Sometimes the smartest freight route is A to C to B. Lacy Greening, Assistant Professor of Industrial Engineering at Arizona State University and a semifinalist in the DOT's ARPA-I Innovation Challenge, studies the hidden math of middle-mile freight — the hubs, lanes, and consolidation decisions that determine how goods actually move across a network. In this episode, she explains why freight networks often make moves that look wrong until you understand the math, how locally smart decisions create network-wide problems, and why the future of AI in logistics isn't replacing optimization — it's helping fleets replan faster without breaking the rules of the real world.
Connect
Lacy Greening on LinkedIn
ASU School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence
DOT ARPA-I Innovation Challenge
The Fleet podcast
Sponsor
This episode is sponsored by Element Fleet Management.
If your organization depends on a fleet of vehicles, it's time to think about your fleet as a strategic asset. Learn more at elementfleet.com.
Chapters
0:00 Why “free shipping” depends on the middle mile
3:10 The technology is there. The coordination isn’t.
4:27 Why packages “carpool” through the network
8:36 Speed, cost, and the promise behind delivery times
10:41 The 50% savings hiding in consolidation
14:03 Why every company needs a different logistics network
16:39 Why your shipment goes the wrong direction on purpose
19:23 What smaller fleets can learn from Amazon
21:04 Zone skipping and the power of using someone else’s network
23:09 The hidden constraints behind every delivery promise
29:31 Customers don’t just want fast. They want accurate.
35:26 What if logistics worked like the internet?
40:10 Where AI can actually help fleet networks
47:58 Why the most optimized network can become the most fragile
51:52 Why AI still needs human operators
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