BottleNeck

We have been moving to an online & delivery shopping experience. Brick and Mortar stores are fading as we enter this new world of E Commerce shopping / shipping and products are being delivered directly to our front door.

Right now we are seeing an explosion of the delivery industry via many different modes / methods. From the giant ground parcel carriers such as UPS/FedEx to the smaller delivery businesses such as food delivery, grocery delivery, personal taxi delivery, flower delivery, contracted personal carriers, small biz startup van carrier fleets... The E Commerce giants like Amazon who do it all, the e commerce platform and the delivery. Regular LTL and TL carriers, Container loads and Rail loads. IF you can think of a business type, you might as well add on delivery to your doorstep of their product now a days b/c this is the boom currently and to be competitive the biz model needs to incorporate this into their plan. For this thread I am more focused on the increase in traffic via our roadways to get the product to your door step on time and what changes are we going to see come about as a result of this boost in traffic.

So my mind has wondered and shifted toward the infrastructure our current cities and areas have which will have to handle all the extra traffic on the road ways. We have so many more delivery vehicles on the roads today due to the shift and change in the shopping experience. On the other side of that, we have more folks shopping from home sitting in front of their computer so would this lesson the traffic on the roadways to enable room and space for the increase in the delivery business empire ? I'm not seeing this. What I see coming is a saturated transportation infrastructure of so many delivery vehicles that a bottleneck is created halting and hurting this new shopping/shipping/delivery and business concept.

We see this happen in most new industries of the current day. An explosion of it in the beginning as everyone scampers to get on-board with the program and then a bottleneck jam that creates a stop or a block or problem. Delivery vehicles are starting to bump into each other. You could see 10 types of delivery vehicles in just one small block area and compounding the issue are all the other types of vehicles you'd see on a typical work day such as construction vehicles, other service industry type vehicles, tree cutters, carpet cleaners, utility trucks, car wash mobiles, plumbers... so on so forth. I believe we are entering the bottle neck stage and in the near future we will experience a grand shift as the bottle neck clears.

I predict that when this clears we will see another explosion of the changes and improvements to solve the bottle neck situation. What I am pondering is what will those changes be and who will be the front runners of the changes and who will feel the crunch of those changes.

Who will be able to afford the changes that make the most difference for success. The big companies with money backing them already or the little start up home grown companies. How many drivers will lose their jobs as a result of the bottle neck being cleared ? How many delivery fleet vehicles will get abandoned to hard times and changes that will come ?

Some examples of the changes already implemented or being considered and enforced are as follows:

1) Order online then pickup. Instead of having the product delivered to your door, you cut the process in half. You still purchase your product online, but instead of having it delivered you opt to pick it up yourself at the pickup location. Many stores have been on with this program for a while.

2) Consolidated centers in main delivery regions and zones. These centers are the central point from which the E Commerce operates as a hub for a wide range of businesses. Amazon is a similar type facility / biz.

3) Central delivery rooms for large apartment buildings in cities. Instead of delivering to each door in a large city apartment building, the driver delivers to just one room set aside for deliveries.

4) City block drop off/ pick up facilities. Similar to the one room delivery concept for apt buildings but for a group of residential city blocks. It becomes a central drop off location for drivers and central pickup for residents.

5) Delivery drones. High cost, new technology. Kinks are being worked out. From air traffic control, flight paths to avoid from hitting each other as well as objects and people when it arrives to the delivery point.

6) Self driving delivery vehicles, drive up to your driveway to drop your packages. High cost, new technology. Navigation obstacles and how to offload product once on location.

7) Underground tunnels for supply chain distribution. Helps free up congestion on roadways.

I just keep wondering how bad it is going to get. Maybe we won't reach the massive bottleneck road block, but I am already seeing signs of it so ?

What do you think the solutions to the bottle neck are going to be ? Who is gona come out on top ? Who is going to hurt the most ?

leolady

a reply to: leolady

I've thought a simpler solution to the issue is to put all deliveries to private residences on a night shift only shift, that way also you wake up, go to front door and it's waiting for you to take in safe and sound.

Would certainly massively take a load of.

a reply to: leolady

the obvious flaw in your logic :

1 - the click and collect model - ie your goods are delivered to a " hub " that yopu collect from - hear is the problem - 1 HGV arctic - will " typically deliver over 1000 parcels to the hub - a single van can deliver over 100 to invividual addresses

the flaw is - you need one car to collect one parcel - ooops

who is creating that bottle neck ?

a reply to: CthruU

Yeah roads are less congested in the middle of the night, but its hard to see at night time. Getting the delivery to the correct address is difficult during the day sometimes, I can't imagine trying to see address numbers at night time hours when they aren't lit up. Safety is also a concern.

As far as whose gonna come out on top, it's the big box corporations. We the consumers is who it is definitely gonna hurt, once traffic and bottle necking gets real bad the extra cost of fuel, new or more delivery/fleet vehicles, pay for the drivers and package handlers for being on the job longer, etc all that cost is gonna be passed on to the consumer. And people ordering things from home won't decrease traffic unless they order their items and literally go nowhere from the moment the order is placed until it is delivered to them lol and that would have to be on a mass scale so obviously not feasible. Personally I think those self driving vehicles are only going to add to the problem, imagine being stuck behind something like that on a busy slow moving roadway...There would be all sorts of road rage against those stupid things, I can just see it now, a band of angry motorists taking tire irons and hammers to one of those cars lol. Anyway I really don't know how this increase in traffic can be solved with existing infrastructure it would take massive overhauling and restructuring. It will take trillions just for that. The drone thing might help a little but the sheer amount of those it would take delivering daily to make even a dent in road traffic would be enormous and then we will have tons of traffic in the sky which can lead to safety issues. I think it's just simply going to take us not being lazy and at least like you stated order online then go pick it up but I just don't see the masses doing that.

a reply to: ignorant_ape

But this concept already exists and has been implemented. For example, the grocery store pickup concept. Folks get to order online and then go pick up their groceries. This didn't solve the traffic issue, Its just one of the new concepts out in the world right now, convenience for the customer but not necessarily solving any traffic issues.

BTW I love this service, I hate grocery shopping so to be able to do this is awesome. I am willing to contribute to the traffic in this situation.

leolady

a reply to: BerkshireEntity

LOL, I love the imagery your plausible scenario created in my mind... irons and hammers against the self driving cars. Sorry but I can't help but to laugh even though destruction to others property really isn't funny. hehehe

Self driving car obstacles I foresee... once on location what happens if there is some type of road block (construction and the whole road is blocked) and the self driving car can't get in. How is that gona play out ? How does the recipient get the package, if no one is in the vehicle...what if no one is home to walk out to the curb to retrieve. Does it just drop it on the curbside ?

leolady

Eventually, 3-d printers either in homes or some other central location will provide whatever physical item we desire.

Probably thinking too far into the future but this might be the true revolution for consumption. By that time, people will be over the need to "own" things. Hopefully, it will be replaced by educational pursuits, personal relationships and possibly space and ocean travel.

Obviously, I watch too much Star Trek. Nope, Not possible.

a reply to: leolady

Congested traffic is one of the reasons why drone delivery will be a welcomed aspect.

I don't know how their gonna do it so packages are secure when delivered.
Maybe an app that allows you to deploy the drone from the warehouse, so you will be ready and waiting when it arrives.
Or else a loud drone coming in with a package will be like ringing a dinner bell for the porch pirates - which already is a problem.

More bike paths of course!

Amazon gray van driver here and I know exactly what you are talking about. We are a single DSP and have 85 vans and our city is about to have 6 DSP's this spring. Each day our DSP delivers 8 to 15 thousand pkgs. Last year Amazon went from 4500 vans to over 20,000. There around 55,000 UPS vans now, so yea, Amazon will surpass them, for better and/or worse, as it "takes over the world."

Another crazy factor is shipping in general including 18 wheelers. Next time there is road construction on hwy and traffic is topped or slow, notice percentage of trucks vs cars. I kid you not there are more trucks on hwys than cars!

Delivering at night, as mentioned is impractical because of vision ability and disturbing resident after 8 PM., especially in rural areas and you may be surprised how many customers either don't have numbers on their house /mailbox or they are too small or degraded to see. Very frustrating! Amazon is rolling out drone deliveries for pkgs up to 3 pounds and could probably increase that to maybe 10lbs at some point. But as mentioned, how to secure these, because they will become moving targets for thieves to shoot down either with guns or drone killer devices available on line. I suppose if they make it a federal offense to do so that may curtail some of that variable.

Apartments are a nightmare and more of the leasing offices are refusing pkgs so we have to deliver to customer doorstep. The customer demand is a major factor in all of this as well. The customer does not want any extra inconvenient efforts required, just bring it to my doorstep please.

I think Amazon will surpass UPS and Fed Ex at some point, as far as small trucks/vans on the road. UPS currently deliver a lot of Amazon items now, but Amazon eventually wants all the action. FedEx just cut ties with Amazon as a strategic move.

Solutions? More and improved roads, hubs to pick up at and better drone development is all I can think of, but I don't think the nature of customer wanting it delivered to doorstep in 1 to 2 days will ever be diminished. I like the mention of 3D printing, and I too feel that this technology will one day significantly supplement material desires, but that's a ways off. We are in a transitional time for supply/demand transportation and I also think automated cars/trucks will at some point dominate business. I can envision autodriving Amazon vans with a robot to bring pkgs from vehicle to doorstep perhaps. Or we can send our automated car to a hub to p/u pkg and return it home?

To the Amazon haters, I hear ya and understand but hey, I'm just trying to earn a living ya know!

ETA: My last paragraph gave me an idea, perhaps more small bike paths could be laid out in cities, exclusive for electric cycles and some folks could have personal transportation electric auto/driving cycles of some sort to go and retrieve products and return them to home, including pizzas and such, from businesses and hubs. But the thieving factor will again be at play, so I don't know, just thinking here...

I live in a transportation warehouse corridor with an inland rail port, 2 Amazon distribution Centers, huge warehouses all over. We'll never get drone delivery out here. Keep on with the vans. Tractor trailers destroy our country asphalt roads.

BTW...
last month I think i caught part of the delivery scam.
For some reason my ebay package sent from California to Texas to the UPS facility 2 miles down the freeway, left and went to Oklahoma, Back to Texas, Out to California, Back to Texas and the got on a USPS truck for delivery. SOMETHING is going on with the whole "Last Mile" delivery by USPS...... My guess is tehre's price differential for location or something - surely the package ticketing systems isn't THAT screwed up.

ganjoa

a reply to: Floridadreamin

Ahhhh ok 3d printers. Yeah, how long into the future because when will they be affordable for the average home i wonder. Also the programs probably aren't too detail oriented and specific yet ? I really do not know though because I haven't really followed this too much yet myself. This is an interesting idea.

You may be correct...

leolady

a reply to: waftist

LOL bike paths. I might be afraid to eat a pizza that came on an electric automated bike. I'd worry that someone might tamper with my pizza. I suppose it could be in a locked compartment that only I can retrieve with a code or something.

Now you've given me an idea. A rail line that is like telephone line / power line height and these little boxes can electrically zip along all the residential roadways delivering to these new fancy mailboxes designed specifically to receive our packages. The compartment can connect with and insert our package into our specially designed mailbox. Kinda like a rail car, but this is designed specifically for transporting goods. A package highway above our heads.


leolady

a reply to: leolady

I could see that, and why not utilize existing infrastructure to run these 'rail lines' parallel to in junction with, with such as roads/hwys and/or power lines .

I suspect at some point these lines in the sky will become transparent hwys for drones or some other type of wireless flying devices, all at a certain height and in trafficked rows. Think I've seen this in both sci-fi flicks and old "Cities of the Future" cartoons..haha

All we need is one of them genuwhine transporter for inanimate material I tell ya.....bam! Over half of all traffic reduced!

Or... 3D printing(replicating) will beat these ideas to market, with the ability to synthesis many of our products and goods sufficiently.

a reply to: leolady

A sceptic I see.

Your last sentence was once taught to me as a therapist as a response to my ex-know it all mother-in-law. You might be right.

I find 3-d printers fascinating for what they promise. But, as a caveat, I do hope all this increasing conspicuous consumption leaves our society. I am aware that our economy is dependent on purchasing but are we nearing burnout? Hope so.

a reply to: Floridadreamin


Well I'm not really a skeptic of the 3d printers. I just really have a hard time imagining it becoming available due to cost. However historically this is how new tech starts, super expensive and then affordable. So yeah...

I could use one right now to print me a home... lol

3d printers for sure would massively cut down on traffic, once alot of households have them. We would still need the supplies for the printer though. So in this scenario the manufacturers of the 3d printers and those who produce the supplies to operate them are gona be on the top.

leolady