Category: Industry News

UPS and its brown delivery trucks ruled American streets for decades.

But Amazon, UPS’s largest customer and competitor, could overtake the Sandy Springs-based company as the nation’s largest package carrier this year.

The rivalry traces its roots to the 2013 holidays, when a meltdown of the UPS shipping network led to millions of gifts ordered not arriving in time for Christmas. Amazon issued gift cards and refunds to mollify angry customers — and rapidly built out a home delivery network so it wouldn’t have to rely so much on UPS.

The high stakes competition is one more striking example of how West Coast tech titans are disrupting traditional industries and pressuring old economy stalwarts to reinvent themselves or risk being left in the rearview mirror.

High gas prices aren’t just affecting drivers, they’ll soon begin impacting shipping prices.

Gas prices are also impacting UPS.

Its fuel surcharge for ground shipping went up by more than 2% this week from the previous week, to a total of 15.25%

However, the surcharge will drop to 15% next week.

UPS also sets its fuel surcharge according to the average diesel gas price.

The renegotiation of the UPS contract with the Teamsters doesn’t begin until August, but O’Brien said his members are already ready to strike if they don’t see a contract that meets their needs.

“We’ll put them on the street,” he said in the interview.

Still, Amazon has thus far resisted unionization — although it did have a sharp rebuke from the National Labor Relations Board for interfering in a union drive effort in Alabama — despite pressure from at least two other unions that have been trying to organize its 1.1 million American workers.

Environmental Responsibility

For many fleets, executives feel a responsibility to put sustainability at the core of their trucking operations, just like they have with safety.

Take one of HDT’s 2021 Top Green Fleets, UPS, for example. With a global footprint and customers expecting their packages in more than 220 countries and territories, UPS has acknowledged its role in climate change, and recognized how climate change, air quality and other socioeconomic challenges intersect.

So, UPS has placed a focused on the creation of more environmentally sustainable solutions to work toward carbon neutrality by 2050 through introducing innovative delivery methods for crowded cities, and investing in next-generation vehicles and route optimization technologies.

“Logistics is a carbon-intensive industry, and our focus is on making credible, purposeful changes to adapt and to achieve our goals at every point along the chain,” Lauren Spangler, UPS’ global sustainability communications lead, said in an email. “That’s why we take a holistic approach to sustainability and are investing in the cutting-edge solutions to reduce our carbon footprint.”’

A parade of delivery vehicles rumbles through the streets every day, carrying bags and boxes of clothes, groceries and diapers directly to our doorsteps. Vans and trucks burning fossil fuels are fulfilling the nation’s rising demand for online shopping — and they’re bringing noise, noxious fumes and planet-warming gases into neighborhoods across the country.

In response, automakers and logistics giants are accelerating efforts to electrify commercial vehicles, which have lagged behind passenger cars when it comes to replacing polluting engines with emissions-free batteries.

Among the latest contenders vying to clean up fleets is Arrival.

The British startup is partnering with UPS, which has placed an order for 10,000 of the company’s electric delivery vans. Arrival plans to start producing the vehicles later this year in the United Kingdom and the United States. The two companies are collaborating to design vans for drivers making dozens of daily stops, who are hauling ever-growing volumes of goods, said Avinash Rugoobur, Arrival’s president.