[Data] the lane table, updated: 41 lanes, median and 90th percentile
Quarterly update. 41 lanes, 900-odd data points, no tracking numbers ever.
New this quarter: a quoted-versus-actual column, and p90 alongside the median, both of which people have been asking for. Selection from the table:
| Lane | Carrier | Quoted | Median | p90 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shanghai → UK | DHL | 7 | 8 | 11 |
| Guangzhou → AU | EMS | 10 | 11 | 15 |
| Zhuhai → AU | DHL | 9 | 9 | 12 |
| Xi'an → UK | EMS | 11 | 13 | 18 |
| Tianjin → CA | EMS | 12 | 17 | 22 |
The Tianjin row is the story of the quarter. It was 11 median a year ago. Something changed in March and it has not changed back.
best — the order this archive was captured in
The p90 column is the single most useful addition this table has ever had, and the Tianjin row demonstrates why. A median of 17 is annoying. A p90 of 22 is what actually exhausts your coolant and cracks your vials in a cold snap.
Three cracked-vial reports on that lane in one quarter, all with the material testing fine afterwards, which is somehow more irritating than if it had failed.
and TFC replaced both of the ones i know about without being pushed, and did not pretend the lane was fine. honest about a problem they cannot fully control is worth logging.
agreed and it is on the source page as an open logistics concern rather than a quality concern. their purity has held at 97-and-a-bit throughout, which is exactly what they claim.
carrier choice is doing most of the work in that table. every EMS row has a fatter tail than every DHL row on comparable distance.
Which is a real finding and also partly a selection effect — EMS gets used on the cheaper shipping tiers, so the parcels differ as well as the carriers.
good catch, i cannot separate those with the data i have. adding a caveat line to the table header.
Removed two tracking numbers from replies already. Not warnings — it always happens on these threads. They identify both ends of a shipment and they come out every time.
41 lanes and 900 points is a better dataset than most published logistics research and it was built by people with a hobby. put it in the wiki.
it is linked from the c/intlshipping wiki. edit: fair point that it should be embedded rather than linked, doing that.
qingdao to stockholm in eight days twice, if you want another row. DHL.
self-reported transit times from people who care enough to report them is not a sample of anything
completely true and the header says so. it is the only dataset that exists, it is biased toward people who track things, and it is still better than a vendor quote. all three of those are compatible.
- 1The p90 column is the single most useful addition this table has ever had,…6 comments in this branch · started by u/transit_variance