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Self-driving trucks begin mail delivery test for U.S. Postal Service

reuters.com

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Re: Self-driving trucks begin mail delivery test for U.S. Postal Service

#131

Post by rmason »

I think it might be better if the post office went totally to using robots. I've heard too many stories first hand about its toxic culture.

There was a woman who worked in Lansing, Michigan sorting mail. She worked in the back, never had an contact with customers. Every Halloween she'd wear a different costume to work. Three years straight she'd get disciplined for it.

Local TV asked if the employees she worked alongside had a problem with it but they didn't. Only management had a problem with her wearing a costume every Halloween. She said they are determined to stamp out all individuality in the employees. What a horrible place to work.

Re: Self-driving trucks begin mail delivery test for U.S. Postal Service

#132

Post by kevin_b_er »

treis wrote: post #111
freehunter wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I have no idea why people think the USPS is this giant wasteful pit of money in the federal budget A concentrated disinformation campaign funded by people who stand to benefit from privatizing mail delivery. It started with the mandate to pre-fund pension and healthcare benefits for the next 75 years, funding pensions for retired employees who aren't even born yet. That means by federal mandate, the USPS is sitting…

>It started with the mandate to pre-fund pension and healthcare benefits for the next 75 years, funding pensions for retired employees who aren't even born yet. This is wholly inaccurate. All that the USPS is being required to do is set aside money to pay for pension liabilities that they have incurred. Nothing close to funding pensions for employees that have yet to be born. Besides, this is all hypothetical as the…

Yes, set aside liabilities for 75 years in the future. They effectively have to fund people before they're born, unless you think they've got a lot of workers who'll be there over 75 years old.

So, yes, they have to fund. And they're struggling because they're being subject to deliberate and malicious political attack on public services.

Re: Self-driving trucks begin mail delivery test for U.S. Postal Service

#133

Post by mindslight »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #96
kevin_b_er wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its a common misconception, and it is driven by political interests that want to dismantle public services and replace them with more expensive services that have a profit margin for themselves attached.

For me it's not a misconception. 99.99% of things delivered by USPS are spam at my house. I don't even get paper statements for any of my bills. 100% of things delivered by UPS/FedEx/etc are useful things I want to get. Every time I go to the mailbox is an encouragement to get rid of the USPS. My life would literally be better if USPS didn't exist.

USPS delivers packages too. You're either not looking closely enough at the shipping labels or you don't order from a variety of merchants. In general, USPS seems to make sense for smaller businesses that ship small packages. There is also MailInnovations/SmartPost where UPS/Fedex dumps packages at the local "inefficient" post office for last mile delivery.

Raising the lowest price for sending junk mail to the prices of UPSFedex would certainly reduce spam, but this has nothing to do with how the services are governed.

FWIW it appears you're free to individually act on your desire: https://www.quora.com/U-S-Postal-Service-Do-I-legally-have-t...

Re: Self-driving trucks begin mail delivery test for U.S. Postal Service

#134

Post by LinuxBender »

kaybe wrote: post #25
Spooky23 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trains are super efficient. My uncle is a locomotive engineer. He has one or two conductors with a train that is a couple of miles long. They pay a premium to keep staffing at a minimum -- he can be called with 30 minutes notice to come in and drive a train for a 24 hour period. You'd probably be able to run more smaller trains with automation, but competing with trucks is tough, because the efficiency gains associat…

So I was a bit incredulous at the claim of miles-long trains. If anyone else is - turns out, there's a wikipedia page which has more information on very long trains (it's true): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest_trains

I've seen them driving along interstate 10. It was getting dark and I thought I was seeing things at first. I'm glad I never had to cross the tracks.

Re: Self-driving trucks begin mail delivery test for U.S. Postal Service

#136

Post by salawat »

zerocrates wrote: post #100
salawat wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note: Unemployment is measured through participation in various workfinding government programs or receipt of unemployment benefits. It doesn't really paint an accurate picture of how many are out of work, but getting by through alternative or illegal-quasi-legal means. It also in no way measures the number of jobs a defined unit of work can supply, or whether the job itself creates enough of a return to be economica…

The US federal government uses a monthly survey to compute unemployment statistics; it doesn't just tally up people receiving unemployment benefits.

So add "responds to survey" to list of conditions of the measurement, and a link to the survey procedures would be nice.

Re: Self-driving trucks begin mail delivery test for U.S. Postal Service

#137

Post by 0xffff2 »

vital_sol wrote: post #135

I wonder how are they going to fuel up self-driving trucks? You can not drive 2100 miles on a single tank of fuel.

Trucks follow well-defined routes that are already well served by several truck stop operators. I would expect the first truly self-driving trucks to partner with Pilot or Loves to offer some kind of full service option where the truck pulls in and someone comes out to fill it up and scan a tag to charge the fuel to the right account.

Re: Self-driving trucks begin mail delivery test for U.S. Postal Service

#138

Post by 0xffff2 »

skookumchuck wrote: post #101

Inter-city mail should be by rail, which is far more environmental and much less costly. The only reason highways appear to be "cheaper" is the real costs are paid by other people (passenger cars).

Is it really cheaper? I would expect rail to be somewhat cheaper but an order of magnitude or more slower.

Re: Self-driving trucks begin mail delivery test for U.S. Postal Service

#139

Post by treis »

kevin_b_er wrote: post #132
treis wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It started with the mandate to pre-fund pension and healthcare benefits for the next 75 years, funding pensions for retired employees who aren't even born yet. This is wholly inaccurate. All that the USPS is being required to do is set aside money to pay for pension liabilities that they have incurred. Nothing close to funding pensions for employees that have yet to be born. Besides, this is all hypothetical as the…

Yes, set aside liabilities for 75 years in the future. They effectively have to fund people before they're born, unless you think they've got a lot of workers who'll be there over 75 years old. So, yes, they have to fund. And they're struggling because they're being subject to deliberate and malicious political attack on public services.

>Yes, set aside liabilities for 75 years in the future. They effectively have to fund people before they're born, unless you think they've got a lot of workers who'll be there over 75 years old.

They have to set aside money to pay pension obligations that they have incurred to their current employees. No money is being set aside to pay pensions for workers who have yet to be born. A tiny fraction of the money set aside may be paid out in 75 years, but it won't be to a worker that has yet to be born. It would be paid to a current USPS employee that is still living 75 years from now.

>So, yes, they have to fund. And they're struggling because they're being subject to deliberate and malicious political attack on public services.

For other reasons, perhaps, but not for the pre-funding requirement.

Re: Self-driving trucks begin mail delivery test for U.S. Postal Service

#140

Post by the_reformation »

freehunter wrote: post #31
noer wrote: post #7

>TuSimple and the USPS declined to disclose the cost of the program, but Frum said no tax dollars were used and the agency relies on revenue from sales of postage and other products. Really? This is exactly the kind of thing we should be spending tax dollars on. I have no idea why people think the USPS is this giant wasteful pit of money in the federal budget but they provide a lot of valuable services in addition to…

>I have no idea why people think the USPS is this giant wasteful pit of money in the federal budget A concentrated disinformation campaign funded by people who stand to benefit from privatizing mail delivery. It started with the mandate to pre-fund pension and healthcare benefits for the next 75 years, funding pensions for retired employees who aren't even born yet. That means by federal mandate, the USPS is sitting…

We agree that the pension obligations are the reason why the USPS (once one of the most innovative logistics organizations in the world) has degraded so throughly. But pointing to shadowy private interests is backfilling personal politics into the narrative. The obvious culprit of USPS' debilitating pension obligations the pensioners themselves.
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