United Parcel Service Inc. has completed an upgrade of its U.S. ground distribution network, reducing by a day the time it takes for many packages to arrive, the Atlanta company said yesterday.
Ground shipments from Los Angeles to New York and vice versa, for example, now are guaranteed to arrive in four business days instead of five. Packages from Dallas or Houston to Florida now take three days instead of four, and those from St. Louis or Kansas City to North and South Carolina take two days instead of three.
An estimated 370,000 customer packages out of the 10 million that UPS carries on an average day benefit from the faster delivery times.
About 60 major origin/destination lane combinations, spanning 20 metropolitan areas, are affected. Some of the improvements, such as the four-day coast-to-coast delivery standard, were made in part through changes in railroad service. Others were made through modifications to UPS's hub-and-spoke interstate trucking network and others through changes to package-sorting times or locations.
The company is not charging extra for the speedier service or abandoning its money-back guarantees for on-time delivery of all shipments.
