2008 Georgia Tech Great Package Race
“The Great Package Race” is a student project sponsored by The Supply Chain & Logistics Institute in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech. In the race, major parcel carriers are challenged to deliver packages to some of the most remote or difficult locations in the world.
In the 2007 race, DHL came away the clear winner, but in this year’s race, UPS and FedEx made a strong comeback, with nearly identical delivery times to two of the five destinations, although none of the four carriers (DHL, FedEx, UPS, and USPS) thus far have been able to get packages into three other ship-to locations. The students ship four identical packages, one for each carrier, to far flung and often dangerous locations. This year, five locations were used:
- Pitcairn Island, where the mutineers from HMS Bounty fled in 1789.
- Khartoum, Sudan, where the White Nile, flowing north from Uganda, meets the Blue Nile, flowing west from Ethiopia.
- Almaty, Kazakhstan, ancestral home of the apple.
- Uluru (also known as Ayers Rock) Australia, which lies 335 km (208 miles) from the nearest large town, Alice Springs.
- Gaza City, in the Gaza Strip and one of the oldest cities in the world.
The project will eventually include cost information, but final bills from the carriers have not been received. In previous years, there have been substantial differences in shipping costs among the carriers. This year the packages were shipped on April 1. No one, thus far, has been able to deliver a package to Pitcairn Island, Khartoum or Gaza City, despite being told these areas were serviceable. For example, a DHL driver later told the group that that there are only three deliveries a year to Pitcairn Island and by boat only. The next time the boat leaves from Nova Scotia will be September 2008.
For more information on the Great Package Race go to The Great Package Race, 2008