newsmakers
UPS to deliver seven
days a week in 2020
UPS Inc. says it will expand its parcel
delivery service in 2020 to seven days a
week in a bid to keep up with surging volumes of e-commerce orders as well as to
match similar full-week service offered by
other parcel carriers.
Rival FedEx Corp. had announced in
May that it would extend its own parcel
delivery offerings to seven days a week,
also beginning in January. FedEx cited
similar reasons for that move, saying the
service would meet soaring demand from
the fast-growing e-commerce market.
Atlanta-based UPS said its recent
announcement was part of “the most
extensive roll-out of new customer services and capabilities in the company’s recent history.” The initiatives are
designed to capture growth opportunities
in the strategic markets of small and
medium-size business (SMBs), e-commerce, high-growth countries, and health
care and life sciences, the company said.
As part of that service expansion, the
company said, it has:
Point Network by partnering with retail-
ers such as CVS, The Michaels Company
Inc., and Advance Auto Parts, bringing
the number of network points to 21,000
in the U.S. and 40,000 globally.
b Debuted a new worldwide “economy
product” to meet growing demand from
international merchants for lower-priced
shipping options for cross-border e-com-
merce transactions.
b Established a subsidiary called UPS
Flight Forward and applied to federal
regulators for certification to operate a
drone delivery service for medical samples
within the U.S.
Three autonomous-vehicle startups are running trials of self-driving trucks with actual freight shipments on board through wide-open Western states as they try to make their case for the nascent
technology.
Mountain View, Calif.-based Kodiak Robotics said it has opened a
testing and freight operations office in Dallas and has started han-
dling its first commercial shipments, with a human “safety driver”
Kodiak defines itself as a “true
freight carrier,” with its self-driv-
ing trucks operating on “middle
mile” highway routes, as opposed
to pickups and deliveries at ware-
houses and retail stores. The com-
pany says that self-driving trucks
are poised to make highways safer while reducing the cost of carrying
freight and, for longer routes, the time it takes to move goods.
Meanwhile, UPS Inc. bought a stake in the self-driving truck startup
TuSimple, noting that the firm has been hauling truckloads of UPS
parcels between Phoenix and Tucson since May. The companies will
now extend their “ongoing commercial relationship” by continuing
a series of tests of self-driving tractor-trailers on a route in Arizona.
TuSimple is also running tests with the U.S. Postal Service. The tech
firm will conduct five round trips hauling USPS trailers more than
1,000 miles between USPS distribution centers in Phoenix and Dallas.
And finally, an autonomous brokerage successfully dispatched
freight to a self-driving truck without human involvement, according
to the digital freight broker Loadsmart and the autonomous vehicle
maker Starsky Robotics. Although they did not disclose the location
of the test, the partners said this marks the first time an autonomous
truck company and a digital broker have collaborated to price, book,
and load a shipment without any people in the loop. When scaled
up to widespread use, that pattern could help solve predicted
shortages of truck drivers by automating the traditional freight flow,
they said.
Self-driving truck startups make trial freight
deliveries in Western states
go figure …
- 24. 9 percent
The Spot Market Index level for the trucking sector at the end of
the second quarter, running 2. 4 percent lower than projected,
according to the “Coyote Curve” market tracker. The model predicts the market will soon turn around and produce higher spot
market rates heading into the fourth quarter.
SOURCE: COYOTE LOGISTICS
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