Which part of the new delivery model is supposed to reduce fatigue?

[TopperGas]

Over Xmas I did encounter a manager or two who seemed to think having a “van assistant” would somehow increase productivity. Having tried it a few times, usually on account of there being no spare van for the “van assistant” to go out with his own parcel route, it — predictably — was a complete disaster and actually ended up taking longer than if on your own…

If doing that on a parcel route which is over a large distance- then yeah - it isn't going to be efficient.

When running out of time and needing to clear the Tracked, managers in our office claim that it's more efficient if the van-driver goes and does parcels alone, while the passenger continues doing the typical letter/parcel loops. I am not so sure about this....

On a van-share round that is compact - going round together doing parcels can be quick. Driver doesn't have to keep stopping as much. As long as you manage it efficiently giving each person the same amount of parcels then it is efficient.

Problems I saw:

1. When doing it on the Ad-Hoc, our respective PDAs didn’t update to show parcels delivered by the other, meaning there was constant confusion as to whether we had delivered certain parcels. You have to keep cancelling the route and reload in Outdoor to get it to update, and even then there is a lag.

If you sort the parcels into street order why do you need a PDA to inform you if you have delivered them all, as once they're all gone there's clearly no more you can deliver?

[jessicarabbit]

As much as I want to agree with the sentiments of trams and the left leaning side of the debate the harsh reality is if this method change doesn't work/doesn't save enough money the business will just move to next least worse option which is a 3 day USO and then it's literally game over.

[Acca Dacca]

Over Xmas I did encounter a manager or two who seemed to think having a “van assistant” would somehow increase productivity. Having tried it a few times, usually on account of there being no spare van for the “van assistant” to go out with his own parcel route, it — predictably — was a complete disaster and actually ended up taking longer than if on your own…

If doing that on a parcel route which is over a large distance- then yeah - it isn't going to be efficient.

When running out of time and needing to clear the Tracked, managers in our office claim that it's more efficient if the van-driver goes and does parcels alone, while the passenger continues doing the typical letter/parcel loops. I am not so sure about this....

On a van-share round that is compact - going round together doing parcels can be quick. Driver doesn't have to keep stopping as much. As long as you manage it efficiently giving each person the same amount of parcels then it is efficient.

Problems I saw:

1. When doing it on the Ad-Hoc, our respective PDAs didn’t update to show parcels delivered by the other, meaning there was constant confusion as to whether we had delivered certain parcels. You have to keep cancelling the route and reload in Outdoor to get it to update, and even then there is a lag.

If you sort the parcels into street order why do you need a PDA to inform you if you have delivered them all, as once they're all gone there's clearly no more you can deliver?

Yeah and if you dont get rid of one, just put a sticker on it as soon as you get in the van. I dont get the confusion either.

[Smoothbackground]

Over Xmas I did encounter a manager or two who seemed to think having a “van assistant” would somehow increase productivity. Having tried it a few times, usually on account of there being no spare van for the “van assistant” to go out with his own parcel route, it — predictably — was a complete disaster and actually ended up taking longer than if on your own…

If doing that on a parcel route which is over a large distance- then yeah - it isn't going to be efficient.

When running out of time and needing to clear the Tracked, managers in our office claim that it's more efficient if the van-driver goes and does parcels alone, while the passenger continues doing the typical letter/parcel loops. I am not so sure about this....

On a van-share round that is compact - going round together doing parcels can be quick. Driver doesn't have to keep stopping as much. As long as you manage it efficiently giving each person the same amount of parcels then it is efficient.

Problems I saw:

1. When doing it on the Ad-Hoc, our respective PDAs didn’t update to show parcels delivered by the other, meaning there was constant confusion as to whether we had delivered certain parcels. You have to keep cancelling the route and reload in Outdoor to get it to update, and even then there is a lag.

If you sort the parcels into street order why do you need a PDA to inform you if you have delivered them all, as once they're all gone there's clearly no more you can deliver?

I don’t sort into street order. Sorting into street name might be possible with 40 or so parcels, perhaps 80 parcels at a push if you’re in an LWB van, but it just doesn’t work for the volumes we professional multi-drop drivers deliver. I’m talking approximately 200 large-format parcels crammed in, utilising almost every inch of space in the back of a Boxer L3. With a high-density parcel route the parcels need to be stacked like Tetris blocks, in strict drop order, preferably numbered too so that you can grab and go from the back of the van with no idle time. And the PDA obviously solves the empirical issue of “Where to next, Bob?” without needing to constantly keep looking at hidden/obscured address labels in the back of the van.

Yes, your method perhaps enables you to throw a small quantity of parcels into the van, you’re thinking you’ve loaded them into a good run order, slam the doors and hit the road quicker than anyone else, but the downside is you waste all that time and countless inefficiency hunting for parcels in the back, and/or driving past a house you’ve got a parcel onboard for and only realising an hour later and then having to double back.

[SpacePhoenix]

Given that we now scan parcels to yorks, which are tagged to a york/sleeve going to a certain office, in theory for most parcels the system knows the delivery address. It's probably going to only be a matter of time before RM bring in something along the lines of the RON system but a far more powerful and scaled up version to plan everyone's routes.

I don't know how far we are away from all letters and flats having scanable 2D barcodes with the destination address encoded in them. It seems like a very sizeable chunk already do. Think it's a matter of when, not if RM have all letters and flats scanned at every office they pass through, especially given the rate that the volume of letters and flats is dropping off at.

[tramssirhc]

As much as I want to agree with the sentiments of trams and the left leaning side of the debate the harsh reality is if this method change doesn't work/doesn't save enough money the business will just move to next least worse option which is a 3 day USO and then it's literally game over.

The CWU is deliberately framing the argument as everything being about savings. The regulator was explicit. This is about making money not saving money. The postal industry is a multi-billion pound money making operation. It finds enough money to pay the bosses millions. Funnily enough it's so good at making money it has trade unions in the industry who can pay their officials hundreds of thousands of pounds in wages and perks. There's plenty of money to pay us our rightful share of the billions and to employ more of us to make our work safe and healthy.

[Barnacle]

As much as I want to agree with the sentiments of trams and the left leaning side of the debate the harsh reality is if this method change doesn't work/doesn't save enough money the business will just move to next least worse option which is a 3 day USO and then it's literally game over.

The CWU is deliberately framing the argument as everything being about savings. The regulator was explicit. This is about making money not saving money. The postal industry is a multi-billion pound money making operation. It finds enough money to pay the bosses millions. Funnily enough it's so good at making money it has trade unions in the industry who can pay their officials hundreds of thousands of pounds in wages and perks. There's plenty of money to pay us our rightful share of the billions and to employ more of us to make our work safe and healthy.

We’re victims of a capitalist system of starving the bottom and creaming off the top. Profits have to increase year on year, if they don’t there are profit warnings and talks of losses - but the losses are a reduction in profits, the businesses are still making money, but in our system, which has already destroyed manufacturing in this country, less profit equals death.

We can’t win. They will destroy RM. All that will be left will be a tiny share of the parcels market because we’ll be no different to any other company scratching about for business.

But they won’t care because they’ll have moved on to another sector, another national treasure.

[scotchy1962]

Over Xmas I did encounter a manager or two who seemed to think having a “van assistant” would somehow increase productivity. Having tried it a few times, usually on account of there being no spare van for the “van assistant” to go out with his own parcel route, it — predictably — was a complete disaster and actually ended up taking longer than if on your own…

If doing that on a parcel route which is over a large distance- then yeah - it isn't going to be efficient.

When running out of time and needing to clear the Tracked, managers in our office claim that it's more efficient if the van-driver goes and does parcels alone, while the passenger continues doing the typical letter/parcel loops. I am not so sure about this....

On a van-share round that is compact - going round together doing parcels can be quick. Driver doesn't have to keep stopping as much. As long as you manage it efficiently giving each person the same amount of parcels then it is efficient.

Problems I saw:

1. When doing it on the Ad-Hoc, our respective PDAs didn’t update to show parcels delivered by the other, meaning there was constant confusion as to whether we had delivered certain parcels. You have to keep cancelling the route and reload in Outdoor to get it to update, and even then there is a lag.

If you sort the parcels into street order why do you need a PDA to inform you if you have delivered them all, as once they're all gone there's clearly no more you can deliver?

I don’t sort into street order. Sorting into street name might be possible with 40 or so parcels, perhaps 80 parcels at a push if you’re in an LWB van, but it just doesn’t work for the volumes we professional multi-drop drivers deliver. I’m talking approximately 200 large-format parcels crammed in, utilising almost every inch of space in the back of a Boxer L3. With a high-density parcel route the parcels need to be stacked like Tetris blocks, in strict drop order, preferably numbered too so that you can grab and go from the back of the van with no idle time. And the PDA obviously solves the empirical issue of “Where to next, Bob?” without needing to constantly keep looking at hidden/obscured address labels in the back of the van.

Yes, your method perhaps enables you to throw a small quantity of parcels into the van, you’re thinking you’ve loaded them into a good run order, slam the doors and hit the road quicker than anyone else, but the downside is you waste all that time and countless inefficiency hunting for parcels in the back, and/or driving past a house you’ve got a parcel onboard for and only realising an hour later and then having to double back.

Everything you state all sounds plausible,"Professional multi-drop drivers" has really got me though. Two years in and now we are "professionals" and while i sort of guess it's a truthful comment, i can't help but think it's a bit of a dig.
I personally know my area like the back of my hand and would never need anything to tell me where to go and in what order and that includes 240+ tracked a day on a heavy day, but i have also covered, over covid, areas i knew nothing about far away from my home office and used a phone app to guide me and give a order for them and found them useful.
I guess you don't know the area you deliver.

[claretandblue]

Over Xmas I did encounter a manager or two who seemed to think having a “van assistant” would somehow increase productivity. Having tried it a few times, usually on account of there being no spare van for the “van assistant” to go out with his own parcel route, it — predictably — was a complete disaster and actually ended up taking longer than if on your own…

If doing that on a parcel route which is over a large distance- then yeah - it isn't going to be efficient.

When running out of time and needing to clear the Tracked, managers in our office claim that it's more efficient if the van-driver goes and does parcels alone, while the passenger continues doing the typical letter/parcel loops. I am not so sure about this....

On a van-share round that is compact - going round together doing parcels can be quick. Driver doesn't have to keep stopping as much. As long as you manage it efficiently giving each person the same amount of parcels then it is efficient.

Problems I saw:

1. When doing it on the Ad-Hoc, our respective PDAs didn’t update to show parcels delivered by the other, meaning there was constant confusion as to whether we had delivered certain parcels. You have to keep cancelling the route and reload in Outdoor to get it to update, and even then there is a lag.

If you sort the parcels into street order why do you need a PDA to inform you if you have delivered them all, as once they're all gone there's clearly no more you can deliver?

I don’t sort into street order. Sorting into street name might be possible with 40 or so parcels, perhaps 80 parcels at a push if you’re in an LWB van, but it just doesn’t work for the volumes we professional multi-drop drivers deliver. I’m talking approximately 200 large-format parcels crammed in, utilising almost every inch of space in the back of a Boxer L3. With a high-density parcel route the parcels need to be stacked like Tetris blocks, in strict drop order, preferably numbered too so that you can grab and go from the back of the van with no idle time. And the PDA obviously solves the empirical issue of “Where to next, Bob?” without needing to constantly keep looking at hidden/obscured address labels in the back of the van.

Yes, your method perhaps enables you to throw a small quantity of parcels into the van, you’re thinking you’ve loaded them into a good run order, slam the doors and hit the road quicker than anyone else, but the downside is you waste all that time and countless inefficiency hunting for parcels in the back, and/or driving past a house you’ve got a parcel onboard for and only realising an hour later and then having to double back.

Everything you state all sounds plausible,"Professional multi-drop drivers" has really got me though. Two years in and now we are "professionals" and while i sort of guess it's a truthful comment, i can't help but think it's a bit of a dig.
I personally know my area like the back of my hand and would never need anything to tell me where to go and in what order and that includes 240+ tracked a day on a heavy day, but i have also covered, over covid, areas i knew nothing about far away from my home office and used a phone app to guide me and give a order for them and found them useful.
I guess you don't know the area you deliver.

I know people who use the PDA to put parcels in a route, they all say that it is incredibly inneffecient, you end up going back over yourself.

[Barnacle]

Over Xmas I did encounter a manager or two who seemed to think having a “van assistant” would somehow increase productivity. Having tried it a few times, usually on account of there being no spare van for the “van assistant” to go out with his own parcel route, it — predictably — was a complete disaster and actually ended up taking longer than if on your own…

If doing that on a parcel route which is over a large distance- then yeah - it isn't going to be efficient.

When running out of time and needing to clear the Tracked, managers in our office claim that it's more efficient if the van-driver goes and does parcels alone, while the passenger continues doing the typical letter/parcel loops. I am not so sure about this....

On a van-share round that is compact - going round together doing parcels can be quick. Driver doesn't have to keep stopping as much. As long as you manage it efficiently giving each person the same amount of parcels then it is efficient.

Problems I saw:

1. When doing it on the Ad-Hoc, our respective PDAs didn’t update to show parcels delivered by the other, meaning there was constant confusion as to whether we had delivered certain parcels. You have to keep cancelling the route and reload in Outdoor to get it to update, and even then there is a lag.

If you sort the parcels into street order why do you need a PDA to inform you if you have delivered them all, as once they're all gone there's clearly no more you can deliver?

I don’t sort into street order. Sorting into street name might be possible with 40 or so parcels, perhaps 80 parcels at a push if you’re in an LWB van, but it just doesn’t work for the volumes we professional multi-drop drivers deliver. I’m talking approximately 200 large-format parcels crammed in, utilising almost every inch of space in the back of a Boxer L3. With a high-density parcel route the parcels need to be stacked like Tetris blocks, in strict drop order, preferably numbered too so that you can grab and go from the back of the van with no idle time. And the PDA obviously solves the empirical issue of “Where to next, Bob?” without needing to constantly keep looking at hidden/obscured address labels in the back of the van.

Yes, your method perhaps enables you to throw a small quantity of parcels into the van, you’re thinking you’ve loaded them into a good run order, slam the doors and hit the road quicker than anyone else, but the downside is you waste all that time and countless inefficiency hunting for parcels in the back, and/or driving past a house you’ve got a parcel onboard for and only realising an hour later and then having to double back.

Everything you state all sounds plausible,"Professional multi-drop drivers" has really got me though. Two years in and now we are "professionals" and while i sort of guess it's a truthful comment, i can't help but think it's a bit of a dig.
I personally know my area like the back of my hand and would never need anything to tell me where to go and in what order and that includes 240+ tracked a day on a heavy day, but i have also covered, over covid, areas i knew nothing about far away from my home office and used a phone app to guide me and give a order for them and found them useful.
I guess you don't know the area you deliver.

I know people who use the PDA to put parcels in a route, they all say that it is incredibly inneffecient, you end up going back over yourself.

Yes, that’s true. If you have no idea of the area, it obviously helps, but knowing the area makes a massive difference because you know the cut throughs, know that you have to go to the back of flats and not the front, all that sort of intel makes you more efficient than relying on the tech.

[adamanti]

Another thing to add to the whole parcel driving delivery discussion is now how some jobs that were once seen as decent perhaps, in a better area but encompassed busy main roads are now not looking quite as attractive. From experience there is a huge difference being able to nip around with hardly any restrictions ie back street's less busy road's etc.to being stuck on a main road with no parking lot's of packets on both side of the road where in theory you should be able to nip from one side to the other. Not the reality though! Still I'm sure the planning team will take into account the reality's of the job.

[TopperGas]

Another thing to add to the whole parcel driving delivery discussion is now how some jobs that were once seen as decent perhaps, in a better area but encompassed busy main roads are now not looking quite as attractive. From experience there is a huge difference being able to nip around with hardly any restrictions ie back street's less busy road's etc.to being stuck on a main road with no parking lot's of packets on both side of the road where in theory you should be able to nip from one side to the other. Not the reality though! Still I'm sure the planning team will take into account the reality's of the job.

I''m lost unless your DOM is suggesting that you must religiously follow the PDA why can't you deliver the parcels like you've always done, I just put the parcels in the order I'm doing to deliver them then just scan them at door, or arrange the PDA route to reflect how I intend delivering them. THE DPR routes only really help if you are delivering to a rural area you don't know.

[tramssirhc]

As much as I want to agree with the sentiments of trams and the left leaning side of the debate the harsh reality is if this method change doesn't work/doesn't save enough money the business will just move to next least worse option which is a 3 day USO and then it's literally game over.

The CWU is deliberately framing the argument as everything being about savings. The regulator was explicit. This is about making money not saving money. The postal industry is a multi-billion pound money making operation. It finds enough money to pay the bosses millions. Funnily enough it's so good at making money it has trade unions in the industry who can pay their officials hundreds of thousands of pounds in wages and perks. There's plenty of money to pay us our rightful share of the billions and to employ more of us to make our work safe and healthy.

We’re victims of a capitalist system of starving the bottom and creaming off the top. Profits have to increase year on year, if they don’t there are profit warnings and talks of losses - but the losses are a reduction in profits, the businesses are still making money, but in our system, which has already destroyed manufacturing in this country, less profit equals death.

We can’t win. They will destroy RM. All that will be left will be a tiny share of the parcels market because we’ll be no different to any other company scratching about for business.

But they won’t care because they’ll have moved on to another sector, another national treasure.

Nobody has to put up with anything and thats the point the R&FPWC is making. We can be passive participants or we can stand up and fight back. I'd sooner lose fighting than give up on my knees.

[Smoothbackground]

Everything you state all sounds plausible,"Professional multi-drop drivers" has really got me though. Two years in and now we are "professionals" and while i sort of guess it's a truthful comment, i can't help but think it's a bit of a dig.
I personally know my area like the back of my hand and would never need anything to tell me where to go and in what order and that includes 240+ tracked a day on a heavy day, but i have also covered, over covid, areas i knew nothing about far away from my home office and used a phone app to guide me and give a order for them and found them useful.
I guess you don't know the area you deliver.

I have been a multi-drop driver this time round since 2018, and I have held an LGV Class C licence for almost 25 years (admittedly I haven’t driven a truck in 20 years). As such, I think I am entitled to refer to myself as a professional driver, though I apologise if it gets anyone’s backs up. It wasn’t intended as a dig.

I don’t use the PDA to plot my route for me — I let it suggest its route, then I move the stops around as to how I would deliver it. Although I didn’t for the first few months, admittedly, I now know our patch like the back of my hand.

I hope that answers your points.

And without picking holes in your own point, 240+ tracked (Covid kits?) is not the same thing as 240+ parcels. As you know, tracked can be DL-sized envelopes or postable items.

[Smoothbackground]

I know people who use the PDA to put parcels in a route, they all say that it is incredibly inneffecient, you end up going back over yourself.

That’s because they don't optimise and adjust their manifest before finalising, probably because they lack the geographical knowledge. I never go back on myself — well, hardly ever! Trust me, used right, it is the most efficient way. Evri use the same principle, so does DPD, so does Amazon, so does every other carrier. Are they all wrong and inefficient as well?