UPS Looks to Cut Fuel Consumption With No-Pickup Option for Smaller Customers

UPS Looks to Cut Fuel Consumption With No-Pickup Option for Smaller Customers

The greenest delivery service is the one not provided.

So says United Parcel Service, which is looking to streamline its delivery service and cut fuel costs in the process by improving its customer-notification system enough to eliminate pickups to businesses that don't have packages going out on that particular day.

The world's largest package-delivery company is offering a pickup option for smaller businesses with more intermittent-service needs that lets them eliminate an unnecessary pickup attempt by notifying UPS of a delivery need by a certain cut-off time.

Under the program, called UPS Smart Pickup, drivers are notified through their handheld devices whether to go to a particular customer or skip the location if the trip isn't necessary, UPS said in a statement today.

Such unnecessary trips add up. UPS estimates cutting its vehicles' annual U.S. fuel use by almost 800,000 gallons a year while reducing CO2 emissions by 7,800 metric tons, the company said.

Along with competitor FedEx, UPS had already been looking to cut fuel costs by using more alternative-fuel vehicles. About 1,900 of UPS's approximately 96,000 trucks, cars, motorcycles and tractors are powered with an alternative fuel.
 
UPS last year boosted its hybrid-electric truck inventory to about 250 from 50 after a study funded by the U.S. Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory revealed that a group of a half-dozen UPS hybrid trucks got 29 percent better gas mileage than conventional Mercedes-Benz powered four-cylinder diesel trucks.

Danny King, Contributor

Scott Doggett:  is an AutoObserver.com Associate Editor.