Almost always, UPS drivers do not take left hand turns. It seems like a very trivial thing not to take left hand turns, but over the years, there is a lot of data to support why it is better for them not to. UPS has found that cutting as many left turns as possible, has saved time, money and effort when delivering thousands of packages a day. Packages are even loaded in a very specific way, in order to allow for less time, more deliveries and less miles per driver.
Statistically speaking, there are a few problems to the left turn on the road. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration came out with a study in 2010 that states, 22.2% of accidents occur because of a left turn, and about 61% of crashes occur when a vehicle is making a left turn at an intersection compared to about 3% when a vehicle is making a right hand turn. So, not only can left turns be more dangerous, but they also can add significant amounts of time to the drivers route.
Those giant brown UPS trucks we see traversing our neighborhoods, are not very fuel efficient (surprisingly). UPS estimates that is all drivers avoid left turns as much as possible, then they can save an average of 10 million gallons of fuel annually, save about seven miles per route, cut down on about 100,000 metric tons of carbon emissions annually. All of these numbers are equivalent to taking about 21,000 cars off of the road completely. So while driver safety is extremely crucial, UPS is also taking steps in order to efficiently deliver packages, while also cutting down monetary and environmental cost. On a daily basis, UPS is responsible for having about 90,000 trucks delivering packages everyday, adding unnecessary left turns to a route, would add about 1,000 trucks on the road per day.
UPS logistics has systems and software that can actually route a driver on a specific path without the need for any left hand turns. These systems intuitively can calculate various speed limits, road and bridge heights, and parking lots. A normal mapping system does not have the concept of not displaying left turns. Sometimes, the most direct path is not the best path.
This is all thanks to a system called Orion. This system analyzes the daily 18 million deliveries, about 250 million address locations and points, about 30,000 optimized routes per minute. One average, Orion has an estimated saving of an extra 100 million miles annually. UPS, with a previous and dated system, was able to cut about 85 million miles. In money, this translates into about 300 million dollars saved in total running costs.
(Wayne Gerdes and his 60mpg Accord)
Wayne Gerdes, a world record holding fuel efficient driver suggests a theory called Hypermiling, a system that outpaces EPA guidelines on the vehicle that is being driven. For example, Gerdes travelled across 48 states in a Golf TDi, that markets for about 45 miles per gallon. He was able to get it up to 81 miles per gallon. While not every person who commutes can do such a thing, he suggests that preplanned routes, such as school or work, should be mapped out in multiple ways and that eliminating as many left turns as possible can allow for maximum efficiency.
