

Why UPS Is So Efficient: 'Our Trucks Never Turn Left" - grellas
http://www.businessinsider.com/ups-efficiency-secret-our-trucks-never-turn-left-2011-3

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drallison
The assertion is clearly not true. If the street is a dead end, the turn
around is clearly a pair of left-hand turns in a drive-on-the-right space. Oh,
and the "never turn left" rule needs to be modified in the third of the world
that drives on the left. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-_and_left-
hand_traffic>

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cperciva
Avoiding left turns is one factor considered by the route-optimization
software, but not the only one.

And unlike the mythbusters test, the route-optimization software can reorder
deliveries; there are many cases where the optimum order to make deliveries
while avoiding left turns is completely different from the optimum order to
make deliveries if you include left turns.

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cafard
They also double park and park in drive lanes when there are driveways or side
streets within a few steps. These efficiencies add to the costs of every other
driver on the road.

Didn't they laugh at J. Edgar Hoover's distaste for left-hand turns?

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gamble
UPS is 'efficient'... So efficient they learned not to waste time on actual
deliveries when they could just claim that the recipient wasn't home without
ever having to stop the truck.

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protomyth
I can see trying this, but the local truck has to turn left given the roads.
Looking at the comments to the story, it seems many are reporting a different
tale.

