Hypermiling Tips!
As a service announcement to all drivers, in your personal and company vehicles, Metro Delivery would like to offer the following tips on Hypermiling, i.e. driving to conserve gas. Studies have shown that extreme hypermilers can use up to 30-50% less gas than some lead-footed, Big-Gulp guzzling gashog.
So what can we do to use less gas?
1. A Red Light Need Not Be a Surprise: Look ahead to anticipate red lights, traffic backups and stop signs and coast to a stop instead of braking. Braking uses gas! If your vehicle has a stick shift, put it in neutral as you coast and when at a stop.
2. A Green Light is Not the Flag to Start the Race: Easy, gradual starts use much less gas than jackrabbit starts. Acceleration uses more gas than anything else you do in the vehicle. Plus, you’ll conserve the rubber on your tires instead of leaving it all over the asphalt.
3. Cruise Control is your Conservation Copilot: If your vehicle has the option, cruise control is terrific on long, relatively level roads. Maintaining a steady speed in general is great for conservation. However, in hilly regions Cruise Control is a clumsy, wasteful robot to leave in charge, so if you’re driving over the Porcupine Mountains you’d be better off without it.
4. Idling Vehicles are the Devil’s Tools: Oh, for goodness sake don’t leave the vehicle running if you can turn it off for a couple minutes. No dashing in while your truck chugs away at the curb, no sitting at the Chick Inn Drive In Restaurant waiting for your Paul Bunyan Burger in a running vehicle.
5. Look for Prime Parking: Ideally, park facing down a hill to use less energy while starting, and park in the sun so you use less energy getting the car warmed up.
6. Nobody Likes a Squishy Tire: Keep your tires at the maximum possible air pressure, which reduces the drag on the road. Also, watch for bad tire alignment and have it repaired, for the same reason.
7. Consider Walking Instead of Driving: Do you have two stops to make downtown that are several blocks apart? Walking instead of reparking could save you time as well as gas, especially considering how difficult it can be to find a parking space these days.
8. Open Windows in Town, a Little A/C on the Freeway: at high speeds, open windows kill your gas milage. If you don’t need A/C but you want some air circulation, leave windows open just an inch or so on the freeway, at most. Of course, for in-town driving, open windows are certainly better than running the air-conditioning, plus you get to share that great song you’re listening to on WDET with everybody on the sidewalk.
9. Plan Your Route: Strategize to make your stops in the most efficient way possible, with the least milage. Avoid rough roads with lots of potholes, take a level road instead of a hilly road if there’s an option, avoid areas with stop-and-go traffic. A couple of minutes of planning could save you a couple of quarts of gasoline.
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…Now, nobody expects Couriers in our “Hotshot” Business Model, where crucial things must abruptly be delivered in most any direction, sometimes hundreds of miles away, to have gas conservation as their top priority. The top priority is still HOLY JUMPIN’ SPIDERS GET THAT STUFF WHERE IT’S NEEDED, PRONTO!!!
Nevertheless, opportunities to reduce consumption of gas will present themselves, and if we keep these principles in mind and apply them when appropriate, as a company we’ll save thousands of gallons of gas, and we’ll all have less exhaust and more air to breathe.
Additionally, an informal office poll indicates that all of us here would like to see less of our company’s hard-earned revenue handed directly to BP, Exxon and Shell Oil, as admirable as those corporations are…(cough).
…And yes, we ARE looking into alternate-fuel vehicles, and we’ll revisit that subject here another time.
Thanks for your attention! We now return you to your normally scheduled deliveries.
Metro on a Yacht
No, it’s not the new vehicle for us to do our deliveries in.
The Detroit Regional Chamber had a reception yesterday down on the Riverfront by the Renaissance Center, and the Metro Business Development Manager put on his yachting cap and went to enjoy some snacks and the terrific view of the river, while making valuable business connections etc.
Thanks to the Detroit Regional Chamber for the event- it was a splendid time!
P.S. No, the Business Development Manager does not LITERALLY have a yachting cap. But if they keep having events on this boat he may have to get one eventually.
GREEN FAIR THIS EVENING! Prepare to be Environmentally Edified.
Metro Delivery will have a little booth goin’ at the ANN ARBOR GREEN FAIR tonight, 6-9 PM. C’mon down and see us!
Metro’s committed to doing the best we can to be green; we recycle ferociously, we keep our vehicles maintained for improved emissions, we reuse everything when possible, and we reduce our energy usage with initiatives like our no-idle policy, no disposable dishware, motion sensitive lighting in our offices, etc, etc.
Plus, the Business Development Manager hassles people relentlessly to consider biking to work like he does, with occasional success. It’s a lot of little things, but it adds up!
We’re a member of Washtenaw County’s Waste Knot organization, and we’re learning more all the time about exciting new ways we can continue to conserve our natural resources. It’s a real focus for us as we expand and improve our business.
Look for more Metro Green Projects in the future!
Metro Delivery Joins the Detroit Regional Chamber
Here’s another affiliation we’re excited about: we’re now Detroit Regional Chamber Members. It’s about time, after 28 years of driving all over the Metro Detroit Area.
We’re looking forward to the networking, educational and social events- and the commanding view from their offices on the 19th floor of One Woodward, within easy walking distance of Lafayette Coney Island.
Metro Represents at the Messenger and Courier Association of America’s 2012 Conference
The MCAA’s mission is to promote and advance the common interests of those engaged in the delivery and logistics industry worldwide through education and advocacy. That’s what it says on their website, but it’s really more entertaining than that.
This year, Metro Delivery Operations and Business Development Managers went for Education and Networking with the MCAA at the fabulous Westin Diplomat in Sunny Hollywood, Florida.
This location gave us a wide range of acceptable attire, from Tropical to Business Casual, as modeled here:
Now, it is true that the place features palm trees and Jacuzzis, but we’re really focused on business, honest. That’s what we keep reminding our coworkers who imagine us lounging on the beach drinking from coconuts. 
We had informational sessions on Home Delivery, Using Metrics to Achieve Results, the Supply Chain in 2012 and Beyond, a panel on How the Industry has Evolved in the Last 25 Years, and lively roundtable Focus Groups on Marketing and Technology. We networked ferociously with hundreds of other regional and national couriers, and with vendor representatives from companies focused on our industry.
We attended a speech by Congressman Erik Paulsen, an advocate in Washington for Independent Contractor Legislative Reform.
(If you’re wondering, no, Metro doesn’t use Independent Contractors; we have 100% Employees, so that’s not our business model, but a lot of our friends in the industry do use IC’s, or a combination of IC’s and employees, so the subject concerns us.)
We learned a ton! We made IMPORTANT BUSINESS CONNECTIONS! Me met interesting people from around all around the World, and talked to them for hours about things that would bore the socks off our social dinner guests.
And then we went to lounge on the beach and drink from a coconut.
Chef Barbara’s Easter Friday Menu
…In addition to bringing in her patented Penguin Hors D’oeuvres (see previous post), Barbara brought in five(!) desserts for the company today.
-Ask her why and she shrugs & says she “likes to cook,” which seems like a bit of an understatement, doesn’t it?
Clockwise from upper left:
(not including penguins)
Peanut Butter Pie
Apple Pie
Chocolate Cream Pie
Cheesecake
Oreo Pie
Now that’s a balanced diet! Thanks, Barbara!
Metro Raffle Winners!
Gift cards from Busch’s grocery store have been awarded, in small and solemn ceremonies, to the last 2 raffle winners!
The correct entries were printed from email, furiously shuffled, and picked at random by our glamorous and scintillating Business Development and Customer Service Managers. Winner’s names are confidential for the sake of internet privacy.
JB, a newer client of ours from the fine city of Saline, answered the question: “What is the Michigan State Reptile?” with the correct answer: “Painted Turtle.”
(Here at Metro, we like turtles. They’re like the cargo vans of the reptile world. Not delivery vans, though, because they’re just not fast enough.)
And SK, who’s been calling in deliveries to us for for around 20 years-(jeez, really? 20 years? He looks younger than that) won the previous month’s raffle, answering “What do you call the plastic tip on the end of a shoelace?” correctly with the extremely useful word “AGLET.”
(OK, so it’s not an extremely useful word, unless you’re in the shoelace business. In fact, there were only about 5 entries submitted for that question.)
You don’t have to be a client to win, just for the record, although we do get about 90% of the entries from clients, historically…but we encourage anyone to enter, except for our own employees and their immediate families.
Congratulations to the winners!
We’re Nationwide 2/27/2012
Well, admittedly, 43 of the vehicles are just whirling around Southeast-to-Central Michigan, as usual, but today we’re also tracking one Driver on her way back from Fort Lauderdale, FL, where she delivered an enormous, 2000 lb. engine, and another Driver headed towards Maryland with some other crucial stuff.
With our new 2012 rates & services, Metro Delivery has actually REDUCED the long distance prices by 12.5%, and as a result, people are hiring us for a lot more interstate dedicated deliveries recently. Now we need bigger monitors for our vehicle tracking…
“Serving Southeast Michigan and Beyond” is what it says on the side of the vehicle, as she’s stopping for a bagful of oranges for the trip back from beyond to Southeast Michigan…
Penguin News: New Penguins at the Detroit Zoo
Presto, official penguin & mascot of Metro Delivery, would like to take this opportunity to welcome the new penguins in town, recently arrived from the defunct seabird exhibit at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago and currently chilling around 11 mile and Woodward.
Presto would like to assure the rockhoppers that they’ll find the Detroit Metro area to be a rockin’, hoppin’ and totally cool place to perch, and speaking of perch, he knows a terrific delivery company to deliver cratefuls of fish, if anyone’s feeling peckish after the long waddle from the West.