Next, the toaster goes to a sorting center of 400,000 to 900,000 square feet. Amazon uses algorithms to figure out the best delivery method, be it the U.S. Postal Service, UPS or Amazon Logistics.
If the answer is Amazon Logistics, then the toaster could come to the American Canyon warehouse-to-be. About 25 to 30 semi-trucks a day would bring in the shipped items, most between 9 p.m. and 4:30 a.m.
At the American Canyon center, workers would load delivery vans and make deliveries to homes and businesses in the area. Bourbon talked of 250 to 280 vans which are operated by third parties.
“We do not release those vans all in one shot,” Bourbon said. “Starting at 10 a.m., running through about 10:30 a.m., we’ll send out our first wave, about 160 vans.”
Amazon doesn’t want to clog the streets, he said. Yard marshals point to vans to say who goes, so it’s not a free-for-all.
Amazon has 240 such “last mile” delivery stations in the nation, he said. He didn’t know the general service area for the planned American Canyon warehouse, but mentioned a 15-mile to 20-mile radius.
Commissioner Eric Altman suggested having some type of hire-local requirement for warehouse employees. Bourbon didn’t want to go that far, given the challenges in the COVID-19 world of holding a local job fair.
