Stupid FedEx Running In Circles
I was tracking a FedEx package (specifically, Windows Vista and Office 2007), when I realized that the FedEx truck had been in my neighborhood three days ago, then left it for an entirely different state, and will not deliver until tomorrow. Take a look:
To explain: The truck comes in on the left, loops over the entire city of New York, drives right by house, and reaches a sort facility in Jamaica. Jamaica is a neighborhood in Queens five minutes from my house. The truck then proceeds to drive back the exact same route it came in with, driving right by my house for the second time, looping all the way back over New York, into New Jersey, stopping at a facility in Newark. Then it drives through the middle of New York, stopping yesterday in Maspeth, where it will sit for two days because it is not due for delivery.
All told, the package passed by me twice on Saturday, drove over the same roads twice in opposite directions, left my own neighborhood to spend a night in a different state, and won’t reach me until four days after it had been about 12 blocks away from its delivery destination, covering 54.4 miles more than necessary. I would have picked up the package in Jamaica if I had known! Arghh!
Why do these automated routing systems do such ridiculous things?
Remember the MapPoint bug I linked recently?
Remember the bug in Google Maps?
It’s very unlikely the technology failed here. I’d say it’s unlikely “something went wrong” as well. I guess whatever system they’re using was programmed crappy / they tried to make the programming as cost-efficient as possible by giving it a strict deadline / they tried to save money in a similar way.
Come to think of it, “Price isn’t everything. Sometimes quality is more important.” Now where did I hear that before?
Comment by Tim | February 13, 2007
Nathan, where did you get the data for the track of the FedEx truck?
Comment by Frank Taylor | February 13, 2007
You must have been pretty disappointed.. hahaha I haven’t had that kind of an experience yet. Got to be caused by some kind of a bug.
By the way you have a great blog and it seems very informative. Maybe you are interested in trading links with me. I want to trade links with high quality blogs. I have a blog and it’s not directly linked to your topic but it has to do with handling people and managing etc. I’m not going to start the blog until I get an audience. I would love to hear from you. My site is: http://infus3.com
Andray~
Comment by Andray | February 13, 2007
If I’m reading this right, this isn’t actually the truck route at all. All it did is mapped a route from the center of Memphis, TN to the center of Jamaica, NY, and then to Newark, NJ.
There’s no reason to believe that the sort facility is in Jamaica Center and therefore no reason to think the truck is actually going past your house.
More importantly, I doubt that this package went from Memphis to Jamaica by truck at all. Memphis is FedEx’s main air hub, and Jamaica, NY happens to be the location of JFK airport. So what probably happened is that the package went by plane from Memphis to JFK, then was transferred to a truck to take it to Fedex’s sorting facility in Newark.
I don’t know why it had to go to Newark and skip Maspeth, and it’s entirely possible that is unnecessary and silly. But showing a map that shows a line going right past your house is misleading, because it would only go past your house driving to and from Jamaica Center. The plane couldn’t have stopped at your house on the way to JFK, and the best route from JFK to Newark might involve taking the Belt Parkway to the Verrazano and across Staten Island to the Goethals.
But even if the truck route went right past your house, it’s not necessarily reasonable to expect it to be able to be delivered by that truck. These national delivery companies achieve their economies of scale by standardizing everything - from small regional sort facilities to larger national hubs and back to smaller facilities to be delivered. At the point the packages were going from JFK to Newark, they probably weren’t sorted all the way down to local delivery routes, so it wouldn’t be feasible for the truck driver to happen to know that along the expressway from one big hub to another is one single customer. As far as their system is concerned you’re on a delivery route from the Maspeth center, and the package has to go there first since every other package does and that’s the only efficient way to do it.
As I said before, I have no idea why their network is set up such that packages that land in JFK have to get sorted in Newark before going to Maspeth, but there’s probably a good reason, and even if there isn’t, it’s misleading and almost certainly incorrect to draw a Google Maps driving route to conclude that the truck went right by your house twice and should have stopped along the way.
Comment by David Alpert | February 14, 2007
David, you’re absolutely right. I totally forgot to account to account for the plane. Still, the truck would have driven from JFK to New Jersey, even though (a) it was ten minutes from its destination and (b) the Maspeth facility is way closer. Its still weird, and annoying when FedEx shows it on the tracker.
I wish they had said JFK, NY, and not Jamaica, NY.
Comment by Nathan Weinberg | February 14, 2007
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Nathan, it seems like your complaint is purely emotion, and therefore is not valid.
Let’s see. Your package arrived via plane from Memphis to JFK. Then, it was most likely put on a giant semi and trucked to the Jersey sorting facility, where it was sorted and put on a delivery truck.
You don’t expect them to drive a loaded semi to your house and dig out your package among a few thousand other packages?
Didn’t think so.
Comment by dima1109 | August 1, 2007