[skurland78704]

"UPS developed software that routes trucks such that they minimize left turns in their deliveries. By doing so, they reduced their annual fuel consumption by nearly 51,000 gallons in Washington DC alone. The reduction in fuel comes from drivers not having to sit idling at red lights waiting to make left hand turns."

I wonder if mapquest, google maps et al do that.

[chronomex]

Probably not. UPS trips involve a lot of points the truck has to pass, so they do a lot of turning. Most trips I've planned with Google Maps and friends seem to be "get onto the freeway, go near your destination, get off the freeway".

[coin]

I wish they would put these kinds of statistics in context. Is 51,000 gallons per year in DC a lot? Is it 10% or 0.00001% of their annual fuel usage? It's sort of meaningless without context.

[mkramlich]

heck I route my vehicle like that when i drive. i wrote a small program in 'spatio-geo-English" and it runs on a squishy grey organic microcontroller in my skull