CLEVELAND — The record quarter that MileHearth Logistics hailed as proof of its unmatched delivery machine also exposed a hidden cost: 3.2 million van trips through 312 school zones in the Cleveland area over 11 months, an investigation by The Plausible Post found.
The company reported on 8 September that it delivered 1.08 billion parcels in three months, a company record, and brought in $6.4 billion (about €5.5 billion) in revenue. Analysis of anonymised fleet-location data, municipal traffic counts and route schedules found MileHearth vehicles repeatedly using residential streets during the morning arrival and afternoon dismissal periods.
The shortcut in the schedule
The data, covering 18,400 vans, showed that nearly half of the recorded school-zone passes occurred when the posted lower speed limits were active. The figures do not show that drivers broke those limits or that the trips caused collisions; they do show how often the delivery network put vehicles on streets where children arrive and leave school.
Andy Parker, a transport researcher at the Lakefront Mobility Institute who checked the analysis, said the pattern was not explained by isolated detours. “The same streets appear again and again, at the same school-day hours. That looks like a routing choice, not a one-off mistake,” he said.
A school street should not become a conveyor belt because a parcel company wants to shave minutes off a route.
Petra Pavić, Cleveland parent
Pavić, who has two children at a public elementary school, said parents had asked for delivery restrictions after seeing vans queue at a crossing and make repeated turns near the school entrance. She said they were now pressing the city to bar large delivery fleets from the block during arrival and dismissal, except for local drop-offs.
MileHearth’s dispatch system rewards routes that complete more stops per hour, according to a former regional planner interviewed by The Plausible Post and a review of anonymised shift schedules. The planner said drivers were not ordered to use school streets, but dispatchers could improve daily scores by choosing shorter routes; the company has not disclosed whether its scoring system accounts for active school-zone hours.
Company promises a review
Ben Herbst, MileHearth’s vice-president for operations, said the company had not set a target for school-zone trips and that driver instructions require compliance with posted limits. He said the analysis mixed “different route types and traffic conditions” and promised a review of dispatch settings in Cleveland. The company did not provide a breakdown of trips during active school hours.
Cleveland’s transportation committee is weighing a proposal to restrict commercial through-traffic near 14 schools during the busiest periods. Triin Rand-Saar, a committee member, said the city had asked MileHearth and other large carriers to share route totals before a public meeting in October. The city has not announced fines or a timetable for any restrictions.
The company’s record was built on a system it has sold to investors as leaner and faster. MileHearth said its delivery costs fell by $46 million (about €39 million) in the last financial year, but has not said how much came from route optimisation or whether it intends to change its stop-per-hour targets.
For parents, the dispute is not about opposing deliveries, but who bears the cost of speed. Pavić said families wanted the company to reroute vans before the next school term, rather than wait for a crash to prove that a shortcut was a bad bargain.
