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I’m trying to figure out if switching our small fleet to a hub-and-spoke model for regional deliveries is actually saving us time. We’ve consolidated our sorting at a central depot, but now some drivers are hitting more traffic on their first leg out to their assigned zones, which eats into the time we thought we’d gain.

We switched to hub and spoke last quarter. Sorting is faster in the depot, but the first outbound leg is where time slips because of city traffic. We tried timing departures to dodge rush, but it just moved the bottleneck.

We started logging departure to first mile for each driver and comparing to pre switch. Found average outbound leg time up 12 percent in several routes, while after mid-mile it recovered. Weather and loading windows vary.

I left at 6:15 and still sat in a pile of cars for 8 blocks; it cost me 18 minutes before hitting the suburbs. Sometimes lighter loads help, sometimes not.

Maybe the real issue isn't traffic. Could be how we cut zones or stagger starts. If a zone is far, the first leg dominates; bottleneck could be depot unload/load time rather than road traffic.

We piloted a dynamic first-leg assignment, rebalanced zones weekly. Some weeks the first leg saved 5-7 minutes, other weeks added 10-12. Inconsistent; pattern isn't clear.

If the sorting gains are offset by outbound delay, the net might be neutral. Best to compute weekly hours saved and days with delays; no promises of a clear win.

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