System Design
The UPS Parcel Network is based on a hub and spoke model. UPS operates centers that feed parcels to hubs where parcels are sorted and forwarded to their destinations. Centers typically are the point of entry for parcels and send the parcels to one or more hubs. A hub is a location where many centers send packages to be sorted and sent back out to other centers or hubs. For example, a standard ground parcel being shipped from Wilmington, North Carolina to San Francisco is picked up by a driver and taken to the Wilmington Package Center, where it is loaded on a trailer and driven to Greensboro, North Carolina. At Greensboro it would be loaded onto a trailer and sent by rail (trailer-on-flatcar in most cases) to the Oakland, California Hub. There it would then be forwarded to the delivery center in San Francisco, California, loaded onto the delivery vehicle, and transported to its final destination.
The UPS air network runs similarly to the ground network through a hub-and-spoke system, though air hubs are typically located at airports so airplanes can quickly be unloaded, the packages sorted, and the aircraft loaded again. Centers feed packages to facilities at airports (called gateways), which in turn send them to an air hub to be sorted and put on another airplane to a final destination gateway, and then from there to a center. For instance, a Next Day Air package traveling from Seattle, Washington to Atlanta, Georgia, would be loaded onto an air container at Boeing Field just south of Seattle and flown to the Worldport (UPS air hub) in Louisville, Kentucky. From there it would be sorted to a container heading to Atlanta to Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, and taken by truck from the airport to the delivery center.
Read more about this topic: United Parcel Service
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