The goal was to test the three major private carriers to see which could deliver a package to remote and challenging destinations most quickly and in the best condition.
They sent identical boxes by UPS, DHL and FedEx from Atlanta, Georgia to
- Yangon, Myanmar
- Tikrit, Iraq (a center of the Sunni insurgency)
- Floranopolis, Brazil (a small island)
- Harare, Zimbabwe and
- Apia, Samoa
The carriers were unaware that the race was even going on. They picked up the parcels April 13, and students tracked them online as they traversed oceans, rivers, and jungles. Some destinations, with no official street address, required last-mile delivery by bicycle!
DHL stomped the competition, delivering first to 3 out of 5 destinations and finishing second at the remaining two. FedEx and UPS each came in first at one destination.
“Most packages arrived within a week or two, but one has yet to be delivered or returned, and the mistakes in delivery were often entertaining,” wrote LiveScience.com “One package was sent back-and-forth across the Atlantic nine times before it was delivered, and another was sent to Costa Rica instead of Croatia.
“And just as in a road race, the sprint to the finish proved the most difficult part of the package’s journey, as packages usually arrived in the general vicinity of their destination, but then finding the exact locale was harder.” (http://www.livescience.com/othernews/070502_package_race.html).
TransGuardian insures DHL, UPS, FedEx, the USPS and Canada Post up to $150,000 per package, because we believe that the informed shipper uses the strengths and avoids the weaknesses of every carrier option.
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