How UPS Eliminates Left Turns to Save Millions of Dollars

Gadgets 360 reported: “UPS, the world’s largest shipping and package delivery service, has trucks deployed all over the world, delivering as much as 15 million packages each day. And these UPS trucks apparently never take a left turn. In the US, and other countries where you drive on the right side of the road, right turns are free, but for a left turn you need to wait for a green light. The idea is simple – removing the turns means less idling at signals, and less fuel consumption, which makes it sound like an idea worth following… Turns out that UPS was right – the idea really paid off. In 2005, a year after it announced that it will minimize left turns, the company said that the total distance covered by its 96,000 trucks was reduced by 747,000 km, and 190,000 litres of fuel had been saved as the company had to deploy fewer trucks on the road to deliver its packages. In 2011, Bob Stoffel, a UPS Senior Vice President, told Fortune that the company had reduced distance traveled by trucks by 20.4 million miles, and reduced CO2 emissions by 20,000 metric tonnes, by not taking left turns. A recent report by The Independent says that the total reduction in distance traveled by UPS trucks now stands at 45.8 million miles, and there are 1,100 fewer trucks in its fleet because of the algorithm. Even by conservative estimates, that’s tens of millions of dollar of savings in fuel costs.”