Why UPS Trucks Don’t Make Left Turns

Most everyone would like to save some money on gas since prices can sometimes get wild. It seems like getting better MPG’s is all you hear about nowadays with people buying hybrids and even electric cars. When it comes to running a delivery business, like UPS, it makes sense to try and figure out how to reduce costs and increase profits in any sensible way possible.

Something interesting that UPS engineers discovered is that left-turns were a major drag on efficiency of their delivery trucks. Not only did waiting for left-turns cause the drivers to fall behind on their schedules but also burned more gas and increased the likelihood of accidents. After these findings, UPS implemented a right-turn policy in 2004. UPS has routing software that routes drivers to their destination using as many right-turns as possible. UPS estimates that this policy shortens routes by 20.4 million miles and saves 10 million gallons of gas! As a result of these benefits, UPS delivers an additional 350,000 packages a year while reducing C02 emissions by 20,000 metric tons.

That’s highly interesting that left-turns caused so many problems that many people would not even know about. What do you think about this? Let us know in the comments!