Business Blog: Hoover’s Business Insight Zone

UPS is routing its drivers so they won’t sit in traffic waiting to make left-hand turns. Details in this New York Times story:

Left-Hand-Turn Elimination

Last year, according to Heather Robinson, a U.P.S. spokeswoman, the software helped the company shave 28.5 million miles off its delivery routes, which has resulted in savings of roughly three million gallons of gas and has reduced CO2 emissions by 31,000 metric tons.

Mostly to save myself the grief of waiting, I’m much more likely to circle the block, or just to plan my route differently, so that I can turn with traffic instead of hoping for an opening to cut across traffic.

I think of this often coming into Hoover’s Global HQ, because there’s a driveway near our building where drivers routinely wait minutes at a time to make left-hand turns across the sometimes-vicious traffic of Austin’s Airport Boulevard. Me, I’d be a mile away by then, taking several right-hand turns, if need be, to keep moving.

But getting back to business, I think we’re going to see more and more moves like the left-hand-turn thinking of UPS, simply because the price of fuel is so high. Our current practices include countless pockets of fuel/energy waste that make good economic sense when oil costs less than, say $60 per barrel — but that must be revised in the era of $90 oil.