Our home delivery habit reshaped the world • Hacker News Board

Re: Our home delivery habit reshaped the world

#41

Post by blackearl » Fri, Nov 22, 2019, 8:10 PM UTC

jefurii wrote: post #39

When I lived in Japan I would pass dozens of small shops every day on my way to and from work: in my neighborhood and in the areas around the train stations I passed through. On weekends I went in to the city to buy things I couldn't buy otherwise, or just to browse around. On one hand, I spent a lot of time on trains or buses or walking around looking that I could have spent doing other things. On the other hand, I…

Japan is way more compact than the average US city, though I do love a place that's really walkable like Montreal or Boston

Re: Our home delivery habit reshaped the world

#42

Post by riversflow » Fri, Nov 22, 2019, 8:11 PM UTC

fdswefsad wrote: post #33

ip26 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pitfall is that gas taxes are apparently not strongly correlated to road wear. A gallon of gas in a passenger vehicle does dramatically less road damage than a gallon of gas in a delivery truck.

You're right, but it's somewhat offset that a delivery truck uses more gas per mile than a passenger vehicle. Besides, we should discourage passenger vehicle use anyway, so raise the gas tax until it covers per mile delivery vehicle road wear.

We need to fix our urban housing problem, or provide further positive incentives for non-ICE vehicles so we aren’t creating a regressive tax. Newsflash: most people don’t like driving a lot, they do it because they feel like they must.

Re: Our home delivery habit reshaped the world

#43

Post by sharkmerry » Fri, Nov 22, 2019, 8:20 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #13

ptah wrote: post #5

I think it is fair that the increased usage of public infrastructure warrants a substantial increase in taxes

I'm pretty sure online shopping dramatically reduces use of public infrastructure, i.e. roads and parking. Every UPS truck that goes out with 100 packages means, what -- conservatively, maybe 50 separate car trips that it replaced? And so that much less traffic, congestion, pollution, gas used, etc.

Amazon's sprinter vans that do deliveries. are 6k pounds. curb weight, can carry up to 12k pounds

so 5x road wear of normal car when unloaded. 81x the wear when fully loaded.

Re: Our home delivery habit reshaped the world

#44

Post by crazygringo » Fri, Nov 22, 2019, 8:38 PM UTC

sharkmerry wrote: post #43

crazygringo wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure online shopping dramatically reduces use of public infrastructure, i.e. roads and parking. Every UPS truck that goes out with 100 packages means, what -- conservatively, maybe 50 separate car trips that it replaced? And so that much less traffic, congestion, pollution, gas used, etc.

Amazon's sprinter vans that do deliveries. are 6k pounds. curb weight, can carry up to 12k pounds so 5x road wear of normal car when unloaded. 81x the wear when fully loaded.

Well, public transportation buses typically weigh even far more than that, at 25-35K pounds, yet society seems to agree they're better overall than the 20 or 40 cars they replace, despite their greater overall road wear.

I don't think anyone considers road wear to be a major deciding factor here. Congestion and pollution are.

Re: Our home delivery habit reshaped the world

#45

Post by Nasrudith » Fri, Nov 22, 2019, 9:02 PM UTC

fdswefsad wrote: post #32

Nasrudith wrote: post #2

The media really seem to love pushing downright naive logistical assumptions trying to make online shopping a villain while expecting us to believe our own cars and brick and mortar store's logistics run on pixie farts. You never see them talking about the impact of junk mail. To be frank at this point it feels like they are trying to extort ad money to stop negative press coverage.

No, because a lot of the savings that door-to-door delivery supposedly achieves, I can achieve by simply optimizing for time. I drop off my kid at Main Street for dance. I pick up my laundry and drop off my USPS in the same plaza I continue on to Costco, and if gas (I take whichever car is lowest on gas). Costco has everything you could typically need, but on the way back there are very many stores I can stop at. Pic…

You seem to be missing that a truck isn't a replacement for one person or even ten - but more. The multiplier effect is very significang. That aspect always struck me as pretty obvious in "a city bus makes up for its lower nominal miles per gallon by the average ridership person miles alone - even without congestion" but it seems to be something people don't understand like describing commercial flight emissions like they just move a single person.

Re: Our home delivery habit reshaped the world

#46

Post by dominotw » Fri, Nov 22, 2019, 10:48 PM UTC

ip26 wrote: post #22

pif wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And the correct activity to tax is the delivery itself [...] Ideally taxed to the business doing the delivery Congratulations! You have discovered gas taxes ;-)

The pitfall is that gas taxes are apparently not strongly correlated to road wear. A gallon of gas in a passenger vehicle does dramatically less road damage than a gallon of gas in a delivery truck.

> A gallon of gas in a passenger vehicle does dramatically less road damage than a gallon of gas in a delivery truck.

How? I don't follow this logic.

Re: Our home delivery habit reshaped the world

#47

Post by sharkmerry » Fri, Nov 22, 2019, 11:41 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #44

sharkmerry wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon's sprinter vans that do deliveries. are 6k pounds. curb weight, can carry up to 12k pounds so 5x road wear of normal car when unloaded. 81x the wear when fully loaded.

Well, public transportation buses typically weigh even far more than that, at 25-35K pounds, yet society seems to agree they're better overall than the 20 or 40 cars they replace, despite their greater overall road wear. I don't think anyone considers road wear to be a major deciding factor here. Congestion and pollution are.

I was curious to compare.

Public Transit bus weighs 44k fully loaded. Assuming only seated passengers, it holds 44 people so 1000lb per person. A car is 4000lbs on average. Fully loaded (with standing) holds 92 people. 478lb/person.

Re: Our home delivery habit reshaped the world

#48

Post by crazygringo » Sat, Nov 23, 2019, 1:45 AM UTC

sharkmerry wrote: post #47

crazygringo wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, public transportation buses typically weigh even far more than that, at 25-35K pounds, yet society seems to agree they're better overall than the 20 or 40 cars they replace, despite their greater overall road wear. I don't think anyone considers road wear to be a major deciding factor here. Congestion and pollution are.

I was curious to compare. Public Transit bus weighs 44k fully loaded. Assuming only seated passengers, it holds 44 people so 1000lb per person. A car is 4000lbs on average. Fully loaded (with standing) holds 92 people. 478lb/person.

So if you’re curious, you’ll enjoy knowing road wear isn’t linear with weight — it’s exponentially proportional. Almost all road wear comes from large trucks and buses. So linear division doesn’t actually have relevance here. Buses are far, far worse than the equivalent number of cars in terms of road wear... but again, it's a non-issue because road wear isn't a main consideration.

https://www.vabike.org/vehicle-weight-and-road-damage/

Re: Our home delivery habit reshaped the world

#49

Post by mantas » Sat, Nov 23, 2019, 7:14 AM UTC

dominotw wrote: post #46

ip26 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pitfall is that gas taxes are apparently not strongly correlated to road wear. A gallon of gas in a passenger vehicle does dramatically less road damage than a gallon of gas in a delivery truck.

> A gallon of gas in a passenger vehicle does dramatically less road damage than a gallon of gas in a delivery truck. How? I don't follow this logic.

Heavy vehicles put exponentially more wear. Especially if the road was not built for having that weight on it. Let's say you build a drive way for a car. You could park a 2 ton car every day for decades with no damage. Yet a massive truck parked once may fuck it up due to it's sheer weight.

Re: Our home delivery habit reshaped the world

#50

Post by dominotw » Sat, Nov 23, 2019, 4:23 PM UTC

mantas wrote: post #49

dominotw wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A gallon of gas in a passenger vehicle does dramatically less road damage than a gallon of gas in a delivery truck. How? I don't follow this logic.

Heavy vehicles put exponentially more wear. Especially if the road was not built for having that weight on it. Let's say you build a drive way for a car. You could park a 2 ton car every day for decades with no damage. Yet a massive truck parked once may fuck it up due to it's sheer weight.

that would make sense if roads are built for 5 trips of a car than 1 trip of truck. ( Because car is travelling longer with that one gallon of gallon.)

Is that true though that X cars travelling a mile of road would do less damage than 1 truck traveling on that same road?