now, but the idea was awesome...

      --

      Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.

  2. I live in the UK by Morosoph · · Score: 5, Funny

    You insensitive clod!

    --
    Wikileaks, no DNS
    1. Re:I live in the UK by Hoi+Polloi · · Score: 5, Funny

      Based on a lifetime's driving in the Boston Mass area I can assure you that few Americans know how to drive safely in this country either. I think the rule is, just close your eyes, pick up your cell phone and hit the gas.

      --
      It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
  3. Circle.... by ZiakII · · Score: 4, Funny

    If they enter a circle/roundabout do they get stuck in an infinite loop?

  4. Hemispatial neglect by tosh1979 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Who's idea was this? Derek Zoolander's?

  5. Michigan is far ahead of the curve by east+coast · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Left!

    --
    Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
  6. Re:My rant - concept != implementation by scsirob · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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
  7. In Related News.. by Spritzer · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...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."

  8. No turns on red in the UK by mccalli · · Score: 5, Informative

    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

    1. Re:No turns on red in the UK by jimicus · · Score: 5, Informative

      Yes, and we drive on the left in the UK. Which means that the turn which requires you to wait for a gap in traffic in two directions rather than just one is the right turn, not the left turn.

  9. Both UPS and Fedex's software can do this by celnick · · Score: 5, Informative
    The routing software used by UPS, Fedex and USPS all can be used to minimize different turning directions. I used to work at Fedex home delivery and this would be a prime parameter for drivers with larger trucks. The software also can plot you to specific points during the day, like avoiding downtown during rush hour. Although it can minimize left turns, it sometimes makes you drive in circles to do so, makes you go far out of the way, down little streets (since like GPS it doesn't really know any better).

    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."
  10. Can you hear me now? by RingDev · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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
  11. Not all left turns are created equal by sm62704 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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
    1. Re:Not all left turns are created equal by Neoprofin · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You're going for fuel efficiency, many others or not.

      I'll be the first to tell you that most people who gun it between intersection and weave through traffic trying to go faster are just flailing their arms and panicking. They're not helping anyone, especially not themselves.

      However, if you're like me, and you travel the same routes day in and day out you start to see where problems occur. Well calculated lane changes to avoid things like probable stopped buses a block down and left turners without separate lanes can safe you very noticeable amount of time. Suddenly, racing past someone even if it means getting caught at the same light with them means that they're behind you when it all merges down to one lane. Instead of being stuck behind someone going 50mph on the highway, or more than likely 30mph, you're in a position to be in front of the person instead of behind them. Did it save gas? Don't know, don't care. Did it mean I could leave for work ten minutes later and not have to frustrated by slow person in front of me? Yep, and that's what I was looking for.

  12. Re:Makes sense by Dachannien · · Score: 5, Funny

    From a time issue along. Left turns usually require red light wait, whereas many right turns just a stop, count 3 and go. I suppose in the case of a UPS truck, the truck will probably win most of the time, but the rest of us usually make sure nobody's coming instead of counting to 3.

  13. perception != reality by Bearpaw · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.