

Ask HN: How are the UPS/fedex tracking systems architected? - jhferris3

I imagine they place a high priority on not losing tracking data, and I've never seen a tracking history 'revert' (updates that were there before disappear temporarilty), but there is sometimes a lag between an update and when you can see it through their website.<p>Anyone have any insight/experience with the internals? Just curious.
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nathanstitt
Funny you should ask.

Our IT guys just screwed up both UPS & Fedex's systems here at work just last
week. I'm a programmer at a distribution company, and had a front row seat to
the mess.

We had a power surge that fried two of our shipping stations, and the last
backup was about a week old. Since all the stations are identical, they cloned
the hard drive from one station and put the image onto the two replacement
stations, thereby getting them up and running quickly.

The imaged system and the replacements then started generating identical
tracking numbers. While the packages arrived correctly (the address is encoded
into the barcode), the tracking information was garbage on the both companies
websites. It would show packages jumping from California to Georgia in a
matter of minutes for instance. Packages were delivered multiple times, etc.
No major harm was done, but customer's who were attempting to track their
packages were very confused.

Not sure what you can gleam from this, but at the very least it's obvious that
neither company treats the tracking number as unique, and they don't use them
for anything of importance internally.

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yarone
Also: I am interested in knowing if there is a way to do a "reverse lookup" on
UPS / FedEx / USPS. For instance, I want to know: what packages are pending
delivery to "1234 Main St. Anyplace, CA 91234". I think this would be
extremely useful.

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quartz
FedEx supports this functionality through their InSight service, but only for
packages inbound to a verified address.

You can't just look at anyone's incoming packages. That would be like walking
into a post office and asking if anyone is receiving a flat-screen TV on your
block this week.

~~~
yarone
Do you happen to know what process they use to verify an address?

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kin
What I would like is tracking information that can estimate a better window of
delivery.

For example, I am currently receiving a TV from UPS. I have to be at home to
sign it. But, I have work. I'm not going to take an entire day off. But, the
delivery window is an entire day. Surely, the trucks have some sort of route
and surely the trucks should have some sort of GPS. I don't need to know
exactly where it's at, but c'mon at LEAST a 2 hour ballpark.

