But apparently you can GIVE a package to either and it ends up in the right place, eventually (better to give ground to express).
UPS was much more integrated, though Freight is still a bit disconnected.
> Unlike with Ground, which will send a driver out for the day to do pickups/deliveries, Express drivers typically have to work around time-committed packages, meeting one or a few loop deadlines for the day, doing on-call pickups, and making a certain number of required delivery attempts.
Various Express services have very hard deadlines (For example, Fedex 2nd Day AM is 10:30AM), whereas Ground/Home Delivery can be delivered at any time during it's commitment date and still be on-time. If a package is late by even a minute then the shipper is entitled to a full refund (with exceptions for things like weather), so the Express side doesn't want Ground slowing it down (plus they were two different organizations at one point, and are still pretty siloed).
(I'm the lead developer for Refund Retriever, and our primary line of business is auditing Fedex/UPS for those late refunds)
They always demure saying it isn't necessary, they can't accept it, yada yada. And somehow always insist that they can't get ahold of the local distro manager, and just to wait until tomorrow (in this case this was "Attempt" 2 of 3, both of which were a lie). I had to upgrade to the nuclear response "I'm going to send this video to the corporation who sent me the item to show them that FedEx is actively lying on their delivery statuses. And I'll CC our local news team who's bored and happy to burn down corporations because they've got nothing else going on." Turns out they actually CAN get a message to the local distribution manager (no shit, I know that) who CAN call me to apologize and the truck magically finds its way to my house by the end of the day.
I'm not sure who to be ticked with or feel bad for. The drivers are typically the ones being abused, so I sort of feel bad for them. But also... stop freaking lying. Don't say you tried when you did. It wasn't even something that required signature. All you had to do was to walk the 15 steps from the truck, chuck it as hard as you can towards my porch (because... of course they do), and call it a day.
For the lousy contractors, it's sort of an uncanny valley between UPS and a crowdsourced model like DoorDash or Laser. The employees are sketch. At work, i used them to ship WFH user equipment -- they'd do shit like deliver laptops to dumpsters at apartment complexes (complete with pictures). In NYC, the couriers park on a side street, stack packages on the street and have casual labor deliver them.
I've also had bad experiences with dropboxes where the couriers pilfer high value items - return iphones in particular. They get misdelivered to incorrect addresses on purpose.
FedEx has some mystical software that helps them gauge how many employees per delivery, etc they need, but that stuff always leans toward "perfect scenarios". End result is the driver is asked to be perfect or more than perfect, never break any laws, never get delayed by ringing doorbells, etc, and still get all the deliveries done.
One easy way out for the driver is to mark everything in the computer as it is supposed to be, and then go back and fix it later (which eventually doesn't happen - there are stories about it).
UPS has something similar, but the drivers get paid overtime and are more unionized (protected) but even THEY will pull the above bullshit because there are often federal laws about truck drivers that they're skirting around.
I've seen my normal UPS driver stop by my house past 10PM near Christmas, dressed in normal street clothes and in his minivan with family, to drop off ap package that had been marked as delivered earlier in the day.
The above is why more and more of the systems require the driver to take a picture of the delivery, which of course adds time, and slows things down ...
(I work for Refund Retriever; we audit for late deliveries for Fedex/UPS)
I remember one time I sat outside our office and waited for the FedEx truck to come up because the driver had a habit of skipping deliveries and marking them as delivered. I watched the driver go through our office complex but just not stop at the back row of buildings.
Trying to call FedEx customer support was its own frustration. The person on the phone told me some story about how they couldn’t actually get any info about the drivers or their deliveries at the end of the delivery chain. There was no interest at all in the driver who was skipping deliveries, but the person on the phone didn’t seem surprised.
However, the financial markets, which tend to reward short-term returns and a “winner-takes-all” mindset, have often penalized UPS for this philosophy. In recent years, to satisfy investor demands, UPS management has also turned toward cost-cutting measures. This shift coincided with leadership changes, as the current CEO came from outside the company. External leaders often emphasize sales and marketing over operations, and UPS has followed this trend. As a result, UPS, FedEx, and Amazon are now competing in a cost-reduction race, prioritizing sales growth while reducing operational staff—changes that inevitably affect service quality.
One critical element still missing from the broader logistics landscape is a truly integrated, multi-modal framework that seamlessly combines air, road, rail, and water transport to meet diverse customer needs. While rail may be less applicable in the U.S., it plays a vital role in Europe, China, Japan, and India and could be leveraged more effectively. Perhaps modern logistics theory should evolve to reflect this more holistic, global perspective.
[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/18/ups-drivers-can-earn-as-much...
[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ups-drivers-170000-pay-benefits...
https://railroads.dot.gov/rail-network-development/freight-r...
As for financial markets, your blame is misplaced. This industry is tremendously price sensitive and it seems many customers are willing to accept somewhat worse reliability and service quality in exchange for lower prices. It's similar to passenger airlines in that regard.
https://about.ups.com/us/en/newsroom/negotiations/negotiatio...
Rail is almost always cheaper, and has mostly displaced long haul trucking.
The missing link is water, and the Jones Act, which was specifically intended to destroy intra-US shipping in favor of trucking, has been incredibly successful in doing just that.
I worked one Christmas for SF’s FedEx Ground 20 years ago. It’s worth noting FedEx routes are (were?) owned by drivers, who would subcontract the routes to seasonal labor like myself.
Maybe the really high priority packages can be dropped out of the plane and delivered with a drone
My parents live in a rural area. Two story house with a clear front and back door. Fedex decided to deliver a package by putting it on the storm cellar door on the side of the house.
I wonder whether Amazon's scale forced UPS to up their game when they were shipping partners. It's also very possible that my experience is completely anecdotal.
[1] https://wanderingeye.marketing/remember-that-ad-campaign-wha...
When they can pack superhighways overnight with self-driving semis, it's going to get cheaper and better. I still am frustrated with self-driving that they are obsessed with city taxis. Self-driving on highways is so much simpler to automate, and a whole lot more useful to me as a midwest driver.
And what's the state of drone delivery for last mile? Fedex envelopes would seem to be perfect for them.
I do agree though, that I'm far more interested in limited access highway self-driving that urban.
That said, a semi going through the night on the interstate can make some serious miles and is competitive with an airplane for a whole lot of what needs to be delivered.
One question that popped into my head is that with that having a fleet that big the company must be rather vulnerable if the number of packages decreases significantly over even a small amount of time.
Operating a fleet like that, and probably have lot of flights that cannot be canceled, to save money, given the propagation problems that would create downstream.
In a highly improbable hypothesis of a day without any package at all, the cost must be in the two digit millions
I dont think there is ever a day without packages but there are slow days and incredibly busy days.
I once worked for well known company with a large presence in Memphis. Our mostly empty parking lot was a mobile location for the city's new network of gunshot detectors. In Memphis I would guess 80% of residents carry firearms for protection.
https://www.atlasofsurveillance.org/a/aos009983-memphis-poli...
UPS got it there in under 24h.
Weeks later I got a "your package was delivered!" email from FedEx. Fantastic stuff.
Needless to say I'm never proactively choosing them again.
vwcx•4mo ago
Remarkably, FedEx has its own map of every airport it services, along with routes, flight times, operators, and aircraft types. https://fedexvirtual.crewsystem.net/route_map.php
eddyg•4mo ago
https://www.fdxva.org/ https://www.fdx-virtual.com/ https://flyfdx-vac.org/