inbound
The Boston truckers’ union Teamsters Local 25 has long supported autism
education, awareness, and research as its primary charitable mission. In
July, the group found a new way to promote awareness that doesn’t
involve the usual TV or radio spots. Instead, the Teamsters brought an
18-wheeler to the campus of a local school for autistic youth and invited
the kids to climb in the cab, pretend
to drive, honk the horn, and tour the
trailer, according to published reports.
Although most of the students at the
Boston Higashi School in Randolph,
In a recent radio interview, union leaders said the group’s support of
autism was inspired by members’ personal experiences with the condition
among their family members and friends. The union has raised about $5
million for autism research, education, and awareness in the past 10 years,
they said.
Big truck brings big smiles to autistic kids
The back-to-school period is the
second-busiest shopping season of
the year, topped only by the holiday
rush, leaving retailers scrambling to
make the most of the opportunity. To attract today’s increasingly
convenience-minded consumers,
many are touting their “buy online,
pick up in store” (BOPIS) services.
The tactic appears to be working:
The BOPIS option now accounts for
nearly 30 percent of online retail revenue, according to automated locker
system provider Package Concierge.
As students and parents stock
up on clothes, books, backpacks,
computers, and other cool school
tools, Package Concierge is sharing
some tips to help retailers boost their
BOPIS sales. They include:
b Allow customers to view
store-level inventory when making
an item selection. Shoppers today
want their merchandise ASAP, and
many will only consider items that
are currently in stock. If they’re
unable to determine whether an
item is in stock, shoppers will go
elsewhere to find it.
b Make the BOPIS process conve-
nient and quick. BOPIS falls short if
shoppers have to wait more than a
couple of hours for an order to be
assembled or stand in line to retrieve
their merchandise.
b Provide a simple and secure fulfillment method. Perhaps not surprisingly, the company points to
locker systems as an example of a
secure fulfillment method. In stores
equipped with lockers like Package
Concierge’s, customers purchase
items online and receive a secure
authentication code via e-mail or
text when the order is ready for pickup. Once at the store, consumers
simply scan their code at the locker
and retrieve their items.
How to make the
most of BOPIS
No truck fleet can avoid road accidents completely, but a new report offers some insights
into which drivers are most at risk of a crash.
The American Transportation Research Institute
(ATRI), the research arm of the American
Trucking Associations, has released an update to
its Crash Predictor Model, which quantifies the likelihood of an individual’s future crash involvement based on specific truck driving behaviors.
The analysis draws on data from over 435,000 U.S. truck drivers over a
two-year period to identify nearly a dozen factors that raise a driver’s risk
of being involved in a future crash, according to ATRI. Now in its third
release, the updated ATRI crash predictor model includes analyses of the
impact of age and gender on crash probability as well as data on industry
average crash costs across six distinct crash types and severity.
Key findings include the following:
b Two behaviors that double the chances of a future crash are a reckless
driving violation and a “failure to yield right of way” violation.
b Drivers who were previously involved in crashes are 74 percent more
likely than others to be in a future crash.
b Women truck drivers were safer than their male counterparts in every
statistically significant safety behavior.
b Men were 20 percent more likely to be involved in a crash than
women were.
To download a free copy of the full report, visit atri-online.org.
New report helps fleets gauge
drivers’ crash risk
