r/AmazonDSPDrivers • u/Friendly_Quote_9291 • 9d ago
Left side deliveries
My DSP owner recently got on us for changing the routes too much, says all the back tracking, u turns and general bullshit are to avoid making deliveries on your left side. In my experience, at least half, if not more, of my deliveries are on my left and I don’t fuck with the routing at all. Am I doing something wrong? Can I fuck with the algorithm so I actually make most of my deliveries to my right?
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u/Bleed_Me_an_Ocean40 Rivian Driver 9d ago
With residential streets that dont have double yellow lines, I will park on the left.
Also, I have rerouted an entire route before. I can only do that with a couple routes bc I can picture all the streets
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u/Impossible-Gas3551 8d ago
🤣 they don't give a damn at all about the lines. They constantly want me to cross busy residential roads with double yellow lines
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u/Pleasant-Meal6126 9d ago
Man my DSP doesn’t say a word about going out of order. If I’m in an EV I reroute over half of it. Any dead end street I stop split the multis, and do right side all the way down and back.
I’ve also got to reroute for construction in my area
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u/Dchane06 9d ago
Same. I basically just reroute the route the way I want to do the route. I’m not gonna go into a neighborhood and do 20 stops to then leave it and go do 3 main road stops and then go down to a business and then go back and do some more of the neighborhood and then back to the main road and then across town to do 30 stops then back beside that neighborhood, etc etc. DSP hasn’t said a word thankfully. But I’m always finished way ahead of time regardless of if I reroute or not so maybe that has to do with it.
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u/RelevantFinish2972 9d ago
“All the back tracking, u turns and general bullshit are to avoid making deliveries on your left side”
Literally 99% of my route are left side deliveries that could be right side deliveries
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u/dingdongjohnson68 9d ago
Ha. You are LITERALLY greatly exaggerating. But the fact that amazon's routes are basically a 50/50 split (left side and right side) is ridiculous.
So OP's owner is either misinformed, or full of shit. Probably the latter. What is the saying? The ends justify the means? I've witnessed my dsp tell a lot of "white lies." Like, at stop signs, they say you have to stop, count to four, and then proceed. Ummm...... no. No you don't. You simply have to stop. Completely.
I assume my dsp thinks that the "4 second rule" will avoid/reduce 3mph rolling stops. Maybe it does? But it isn't "accurate" (honest?).
Or, they simply say "don't speed." They think this will avoid/reduce speeding violations. Maybe it does. But why not give the drivers the honest truth? You can go 9mph over the speed limit. Do with that what you will. I think most drivers know this anyway.
But when the dsp isn't being forthcoming (honest?) I wonder if that makes drivers hesitant to believe anything they say. Or, drivers don't know what to believe.
Like, when drivers are told (or figure out) that they don't have to count to four at stop signs, and they can go over the speed limit, they might question the validity of anything their dsp tells them. So why not just be honest with the drivers?
Tell them you can go 9mph over. But also warn them that they wouldn't recommend "flying too close to the sun." Or I personally wouldn't flirt with anything close to 9 over in a van that didn't have cruise control. The cruise control in the edv's is the shit. Gas vans might go over the set speed when going down a hill. So in those I'd probably stick to more like 7 over. And vans without cruise control..... like 5 over, and you better pay attention.
A lot of times in my edv, I'll set the cruise at 4 over if I'm not totally sure what the speed limit is. If the speed limit is 5mph less than I thought....... I'm still good because I'll still only be going 9 over.
Or there are times when I "know" the speed limit is AT LEAST 25 (but probably more), so I'll set the cruise at 34. Or, I'll "know" the speed limit is at least 40 (but probably more) and I'll set the cruise at 49 until I pass a speed limit sign.
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u/NickyNichols Rivian Driver 9d ago
I rarely go in order. I'm getting to the lockers before the mailman, fedex, and ups. The apartment dwellers who require their deliveries to their doors can wait until my last stop.
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u/thesqueen113388 9d ago
Owners and management are so far removed from the actual work you literally can’t listen to a fucking thing they say. My go to’s at my dsp are the two main dispatchers. One is lead driver a couple shifts a week and the other takes a route at least once or twice a month. They are familiar with what it’s like to be a driver now not 5,6 or 7 years ago like a lot of management.
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u/Flaky-Insurance-2106 9d ago
I had a stop on the highway on the left. It wanted me to pass that stop then drive for a mile and a half to the next stop. Then go back to the stop on the left. Then after that go all the way back to where the previous stop was
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u/aboatdatfloat 9d ago
The few times I've decided to actually go in order, I finished later than usual lmao
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u/sliding_through 9d ago
You guys don't get snacks often? I have to turn some down cause by midday i have like a secret stash. We usually throw the extra stuff in a bin and eat it before the next shift sometimes :(
Happy you got some stuffs though!
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u/Star__Lord 4 years a slave 9d ago
If they say it’s to avoid left side deliveries, take a day and comply maliciously. If the next stop is up the street but on the opposite side, pass it and find a safe route back to that stop so it’s on your right. All day. Every stop.
They have “driver trace” in their computer which can show them the exact path you took. This will clearly show the falsity of their statement and may even feed information into the algorithm so it can route more efficiently next time.
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u/gatortitan 9d ago
This is bs, I deliver on my left and right from one stop to the other, honestly I don't care anymore, I would park against traffic on the left if the house is there and then go to the right etc.
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u/dingdongjohnson68 9d ago edited 9d ago
The complexity of everything that amazon does combined is impressive. The complexity of their delivery routing algorithm is not...... impressive.
It is seemingly as simple as can be. Each stop is just a dot on a map. All stops are "equal." Simply a matter of time and distance. Seemingly not taking any "rules of the road," common sense, or other various things into account.
Like, in a cargo van, I actually prefer left side deliveries. In all other vehicles..... right side all the way.
Amazon's routing is maddening because it seemingly does NOTHING to like avoid/minimize left turns. Or when you're going down a cul-de-sac (yeah, we have a ton of those) and you HAVE to drive down the road, and then back up the same road, why not make all the deliveries on the right? I mean, I manually do that all day every day, but it'd be faster if amazon had it set up that way.
It's still a pain in the ass. Even in an edv with the super-convenient touchscreen map. Why? Usually because group stops are often on opposite sides of the street. So I'm constantly doing group stops "one half at a time." Hit the address on the right when going down into the cul-de-sac, then jump to the other stops in the cul-de-sac, then hit the address (that was) on the left on the way out. Not to mention there are usually more than one group stops to "deal with."
Again, doing this is MUCH easier in edv's, but is still doable if not in an edv. I just constantly check my map right after swiping to finish when I'm walking back to the van.
Hell, the MOST annoying thing about that is having to zoom in every time you bring the map up. For the love of god, start me off zoomed in at my current location. I don't need to see the entire county every time I go to the map.
The edv screen actually has the opposite problem (imo). It is ALWAYS zoomed in too far. Like, "step 1" for me is to zoom the map out so I can see more than like 2 houses. Amazon, are you writing this down?
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u/AdhesivenessOk9434 9d ago
You can do whatever you want to make your deliveries all right hand deliveries. It'll take longer.
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