Pizza Delivery Hypermiler

[elhigh]

I nominate this discussion be moved to its own thread: Driving Economics.

This is interesting. It's fascinating to see there's money to be made driving pizza, I tended to relegate it to the backwater of jobs taken on by kids with poor math skills. I didn't know how the pay scales worked.

[WilliamYH09]

Xist,

Originally Posted by Xist

I wonder what the math is on driving your car hard so that you can make more deliveries versus babying it to keep more of the money that you do earn.

That's what I'm working on figuring out this first month of delivering in my Yaris. I'm going to take it slow and keep my mpg as high as I can. At the end of the month I'm going to calculate my net mileage earnings for the month and average deliveries per hour. I'll then calculate what my net mileage earnings and deliveries per hour would be based on the EPA fuel economy of the car, which I'd assume is what "driving normal" would produce (it would probably be lower based on the type of driving delivery demands). I may have to drive normal for about a week so I can calculate my average mph to determine what my deliveries per hour would be. I can also use that week to determine average mpg while driving normal. While taking it easy and hypermiling, I'm averaging 25 mph (thanks, ScanGauge!).

My preliminary calculations are showing that I will make around $1.50/hr. less by hypermiling and disregarding my deliveries per hour. This is based on losing 0.5 deliveries per hour from hypermiling. What seems to be causing the loss is that we're reimbursed for our mileage based on amount of deliveries, so even though I would be spending less on gas, I would also be earning less on reimbursement. The main factor in making the most money delivering pizza is deliveries per hour. Average tip won't change much over the long run. Therefore, hypermiling doesn't seem to be economical during pizza delivery. Though there are still hypermiling techniques that can be used that won't affect deliveries per hour (accordion-style stop lighting, turning off engine at lights and drop offs, accelerating downhill and coasting uphill, etc.)

Hopefully I will be able to still get decent mpg without sacrificing deliveries per hour. It does kind of suck when you want to get the best mpg you can get, but have to deal with making less money at your job because of it. Makes me want 2 vehicles, but that wouldn't be very economical either.
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PressEnter,

Yes, I have also learned a lot from hypermiling tips and techniques. I'm especially thankful of the ones that increase my mpg without affecting my trip times.
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elhigh,

Don't be fooled. There are still plenty of those kinds of people taking up pizza delivery jobs. In fact, most don't have great math skills, and I'm sure they don't make much money delivering because of that.

The pay scale is based on net mileage earnings (or losses) and average deliveries per hour. Good drivers can increase their average tip with certain strategies making it even better. The differences in all these numbers is why the pay can range from minimum wage to over $20/hr. I guarantee the people you're referring to aren't making anywhere near $20/hr. delivering pizza, but there are people that do - few of them.

One of the reasons I love the job (other than the decent money) is that it's a fun and eccentric environment. I'm not a "normal" type of person that wants to have a desk job (no offense to anyone that is). In fact, my passion in life is gardening and permaculture. Delivering pizza is a means to get me to where I want to be later on.

In the meantime, I love hypermiling and all the nerdy aspects that go along with it. I love numbers and challenges that deal with numbers.