UPS is driving hard to optimize technology.

Byline: Sherri Buri McDonald The Register-Guard

In the wee hours of the morning, Robin Walker, dispatch planning supervisor at United Parcel Service's Eugene center, can glance at her computer screen and watch the fleet of trucks bound for different parts of town fill up with packages.

It's only a forecast, but it's pretty accurate because UPS receives the data electronically directly from customers.

If a truck is becoming overloaded, Walker can move some of the packages to a truck with a lighter load covering a neighboring route. Or, if a truck is getting too many next-day air deliveries, she can give some to another driver, to make sure all of those packages will be delivered within 24 hours. And she can make these adjustments well before 4 a.m., when the workers who actually load the trucks start their shift.

The software is part of UPS' route optimization technology, which the company says is improving customer service, saving fuel and reducing air emissions.

"If (packages) get to customers sooner or more efficiently, that's fantastic," said Heather Robinson, a spokeswoman at UPS' Atlanta headquarters.

In addition, she said, "There are cost savings - driving fewer miles means fewer gallons of gas are burned. And there are environmental benefits. Every mile you're not driving is emissions not released."

Other ground delivery companies, such as FedEx, also are reducing costs by optimizing routes.

"It's not necessarily a new strategy for FedEx," said Denise Lauer, a spokeswoman at the company's headquarters in Memphis, Tenn. "We've taken this approach for many years."

She declined to provide any details about the technology FedEx uses at its center in Springfield.

UPS introduced its routing technology in Eugene in July 2002 and, in the four years since then, it has shaved 299,000 miles off routes in the Eugene area, Robinson said.

Although the technology has been in use for several years, the fuel savings have been especially welcome this year as regular gas prices peaked in summer at about $3 a gallon, and have only recently retreated.

"When there's volatility in gas prices, this (system) absolutely is even more important," Robinson said.

UPS' fleet is about half gasoline-powered and about half diesel-powered, she said.

Doug MacIntyre, senior oil market analyst at the Energy Information Administration, predicts that gas prices will continue to fall for the next few weeks into October. Then the forecast turns cloudy because of uncertainties in the crude oil market and in how demand for heating fuel this winter might affect oil prices, he said.

"We see (gas) prices going as low as $2.50 a gallon, but not on average under $2," MacIntyre said.

Diesel prices tend to peak in the winter because diesel is essentially a low-sulfur version of heating oil, MacIntyre said.

When the technology is fully implemented next year at UPS delivery centers throughout the state, it will cut more than 1.1 million miles from the 18.5 million miles racked up by UPS drivers in Oregon each year. The technology will conserve 112,200 gallons of fuel and result in 1,159 fewer metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually, the company forecasts.

Along with the dispatch software, UPS' 115-employee Eugene center also uses laser scanning and mobile wireless technology.

As packages travel by on a conveyor belt, loading crew members use a laser scanner to print out labels with addresses and codes identifying which truck will deliver the parcel and where the parcel will be located in the truck. Then they slap the stickers on the boxes. That information is fed back to the dispatcher's computer, turning her forecasts into actual data.

Before drivers leave on their routes, they download the latest delivery information into a wireless device about the size of a hardcover book.

The software organizes the addresses according to the most optimal route. It takes into account such factors as trying to maximum righthand turns, which are safer and result in less idling than lefthand turns, said Jeff Grant, a UPS spokesman in Portland.

The "board,' as drivers call it, lists each stop and how many packages are to be delivered at that stop.

That's a real time-saver, drivers say.

"Now all of the packages' tracking numbers are pre-entered in our boards, so we should know how many packages we have to deliver at a stop," said Doug Sabin, a UPS driver for nearly 26 years and Teamsters union steward for drivers at UPS' Eugene center. (The "boards" are the same devices a customer signs electronically when accepting a package.)

Years ago, before the labels, "you'd have to do a lot of extra searching to make sure you didn't have to go back," Sabin said.

Implementing the new system four years ago was a bit rocky at first, Sabin said.

"Nobody had done it; we were a test center," he said. And the technology was in use before the Eugene center had fully set up a system of looped routes that enable drivers to easily cover parts of each others' routes when necessary.

But overall, "it's definitely an improvement," Sabin said. "It's definitely the wave of the future."

"When there's volatility in gas prices, this (system) absolutely is even more important."

- HEATHER ROBINSON, UPS SPOKESWOMAN