Shippers Feel the Rush

It takes a team of meteorologists, a heavy dose of computation -- how many steps must be climbed, how fast can a lawn be traversed -- and the steady beeping of bar-code scanners to get all those holiday packages shipped and under the Christmas tree.

Delivery companies are bracing for the busiest shipping days of the year next week, and the shipping industry has been developing new tools to make sure everything gets where it is going on time.

"It's turned us as much into a technology company as a shipping company," said Steve Holmes, a spokesman for United Parcel Service Inc. "The information that travels with the package has become as important as the package itself."

UPS, which expects its busiest day to be Tuesday, said it receives more than 16 million package tracking requests during the busiest days of the holiday season. FedEx Corp. said it gets an average of 3.5 million requests daily. It had its peak delivery day Monday.

The tracking system is one of the most visible ways that delivery companies have transformed themselves in recent years into increasingly high-tech businesses, a response to the booming online retail sector and ever-more-demanding customers.

"It's changed our business model here," said John Dunavant, manager of global operations control for FedEx.

Six years ago, delivery companies were scrambling -- often futilely -- to fill the surge of holiday orders from the then-budding world of Internet shopping. Customer outrage over packages that arrived late that year has pushed them to improve their operations.

That gave rise to features like the customer tracking system. FedEx said that boxes shipped within the country are scanned an average of 12 times; international packages get 20 scans. At the company hub in downtown Washington yesterday morning, scanners beeped every few seconds as thousands of packages wound through a veritable highway of conveyor belts. Workers sorted as many as 6,000 boxes an hour, or 15 each minute.

"You can't explain peak," said Berjerone Mason, a FedEx courier who delivers as many as 200 packages a day during the holidays. "Peak is just out of control."

Shipping companies also have worked with online retailers to help them calculate exact delivery costs and times in seconds, putting an end to the days of flat fees. Truck drivers can now download package history and other relevant information onto their electronic clipboards.

At UPS, each box comes with a specified "time allowance," an estimate of how long it should take a courier to deliver it. Time estimates for individual routes are also calibrated to include extra minutes for jogging up long driveways in suburban cul-de-sacs or hiking up to a third-floor apartment in the city.

Such innovations are crucial to helping delivery companies meet the demands of the growing online retail sector. FedEx said several online retailers now occupy warehouses across the street from FedEx hubs in Memphis, Indianapolis and Newark, N.J. That allows shoppers to place orders up to the last minute and still have them shipped in time for Christmas.