USPS weird shipping route

tyttuut

Active Member
This is a relatively minor occurrence, but amusing nonetheless.

I ordered a cassette from a dude in Shelbyville, MI. I live in Cincinnati, OH. Lots of shipping delays due to polar vortex, etc etc.

So of course, they decide that the most logical route is to take the package from eastern Michigan to Pittsburgh, PA. Basically crossing the entire state of Ohio for no good reason. Then, presumably, it'll go back southwest to Cincy. :dunno:
 
Can't remember the specific locations but, yeah, I've had that happen a lot lately. Package starts at one spot, passes right by me to another destination, then reverses and finally gets delivered to me. I'd imagine there's some reason for it. Darned if I can figure out what it is though.
 
I have you beat: Some vinyl I ordered from Japan came to Georgia, went around several cities (but not mine), went to Hawaii, and eventually came made it to my door.

I sympathize with the USPS. They manage to get mail and parcels where they need to be at a very high success rate and do it consistently, but recent experiences for me have been... Mixed.
 
This is a relatively minor occurrence, but amusing nonetheless.

I ordered a cassette from a dude in Shelbyville, MI. I live in Cincinnati, OH. Lots of shipping delays due to polar vortex, etc etc.

So of course, they decide that the most logical route is to take the package from eastern Michigan to Pittsburgh, PA. Basically crossing the entire state of Ohio for no good reason. Then, presumably, it'll go back southwest to Cincy. :dunno:

All parcel post packages go through PA. that's the parcel post hub for this region.
 
I ordered a stylus for my stepdaughter a few weeks back from LP Gear. They're in Henderson, NV, we're in San Diego. It was shipped to Ft. Worth and then to SD. First time ever that anything from LP Gear was sent east.
 
shipping algorithms vary all over the place.

USPS, UPS, Fedex (transportation only) all have radically different algorithms.
the famous one is Fedex, ship everything to a central site, sort, and then send
to the final destination.

take today's online sales (amazon, wlamart, etc) with their warehouses, shipping
initially with UPS/Fedex then last-mile delivery using USPS, etvc

calls for better (modern) algorithms.

and shipping in the "wrong" direction?

standard and explainable if you know what and how they do it.
 
Yeah ,
I've seen that too . Not just USPS.
Several states out of the way.
I think I contacted an EBay seller once and asked if perhaps he used the wrong shipping address because my item went halfway across the country in the wrong direction before it finally made its way towards me.

I'm thinking regional sorting hubs:idea:
 
one of the most "tricky" programming problems is airline scheduling, next up
is the transportation problem.

no simple tricks. you order goods, seller figures out which warehouse, shortest distance,
routing (warehouse to shipping based on minimizing shipping delays and using lowest
latency delivery), then last mile via UPS or hand-off to USPS.

if it was only USPS (end to end) then yes, a regional hub issue that's been standardized,
tuned, and working for decades. not so easy with Prime 2-day delivery and Sundays.
it may also be a last minute decision to route through UPS first depending on loads, etc
 
passenger and goods using airlines have radically different features and results.

it's the non-stops that cost the most, direct can mean a stop (stay on the plane),
a plane switch (deplaning, running through multiple terminals), a connecting flight
(deplaning, running through different airline terminals, and going through security
again even though you are air side), and using code-shares means not even the
airline you think is operating the flight.

a package may be routed to a hub that's out-of-the-way but it has more load capacity,
more flights (or a last-possible-minute flight), to the next stop. and repeated until
the final mile (and this, too, is optimized)

there's an entire engineering discipline called linear programming that also deals
with optimization that's needed here. along with the other optimization practices,
these guys make more money than the professional C++ programmers
and with lifetime employment almost matching the SQL, Cobol, and Fortran
programmers.
 
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Sometimes the route number on the postage label is wrong. I chased a package for three days before I was able catch up with it and pick it up.
 
^^ I was wondering if the high speed address readers and bar code scanners ever make mistakes reading states or zip codes, and actually route things wrong. They are certainly using more automation as time goes on (and less human intervention), and going faster and faster too. Superimposed on top of hub routing, that could look pretty weird.
 
I mailed something to California which made it to the PO where it should have been delivered from. It then proceeded cross country to Virginia before it finally made it back to California to be delivered. With that said the USPS is my preferred method of shipping and I've never had anything lost or destroyed whether shipping or receiving, knock on wood. After decades of great service I don't have anything to complain about. Thank you USPS!

Government ran healthcare......
Where the heck did this come from?
 
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^^ I was wondering if the high speed address readers and bar code scanners ever make mistakes reading states or zip codes, and actually route things wrong. They are certainly using more automation as time goes on (and less human intervention), and going faster and faster too. Superimposed on top of hub routing, that could look pretty weird.
Actually, the biggest problem (IMO as an Postal Tech) is multiple packages. Packages are fed into conveyors which singulate the packages. certain packages are hard to singulate, and if the scanner can't tell its two packages, and only reads one code, then second gets a free ride to somewhere else. This is rarely a problem with boxes, but when you start getting stuff in plastic bags (especially the stuff from china) and flat envelopes, it will occur more, but not a big problem, if you consider the total volumes. My 2 cents
 
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I use USPS regularly, but it's been a few months now. This time, they've confused me.

I've been monitoring 2 packages, both shipped on 3/18...one is coming to me from CO, the other I shipped to IL. I'm in Las Vegas, NV. They both have a scheduled delivery of 3/25 and are standard/ground post.

1) The package I shipped to IL first went to the Los Angeles, CA network distribution center on 3/21. This is the first time I've encountered something going the "wrong way" across the country. I've never seen this from USPS, and never had anything routed through the Los Angeles center that wasn't going to or coming from CA. The last update after that was 3/23, saying "In Transit, Arriving On Time". There was no departure scan though. I expected it to make it to the Denver, CO distribution center by now.

2) The package I'm awaiting from CO went past my location and also arrived at the Los Angeles distribution center on 3/22. It departed 9 minutes later and arrived at the Las Vegas distribution center on 3/23. Last scan was at the post office, so this one should arrive on time. Why did it go to CA though?

I'm concerned about the package going to IL. It seems stuck at the Los Angeles center. These packages should have crossed paths in CO though. I have no idea why it was routed through CA, the wrong way. There's no way it will make it to IL by 3/25.

It's packed well, original boxes, but I don't like the idea of it being thrown around and traveled anymore than it needs to be. Loading and unloading from various trucks and handling centers. This, along with their increase in prices. What for? Seems like they're using extra gas going past the destination and then coming back. I don't get it.
 
I've ordered items from Baltimore and Philly. I live in NoVa, suburban DC - Herndon. The items will hit Baltimore, go down south to North Carolina, then snake their way up to Dulles. Weird.
 
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