9mo ago

What would be a solution to the ever increasing delivery industry?

So I often come here, even though I oppose the idea of saying "fuck cars". And yes, I do know it's not completely literal. However, I understand the logic.

With that being said, many people are using cars to be delivery contractors. It's not a necessary utility, but it is useful and is used by the vast majority of (I'll assume) 1st world countries. If vehicle use is reduced, what do you think would be a good strategy to keep this industry going? Yes, bicycles can still be used, but it would take more time, which would raise prices (capitalism). And another obvious solution would be to just do away with it and just go to restaurants. Do you have any opinions beyond those two that solutions I've already presented?

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One vehicle delivering 2 peoples food is better than 2 people driving out to get food, tbh.
Overall delivery drivers substantially reduce traffic.
For more deliverable stuff like packages, 1 delivery truck delivery 40 peoples packages in one trip us so much better than 40 individual households all driving to Walmart or whatever.
I am fine with the majority of traffic just being delivery vehicles and public transit, those are the two actually effective uses for vehicles at the public level.
- I have thought the same thing many times, but I'm not completely certain the math checks out. Does lemmy have a "theydidthemath"? Otherwise I might try to figure this one out for once...
  
  It's the same principle as with buses, except that it is products instead of people. One cargo hauling vehicle, depending on its type, can haul several items for several people, so you have one vehicle that already removes the need for all those people to get in a car to get whatever delivery they get by themselves. Plus it really is helpful for people with disabilities.
  
  Yes but it’s not well used !theydidthemath@lemm.ee !TheyDidTheMath@kbin.social

Cargo bikes are extremely effective in dense European cities but I, at least, exclude commercial and emergency vehicles from my fuckcarsing... I mostly personally object to using cars for commuting - it's an extreme waste of time and resources.

Deliveries are good thing, not a bad one. Each vehicle transporting multiple people's products is several less cars of people getting them themselves. It's like buses, but for actual cargo instead of people.
- some kind of... food truck?

I do know it’s not completely literal
Are you trying to kink shame?

And another obvious solution would be to just do away with it and just go to restaurants.
that's what everyone did and still most people do. It's a great solution 😉
in france even scooters are rare and almost all deliveries are made on e- or manual bikes (mostly by recently migrated cheap labor 🤐)
- I figure delivery would be better because you'd have one vehicle delivering multiple families worth of food in a night, compared to one family per car.
  This is especially true if you're using a two-wheeled vehicle for deliveries. This also allows people who are unable to or uncomfortable riding an ebike or something to have their meal transported by one.
  Transporting food will always take less energy and space than transporting hungry people.
  
  "transporting hungry people"!
  not everything is "management".
  From hunter-gatherers to farmers to people who can't even cook—a strange animal who has no time to feed itself. It wants to press a couple of images and voila, magically its food appears before its box.
  Soon it will pay people to put food to its mouth while it's busy with its screen. Like a giant baby, it will say aaa and somebody will feed it, cause it takes less energy to be fed.
- Wow, I always romanticized France as having cool scooters everywhere. Guess I was wrong. lol
  
  I didn't ask about romaticization. I asked about personally logical solutions. Romance is not logical

I'm not in america, the delivery guys use motor cycles much more than cars.

Motorcycle...? Moped even? If it's food, it's the most desirable delivery vehicle currently being used in most part of Asia. Smaller than car, can filter to the front of the light, and faster than bicycle. If it's for parcel, motorcycle still is the best choice if the item is small. Bigger item however, then yeah car might be ideal. But most parcel is usually small, so motorcycle is still much more viable and cheaper to run than a car.
BUT if you want a world without personal car, for medium sized parcel, a motorcycle can have a sidecar added for more item. Big sized parcel can be delivered via a van.

"it is useful and is used by the vast majority of (I'll assume) 1st world countries"
no, the vast majority of delivery drivers use motor/electric bicycles/scooters/motorcycles
Electric bikes have dozens to hundreds of miles of range, charge fast, have carrying capacity for most cargo.
most countries do all delivery except for something like a refrigerator with motorbikes and e-bikes (and some of them deliver refrigerators with motorbikes and E-Bikes), it works great.
that seems like the obvious way to do it to me, having seen it work in every country except the US, where driving is more heavily tied into ego than utility.

Actually, I'm down in Latin America right now and a lot of deliveries are done by bike or scooter. It actually often takes about the same amount of time when in town, maybe a tiny bit longer depending, but because bikes are more versatile than cars - ie smaller, more maneuverable - they can sort of cut through the traffic much easier. In these urban areas, bikes are often faster to get around with, especially if you have infrastructure for it.
But most deliveries down here are on scooter, not in a car.

My idea of "fuck cars" is more about reduction of traffic and infrastructure, but services like buses, ambulances, fire-trucks and such may continue operating if needed. In this instance I don't see why, a motorbike or an electric scooter couldn't be used for delivery services, in case of food; or your regular ups/fedex/dhl/usps truck for packages and letters. I'm pretty sure that they are just a minority of the traffic in urban areas.
My main gripe are individual drivers and commuters that take-up a lot of space, create a lot of traffic and are needlessly polluting the environment. I also take issue with car centric design, since everything is incredibly far away or too dangerous to be reachable by bike.
Perhaps we could have very specific licences given to these service providers that would require their companies to pay a hefty amount to operate and issue. And in case of emergency vehicles there could be a government discount or something. That way you "fuck" cars with policy. idk
- That's why I don't take "fuck cars" literal

Recently, I read of a concept where they put delivery bikes onto trams (without disrupting normal usage). That seems like a cool concept for covering cities.
But I also think that delivery cars are a net positive, because they allow people to not own a car themselves.

I don't know if it's me, my country or my perception, but "delivery contractor" isn't really a thing here. I believe because our government was just good enough to spot this obvious skirting of labour laws.
Since they couldn't as easily exploit the driver, they made the service more expensive and worse. Or they just acted as the ones who would forward your order to the restaurant... but then most people I know just order directly to have better service. I think we ordered via such a service once, after much delay the driver told us the order took 30 minutes to even get to them. Could have lied, but couldn't have used that excuse if we ordered directly.
Now to your point, as they are just regular employees, they don't have to wait in the car, the company doesn't want them to get stuck in traffic, and high urbanization means you can only drive 50km/h 90% of the time anyway, delivery is done with Scooters.

Try to order pickup, if you can go by the restaurant on foot/bike/public transit and physically/mentally can. Not just because of traffic reduction, but also because those delivery apps are usually super predatory and get away with paying sub minimum wage through some legal gaps.
If deliveries by car can be a small part in making it possible and comfortable for some individual to forgo owning a personal car, it's still a net plus. A major chunk of the environmental damage a car does is in its production. Taxis are better than individual cars for the same reason. Also, they're usually not delivering only one meal at a time, like you would if you drove there yourself.

Serve Robotics, Coco Delivery, Nuro AI. Just a few examples. Eventually you’ll be able to order from Target and they’ll let you know when the drone is parked in the street. You walk out and get your stuff and it drives off. The cost of the vehicle decreases as well as the vehicles mass when you remove all the human occupant safety stuff. Future personal delivery will be wheeled drones.
- That would not work in my neighbourhood. Narrow sidewalks, very old and bumpy. And they would block a wheelchair user.
  
  R2D2 traverses some pretty rocky terrain.

End suburbia, install more cafeterias (like schools) to provide good food at a good price. Create schools and some decent incentives to get people to learn to cook.

Making it a public service. With the ever increasing scale making it profitable only becomes more and more feasible. What doesn't help is having it milked dry for every cent because these companies know we depend on them

Electric drones with solar chargers would have been cool. I think Amazon toyed with this idea but it never seemed to happen. My guess is they are too susceptible to being robbed and less efficient due to only holding one package per trip or something like that.
- Flying drones are a bad idea for so many reasons. They could get shot down (which IIRC even happened in the US), they could crash into people's homes or onto their head for a variety of reasons, people would find ways to intercept them and steal the cargo, and they're also loud as fuck which I really would not want to hear. The constant white noise of car traffic is already way too much. No need for that constant buzzing (which would likely also nowadays trigger future war vets).

We get rid of the delivery industry and have mail depositories that you have to travel to for most of your mail. Large and fragile/important delivery can and should still be delivered directly when necessary. I think its worth considering how much energy is wasted directly delivering everyones mail.
Just realized you probably didn't mean mail lmao. The answer is cargo bikes
- That's nice an all, if you're able. If you're disabled, having to go to a depot is terrible. And for bigger things like a mattress you'd need a car to pick them up. In my neighbourhood small packages (not boxes) are delivered by bike so those seem fine too.
  My point is that it's not so clear cut. Yes, there's energy involved, but to me it seems worse for each person to own a car to to pick up packages than there being a "mail bus" that circles around the neighbourhood.
  
  Large and fragile/important delivery can and should still be delivered directly when necessary.
  This includes people with disabilities of course. Those that are able should use a centralized delivery service in a properly organized city. Rural communities may have to work differently

There should be "parking" spots reserved for delivery services (with a special permit) only, so they don't have to stop on bike paths and sidewalks.
Those need to be monitored closely and any private vehicle parking there needs to be towed right away.

I think about this a lot. I’ve been trying to cut down on using my car and rely more on my electric scooter and recently purchased e-bike, both of which I got from Amazon. Man, I'm addicted to Amazon. I get deliveries almost every day. lol
So, while I’m okay with delivery trucks for things like that, I really wish cities, including mine, did more to promote bikes and scooters for everyday use.
Unfortunately, my city here in the US doesn’t even have a train system, and the bus system is pretty terrible, making it harder to avoid cars altogether.

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