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So I think I found out why gas prices are high....

Y

yg17

macrumors Pentium
Original poster
Aug 1, 2004
15,030
3,009
St. Louis, MO
....UPS is wasting all of it!

I ordered something off buy.com for my car (RCA in adapter) last night and because I absolutley need it no later than Thursday since I'm going home from college Friday morning to do a bit of audio work to my car, I opted for next day shipping.

It ships today, and I get the tracking number. I find out, it shipped from Oklahoma City. Well, damn, I probably could have gotten away with ground shipping since the city where I am (Rolla, MO) is about a 5 hour drive away from OKC, and interstate 44 runs through both. Would be a quick delivery over ground. Oh well, I paid for 1 day, I'll get it sooner.

I just checked the tracking number, they flew it out to Louisville, Kentucky. Huh, wtf? In the time it took the flight to get from OKC to KY, they could have driven the package from OKC to Rolla. So now, my guess is the package is going to leave Kentucky on a plane, fly out to St. Louis, then get on a truck down here to Rolla (hour and a half drive) and be delivered sometime tomorrow.

Talk about going out of the way :rolleyes:

I mean, I guess it's safe to assume they know what they're doing, but why in the heck are shipping companies always so inefficent? FedEx is just as guilty...every time I order something from NewEgg, it goes from California to Indianapolis and back west to STL. And if my package isn't here tomorrow because of UPS's decision to toss my package around the midwest, I'm gonna be pissed.
 
It's a lot more efficient to do that when you're dealing with tens of millions of packages, all with different destinations. Your package could have been delivered more efficiently... except that driving a truck with just your package is terribly inefficient. The overall efficiency of these operations is pretty impressive.
 
jsw said:
It's a lot more efficient to do that when you're dealing with tens of millions of packages, all with different destinations. Your package could have been delivered more efficiently... except that driving a truck with just your package is terribly inefficient. The overall efficiency of these operations is pretty impressive.
Click to expand...

True.

However, I'm sure I'm not the only package headed from Oklahoma to anywhere along interstate 44 or any where near it.

Oh well, as long as it gets here on time, I'll be happy even if my package visits more cities than most people do in their lifetime.
 
The gas consumption per mile per pound for each package is so incredibly much less by plane than by truck they save tons of money by shipping on planes, even if it goes a bit out of the way. For the adjusted amount of gas it would cost them to drive your package for 5 hours they could have probably shipped it to Hong Kong and back by plane, or around the world several times by freighter ship. :p
 
yg17 said:
....UPS is wasting all of it!

I ordered something off buy.com for my car (RCA in adapter) last night and because I absolutley need it no later than Thursday since I'm going home from college Friday morning to do a bit of audio work to my car, I opted for next day shipping.

It ships today, and I get the tracking number. I find out, it shipped from Oklahoma City. Well, damn, I probably could have gotten away with ground shipping since the city where I am (Rolla, MO) is about a 5 hour drive away from OKC, and interstate 44 runs through both. Would be a quick delivery over ground. Oh well, I paid for 1 day, I'll get it sooner.

I just checked the tracking number, they flew it out to Louisville, Kentucky. Huh, wtf? In the time it took the flight to get from OKC to KY, they could have driven the package from OKC to Rolla. So now, my guess is the package is going to leave Kentucky on a plane, fly out to St. Louis, then get on a truck down here to Rolla (hour and a half drive) and be delivered sometime tomorrow.

Talk about going out of the way :rolleyes:

I mean, I guess it's safe to assume they know what they're doing, but why in the heck are shipping companies always so inefficent? FedEx is just as guilty...every time I order something from NewEgg, it goes from California to Indianapolis and back west to STL. And if my package isn't here tomorrow because of UPS's decision to toss my package around the midwest, I'm gonna be pissed.
Click to expand...

this holds true pretty much wherever you go. Delivery companies have regional distribution centers that EVERY package goes through regardless of destination. If you live somewhere rural, sometimes they actually send your package 3 cities away when you're really only about 10 miles from the origin. Kinda bites, but it really is more efficient in the long run.
 
yg17 said:
I mean, I guess it's safe to assume they know what they're doing, but why in the heck are shipping companies always so inefficent? FedEx is just as guilty...every time I order something from NewEgg, it goes from California to Indianapolis and back west to STL. And if my package isn't here tomorrow because of UPS's decision to toss my package around the midwest, I'm gonna be pissed.
Click to expand...

There is a FedEx hub in Indy.

Centralized distribution is the only efficient way for large scale shipping to work. Doing it any other way is just not cost effective or efficient.


Lethal
 
Haha, well it looks like UPS set the land speed record:

5:16 A.M. ST. LOUIS, MO, US ARRIVAL SCAN
5:02 A.M. LOUISVILLE, KY, US DEPARTURE SCAN

That's right, 14 minutes to get from Louisville to St. Louis. 1,114MPH if I did the math correctly. I guess they're making up the lost time by sending my package all over the place :D

I think one of their clocks might be off by a few hours
 
yg17 said:
Haha, well it looks like UPS set the land speed record:

5:16 A.M. ST. LOUIS, MO, US ARRIVAL SCAN
5:02 A.M. LOUISVILLE, KY, US DEPARTURE SCAN

That's right, 14 minutes to get from Louisville to St. Louis. 1,114MPH if I did the math correctly. I guess they're making up the lost time by sending my package all over the place :D

I think one of their clocks might be off by a few hours
Click to expand...
Time zones. It was actually 1 hour 14 minutes since time in Louisville is 1 hour later than STL. By air, quite possible, though still impressive.
 
yg17 said:
Haha, well it looks like UPS set the land speed record:

5:16 A.M. ST. LOUIS, MO, US ARRIVAL SCAN
5:02 A.M. LOUISVILLE, KY, US DEPARTURE SCAN

That's right, 14 minutes to get from Louisville to St. Louis. 1,114MPH if I did the math correctly. I guess they're making up the lost time by sending my package all over the place :D

I think one of their clocks might be off by a few hours
Click to expand...
...umm, or one of them might be in a different time zone from the other.

edit: oops, emw beat me to it.
 
wordmunger said:
...umm, or one of them might be in a different time zone from the other.
Click to expand...

Hour ahead, its a 5 hour drive. Wouldn't offset the numbers that much.

Anyways, I just found it humorous.....
 
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