Trucking news: UPS Freight rolls out more transit time improvements

Jeff Berman, Group News Editor -- Logistics Management, 8/25/2008

RICHMOND, Va.—Making good on a promise it made earlier this year, UPS Freight, the less-than-truckload (LTL) subsidiary of UPS, said today it has improved transit times on more than 1,200 traffic lanes originating in the Midwest, Northeast, and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. This news follows a May announcement in which UPS Freight rolled out reduced transit times on nearly 1,000 traffic lanes originating in metropolitan areas in the Southwest and Southeast regions of the US to myriad domestic destinations.

According to a company statement, UPS Freight will now provide shippers with two-day lanes from Chicago to Dallas, Boston to St. Louis, and Philadelphia to Miami, with these changes also expanding the company’s next-day footprint as well. It added that shipments being transported from Cincinnati to Memphis and Columbus, Ohio to Charlotte, N.C. will now be delivered overnight. Other originating major markets with reduced transit times include Cleveland, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, New York City and Newark, N.J. The faster transit times will bring cities as far as southern California, Arizona and Utah to within two and three days of these originating cities, said UPS officials.

"As we improve the network's velocity we are allowing our customers to better serve their customers,” said UPS Freight spokesman Ira Rosenfeld in an interview. "What you are seeing here is UPS's strong nationwide network getting that much stronger. It is a network enhancement project that had gone on for the past three years and continues. We will never stop looking to improve our product offering."

UPS Freight President Jack Holmes added in a statement that these enhancements are part of a continual process to add value for customers by improving the velocity of the UPS Freight network by reducing transit times on more than 10,000 lanes in the last 18 months.

Spokesman Rosenfeld said there are thousands of customers in the 67 originating UPS Freight service centers that will be affected by the faster transit times. And he noted that other inbound customers can take advantage.

“[A shipper] who has been getting goods from Dallas…can now take advantage of faster times from Chicago or points in the Northeast to meet his or her needs," explained Rosenfeld.  

UPS Freight Reliability Guarantee: The augmented transit times announced by UPS Freight today will be covered by its on-time performance guarantees. These guarantees were introduced in November and took effect in January, promise shippers on-time delivery performance with no additional financial strings attached..

The on-time service promise is for LTL customers who ship using the current UPS Freight 560 tariff in the continental United States.  UPS said the guarantee promises that customers can request a waiver of their freight charges if their shipment doesn’t arrive on time. UPS’ Freight 560 tariff is its zip-to-zip class rate that applies in the contiguous 48 states.

“The no-fee guarantee promises that [customers’ shipments] will get there on time…allowing customers to better control their inventory,” added Rosenfeld.  He also said that these transit time improvements, coupled with the reliability guarantee, give shippers the ability to take full advantage of UPS Freight’s capabilities as a regional and interregional carrier.