alt Hacker News> If those Amazon trucks are all full, and are making deliveries constantly along their routes, than more trucks doesn't mean less efficiency.
Right but a truck could be full of not 100 packages for 100 houses, but 100 packages for 70 houses. Both are full, but one will require fewer miles driven, hence be more (fuel/environmental impact) efficient (not necessarily time efficient).
They are optimizing for time and cost, not message board clout :)
They presort regionally and the trucks at the delivery stations are loaded with assigned containers/pouches of packages. It doesn’t make sense to hold a truck for a pouch and doesn’t really save anything to have ground covered twice.
They do other stuff too. They schlep heavy stuff on UPS, and hazardous or liquids usually go USPS.