CliffordK

Hmmm...
So initially it sounded like they were catering to startups.

Dump $10K in cash and start driving.

This makes it sound like they're only wishing to deal with established companies.

There is, however, a link to Amazon Flex on that page that is done with personal vehicles, but perhaps doesn't allow cherry picking routes either.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technolo...orkers/563444/

Mobile 155

CliffordK

Sedan + 4 doors?

That rules out a lot of vehicles.

No small pickups like a VW Caddy (2 door)
No Toyota Prius cars (not Sedan)
My Autobianchi Bianchina would be out... 2 door sedan.
My Blazer would be out. 2 door SUV.



I don't think I've ever owned a 4 door sedan.

The no fixed schedule idea would be nice, but not being able to get packages when one is ready would be a pain to deal with. Clicking on refresh until something shows up?

jon c. 

They already do that. You're quibbling about the scale on which it is done. The deliver companies have a tremendous vested interest in maximizing efficiency and lowering delivery costs and they have arrived at what is the most efficient model. They have a lot of well educated individuals who have the background and the data to critically analyze every potential delivery method. Because that's their business. If you really think your model would be better, show us the numbers with all potential costs considered. You've presented no sound reason to believe that the experts in this field would not opt for the most efficient model.

I will grant you that not delivering to homes could be more cost effective than actually delivering to homes. But I doubt the idea would meet with customer acceptance on the broad scale and the security and location problems in many areas would outweigh the costs of final mile delivery.

CliffordK

It is always possible that the big companies have ignored some aspects of their service.

That is partly the reason why we have USPS, UPS, and Fedex.

USPS likely could have maintained a monopoly on package delivery services, except that they failed to realize the importance of package delivery. I still find it amazing that the USPS can't leverage their fleet to drive private companies into the ground. Instead, USPS is having troubles making ends meet.

Everything has evolved over the years. USPS trucks have gotten bigger than those little postal jeeps from the 70's.

However, it is quite possible things have changed so that aspects like battery performance that likely hurt early generation electric postal vehicles is less of an issue today.

There are quite a few new cycle courier services that have popped up around the world in the last decade, both with respect to the "green economy", as well as doing same day local pickup and delivery services.

In fact, if companies like Amazon wish to expand same-day services, then they shouldn't totally ignore bicycles.

Now, you say "Data Analysis" is key. And, for that, one would really need the actual data, much of which is likely tightly held proprietary secrets.

We've already indicated that one could likely build an E-Cargo bike capable of doing 50 miles a day, perhaps even more. 80?

Fuel efficiency is high.

But, unfortunately capacity is somewhat limited (as long as it is truly a "bike").

Labor presumably goes up somewhat. But, fuel and insurance costs likely go down.

I'd be willing to crunch data, if you could get me some precise data. Packages, distance, routes, bulk, weight, pay, time in truck vs time walking, etc. Also practicality of separating big screen TVs from < 1 lb trinkets.

Looking up fuel efficiency. The UPS trucks are rated at 10 to 13 MPG. The Sprinter style vans... somewhere around 16 to 20 MPG.

So, for an 80 mile route, a UPS truck might chug 8 gallons. A Sprinter 5 gallon, an E-Bike, maybe 8 KWH.
-
At $3 a gallon, and $0.10/KWH, the UPS truck would be using $24 in fuel, the Sprinter $15 in fuel, and the E-bike, about $1.

I'm not sure about insurance rates, but probably somewhere around $1,000 to $3,000 per delivery vehicle, or up to about $10 a day. The bike should be a small fraction of that.



I suppose that amounts to 1 to 2 hours of labor cost for the UPS van, and 1 hour or so for the Sprinter. And, maybe half hour or hour equivalent for insurance.

I'm surprised the courier companies didn't adopt the Prius-V getting 40 to 50 MPG. Probably not quite tall enough interior.

Actually, lots of small European delivery vans that get decent mileage. I'm surprised we aren't seeing more of them here in the USA.

https://www.parkers.co.uk/vans-picku...17/small-vans/

Are those imperial gallons? Nonetheless, take out the fuel benefits, and it would be difficult to justify the tiny E-Bikes.

CliffordK

You'd think that, but it is a complex equation.

Amazon is investing heavily in a distributed distribution system. So, if I sell a bicycle tire through Amazon, I can ship it to Portland, then it may sell a similar tire in New York, shipped out of their fulfillment center there. I presume they have some kind of inventory leveling built in, so if I keep sending tires to Portland and if they keep selling them in New York, then somehow the Portland tires get transferred east.

However, they also seem to be purchasing industrial warehouse property with good highway access, but on the edge of the cities. This is great for truck based services, but poor for bike based services.

Unfortunately, central city industrial property is often extremely expensive. So, say one built a mini distribution center in the middle of a city, it could cost in the millions. So, one would have to prove the benefit would outweigh the costs.

Since USPS, UPS, and Fedex all have retail offices they might be able to leverage space to provide central city transfer sites.

However, Amazon is utilizing warehouses, but not local transfers in the same fashion. So, they aren't selecting central city property.

I-Like-To-Bike

Not necessary to prove anything when proposals are nothing more than so-called critical thinking "conversation" topics based on an alternate reality fabricated from pixie dust and loose screws.


BTW, unfortunate for whom? People who want something for nothing?

Mobile 155

ILTB has a point because Amazon hasn't indicated a desire to do much of what some believe they should try. And those that have started a warehousing and distribution service know how hard it is to change delivery patterns in Cities with the regulations and taxes that can be charged by the City. When my company used to deliver to San Diego quite a few years ago our delivery trucks had to be out of the city by 10am. Why you might ask? The police department was largely self supporting so before 10am they might be lax on where you delivery vehicle was park to make a delivery after 10 you were bound to get a ticket. Not all cities in the area were like that true but any city can do the same thing. This however is besides the point.


It will not add much to the discussion but it is a process used by Xerox, IBM and many other large companies for years. You see Amazon building on the outskirts of the city but Amazon sees the States much like you see cities. They are looking at Global and national sales. If they had their way the would simply divide the country up into quarters or fifths and put a large distribution center in each segment. They would then put a warehouses in the areas where they could cover the most deliveries and try to tap into a system to get the deliveries to the customer. And truthfully the Amazon model isn't that different from how Montgomery Wards and Sears got started. Home delivery so you didn't have to have a store near you.


But to toss in another fly in your calculations how will this effect you cost of gas? https://www.techspot.com/news/75324-...very-vans.html


All of these options are available to upper management at Amazon when they made their decision to stop bike deliveries and few were open to people not on the inside of the management meeting. The one big problem is it will take several cyclists to deliver to the same distances one van driver can. At least if FedEx and UPS are any example. Let us just say it takes four. You have four employees and a driver to get the packages to the four employees adding personnel costs. Getting a contractor to take on the cost of a van and paying them $15.75 to $18.00 an hour is reasonable. Getting a driver at that price and four others at $15.00 an hour is a harder sell to the bean counters.


But it is all just talk because it does not seem to be on Amazon's radar and no one seems to be wiling to contact them with the idea just in case they say no. Everything I have read is heading in another direction.

CliffordK

Amazon warehouse locations in US - Business Insider
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ervice_centers



It is more than that. They aren't scattering a half dozen fulfillment centers at major crossroads.

They are scattering literally hundreds across the USA, and building many more.

Oddly they seem to be building clusters of fulfillment centers in major metro areas. But, seem to be skipping other major metro areas. And mostly in suburbs, I think.

So, they seem to be missing:
Boise
St. Louis
Kansas City
Baton Rouge
New Orleans
Lincoln Nebraska
Oklahoma City

Of course, also missing chunks like Montana, and every state bordering Montana.

I suppose an advantage of clusters is that they can do local deliveries, but also easily consolidate orders fulfilled by different centers within say 50 miles.

I presume some of the clusters of fulfillment centers are within 50 miles of major hub airports. In fact, perhaps that is why Salem, Oregon is getting their center before Eugene, OR or Bend, OR. Nonetheless, St. Louis, and Kansas City have hub airports... others?

My guess is that within 5 or 10 years, they'll be hitting most of the major cities in the USA, as well as quite a few of the minor cities.

They could easily become bigger than Walmart.

One interesting thing about Amazon is that most of their stock is on commission. That means that they just need to sort and store it, but don't need to actually buy it. It may account for the rapid growth, and a growing need for more warehouses to put the stuff.

They have a bunch of employees now, but I could imagine in the near future a greater and greater push to automate basic pulling and packing tasks.

The EVs you mentioned are interesting, and not surprising. Like you say, for now they may reduce fuel costs, but that may change with an emphasis to tax actual road costs. They will, of course, chew up more energy than a lowly E-Bike.

tandempower

I realized that somewhat when I saw that Amazon already has locker delivery-pickup stations in various places. Beyond that, I think there must indeed be a lot of nit-picky local politics involved with setting up such lockers in places that would be conveniently walkable/bikeable, i.e. within a subdivision or neighborhood. Once you start dealing with HOA's, local zoning, etc. you get into the micropolitics of local permitting/favoritism, having to compete with other retail-controllers for convenient locations, etc. Many subdivisions and neighborhoods are probably business-free not just because of the automotive-sprawl model where areas are zoned into residential or commercial, but because if one business would be allowed to be there, then ten others would follow and you would end up with your neighborhood as a strip mall instead of it being a residential neighborhood. Business is too often aggressive and obnoxious.


Then, of course, people may also be fickle when it comes to wanting their packages delivered to their door. While it's not difficult to walk/bike to a local locker-pickup station, some people might feel conspicuous going to pick up their package in public. They would feel uncomfortable with the neighbors seeing them out picking up their package. Or maybe it's just an unnecessary trip for them. Logically, if people didn't mind walking a block to get a newspaper, papers wouldn't be delivered door-to-door and could instead be distributed via those coin machines. People who don't read news online seem, for whatever reason, to want the papers brought to their mailbox so they don't have to walk further than the mailbox in the morning to get them. Idk whether this is a cultural phenomenon that emerged with automotive culture or how it happened or if it is possible to evolve in terms of efficiency. Online distribution of news was obviously a quantum leap in efficiency, but what do you do about people who just don't care and want to read their news in ink printed on dead trees delivered by motor-vehicles over paved roads? They couldn't care less what Nicolas Negroponte had to say in the 1990s about the future.


Anyway, as a person who likes LCF and sees the good it does for the environment and reducing economic waste, I look for ways to have more bike couriers and/or DIY in place of driving, and the Amazon lockers achieve that, as would using bike couriers for the last mile of the deliveries. Someone posted links to a 2016 article that describes how bike couriers were suddenly and unexpectedly cut from the Amazon delivery options. It seemed very mysterious and sudden, which leads my mind to wander. I think there's a possibility politics were involved, but maybe customers just complained about sweaty cyclists in helmets delivering their packages, who knows. All I really know for sure is that too many people in automotive society fail to care enough about evolving beyond automotive waste to make the small sacrifices necessary to expand LCF as a functional part of transportation and distribution logistics. I believe this failure to evolve is related to deeper problems that are keep piling up and making things worse in various ways, and gradually we will reach a point where it simply won't be economically tenable to waste resources delivering things door-to-door by delivery drivers, and fortunately autonomous vehicle options are emerging to fill the growing gap. Lots of people will deny this gap is growing, but that is just another dimension of the problem.


Exactly, and Amazon has to walk a fine line between seeking more efficient delivery methods and placating customers who are fickle and simply shop less if they aren't 100% comfortable. The question is whether the co-dependency between such people and the businesses that cater to them will ultimately become untenable and, if so, how soon; because it certainly doesn't seem sustainable for people to resist evolution to more efficient logistical norms.


P.S. Yesterday I noticed yet another article about Mercedes making EV delivery vans for Amazon, about 100 I read. I am curious how the relationship between Amazon and Mercedes has emerged and evolved, and whether it had anything to do with the sudden and unexplained rejection of bike couriers in 2016. Part of me thinks that Amazon reduces traffic overall by supplanting shopping traffic with home deliveries, but another part of me thinks more could be done with bike couriers and self-service pickup from lockers.

I-Like-To-Bike

The bottom line reality of your so-called "Critical Thinking" process on this topic.

prj71

Guys,

Instead of debating pipe dreams with Tandem Power for 6 pages and 137 posts...Can we all just agree that Amazon won't be Augmenting their delivery system with bicycles again or anytime soon or ever?

I don't know about you guys...But I have Amazon Prime and I want my goods in 2 days. It's not going to happen with Bicycle delivery service.

Uber tried bicycle delivery also, but just shut down 3 days ago...

https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/30/ub...shutting-down/

tandempower

How many times can you post psychological insults before it gets old to you? I have read your accusations of dreaming, fantasy, movie plots, etc. so many times that it's just predictable. Why don't you just stick to posting content that actually says something?

I-Like-To-Bike

I assume you are also one of those "fickle" people who prefer to be placated by having their mail delivered to their home, rain or shine, rather than walk/bike somewhere else to pick it up in the name of "efficiency".

Let's give credit where credit is due, if it weren't for the entertainment value of the "discussions" about the ridiculous product of such pipe dreams and critical thinking episodes, this list would be nothing but a sometimes journal/log/blog of walking or biking activity.

prj71

Hells yeah!!! I live out in the country! Rural mail carriers driving 4 x 4 vehicles so they can deliver my stuff during winter storms is the cat's azz!! Nobody want's to be doing that on bike!!!

Lol...TP pipe dreams indeed.

prj71

Have you not realized that 99% of the people here don't take you seriously?

tandempower

Could you post that photo of your child-carrier trailer loaded with beer again? Could you make it your avatar, actually?

Homebrew01

MOD NOTE TO ALL: I just checked, and the thread topic is "Augmenting Amazon Delivery with Bikes? "

CliffordK

Interesting.

There seem to be quite a few bike delivery services that remain viable.

I wonder if part of the problem is the approach of large businesses to bicycles, and even mismanagement.

Here's our local Pedaler's Express
Pedalers Express |
Our Services | Pedalers Express

They seem to fill a niche of same-day package pickup/dropoff, in a very limited area. "Green Zone" deliveries are price competitive with postal services, but same-day, and easier to do.

It is quite possible that Uber was feeling the competition from independent or locally grown delivery services. Or, perhaps not really understanding the benefits and costs of using bikes.

Ok... per mod note above, I'll tie back into Amazon.

Amazon potentially has a unique ability to utilize bicycles for short trips around their warehouses, with a steady stream of packages. The flexibility of bikes to do same-day services is good,although a captive fleet of service vehicles could also do that.

Costs for individual, very local package deliveries would likely be less than Pedaler's express above if density was great enough, but it is hard to say if they would compete with vehicle deliveries. Organization? _Perhaps a need for a custom routing module.

prj71

https://www.geekwire.com/2015/life-a...-expectations/

Mobile 155

tandempower

I can't think of anything you could say to justify the exclusion of bike couriers from parcel delivery than what you have posted in this thread. Congrats on being the most anti-bike courier thinker in the LCF forum.

prj71

Unlike YOU, he is based in realty. Not some some pipedream full of unicorns and rainbows.

CliffordK

I suppose the big question is why Amazon (and Uber, and others) have chosen not to use the bike couriers based on actually trying them.

Were they not competitive with other vehicles? Other issues such as flat tires and downtime? Poor management?

Are the bike couriers only viable if they can cherry pick the best routes? Is that reasonable for the business model?

What do the bike couriers bring to the company that can't be achieved using cars, trucks, and vans?

StanSeven