A pair of weeks ago I bought a parcel from Ljubliana (Slovenia) with tracking number and the possibility of checking the status of the parcel via web. It was a big parcel and everything arrived well and in a reasonable time. Nevertheless, my big surprise was to check the incredible route followed by it.
Following google maps the straight way is 1796 Km, quite long. I understand that shipping company cannot follow the direct way in every parcel, they have to use their intermediate transport centers. But the route of this one challenges any logistics considerations. It was this one: LJUBLJANA – LINZ – BRUSSELS – NUERNBERG- FRANKFURT – MANNHEIM – BRUSSELS – VITORIA – BRUSSELS – VITORIA – BARCELONA – VITORIA- and finally: Bilbao. More than 7100 Km, for times the minimum by road. The two routes are displayed in the figure below. Some aspects are really striking, as the three times it was in Brussels or in Vitoria, it had to get dizzy moving around this way.
Transportation is responsible of more or less a third of the CO2 emissions in most of the world and certainly there is room for improvement, as stated in this case. Because transport is not only ourself moving, it is also the movement of the things we buy and use. This web: sourcemap is a great resource to learn about it, I have to check it more.
Maybe a key point is that the fuel is not as expensive as we consider it or that the minute is considered more expensive or costly than the Km, at least for the moment. One way for improvement is to change this considerations and align cost to climate change effects. In my opinion this will become more widespread and accepted with the time, I hope it is not to late by then.
Two screenshots from Google Maps displaying the direct way recommended by maps and the actual way followed by the parcel.
