Retailers in Europe, like Booths supermarkets, and the United States, like Walmart, are pulling back on having self-checkout in light of complaints and shoplifting.
So you mean the mad managers are actually sitting in urban design, not building public transit? Rush hour over here is when there’s enough cars on arterial streets so you can’t walk across them wherever you want, there’s no actual jams.
dropping off a pallet or two at each
That doesn’t sound very efficient, over here they consign full lorries at distribution centres to stock up one particular supermarket or two, or maybe half a lorry if it’s been a slow day and the supermarket didn’t get a delivery in the last what three days depends on what they’re missing (customers can survive one of five crisps flavours being out of stock, all toothpaste, not so much). The Swiss have it really nailed down, any business of any significant size over there has to have rail access so the likes of IKEA don’t put a single lorry on the road, and supermarket distribution centres receive containers on rail and then maybe send out lorries: If a village has a train station chances are the village supermarket is within forklift distance. They have absolutely no qualms about pulling a freight car or two with a small passenger train set.
In North America our rail and highway systems are designed specifically with freight in mind, particularly in the west. 40% of freight in the US is moved by rail vs less than 20% on average in Europe. These rail lines rarely branch out or carry passengers however. Some of this is because of greedy assholes, but a lot of it is also due to history and geography (in much of the country, the train tracks predate the cities).
American freight movement follows a production line philosophy. Trains travel in long, straight lines between freightyards, where their cargo is offloaded onto trucks. Each trailer is loaded with one genre of goods (produce, paper products, milk, etc.), then drops one stores’ worth at each stop along the way. This method has a variety of benefits and drawbacks.
I’m intrigued by this concept of loading directly from a train car to a retail store, that’s something you don’t often see over here.
So you mean the mad managers are actually sitting in urban design, not building public transit? Rush hour over here is when there’s enough cars on arterial streets so you can’t walk across them wherever you want, there’s no actual jams.
That doesn’t sound very efficient, over here they consign full lorries at distribution centres to stock up one particular supermarket or two, or maybe half a lorry if it’s been a slow day and the supermarket didn’t get a delivery in the last what three days depends on what they’re missing (customers can survive one of five crisps flavours being out of stock, all toothpaste, not so much). The Swiss have it really nailed down, any business of any significant size over there has to have rail access so the likes of IKEA don’t put a single lorry on the road, and supermarket distribution centres receive containers on rail and then maybe send out lorries: If a village has a train station chances are the village supermarket is within forklift distance. They have absolutely no qualms about pulling a freight car or two with a small passenger train set.
In North America our rail and highway systems are designed specifically with freight in mind, particularly in the west. 40% of freight in the US is moved by rail vs less than 20% on average in Europe. These rail lines rarely branch out or carry passengers however. Some of this is because of greedy assholes, but a lot of it is also due to history and geography (in much of the country, the train tracks predate the cities).
American freight movement follows a production line philosophy. Trains travel in long, straight lines between freightyards, where their cargo is offloaded onto trucks. Each trailer is loaded with one genre of goods (produce, paper products, milk, etc.), then drops one stores’ worth at each stop along the way. This method has a variety of benefits and drawbacks.
I’m intrigued by this concept of loading directly from a train car to a retail store, that’s something you don’t often see over here.