New York's Looting of Logistics Providers

The Associated Press beat me to it. I had every intention to write an blog about all of the tickets I see on UPS, FedEx and DHL trucks throughout New York City every day, but my move to Vienna got in the way. So to read the article click here, I felt a little defeated (but to its credit it reaches a much wider audience then my blog, so at least the story is out). The statistics in the article are staggering. "UPS has a fleet of 1,000 trucks and receives about 15,000 tickets a month here. The company is the biggest offender in the city, paying $18.7 million in parking violations for the fiscal year that ended June 30, according to city data. FedEx was second with $8.2 million."

What the article doesn't do is explain what would happen to NYC if these trucks couldn't do what they do - deliver important documents and parcels. From paychecks to legal documents to real estate agreements, New York City would come to a stand still without them, yet the city is determined to slow them down. What I'd like to know is, do the USPS trucks also get fined? Does anyone know? Because that would be government cohesion against industry and provide an unfair advantage.

At the end of the day businesses that use these services will suffer. As the fines get larger the 3PLs are going to simply add a surcharge on all NYC deliveries to cover the overhead. There simply has to be a better way. While I wouldn't want to see the streets clogged with brown trucks, they should be able to deliver a package during a specific window where they don't get fined. While an agreement was made between the City and the companies to reduce the fees out of court (which the City was losing money on) it's still unfair.