The Hidden Math of the Middle Mile — with Lacy Greening

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 one 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.

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

Guest: Lacy Greening, Assistant Professor of Industrial Engineering, Arizona State University — LinkedIn