Mail volume plummeted 4.5 percent — or 9.5 billion pieces — in fiscal year (FY) 2008. Reduced mail volume allows the Postal Service to combine delivery routes to maximize efficiency and reduce workhours, overtime, and other expenses. The Postal Service is seizing this opportunity by consolidating more than 87,000 city delivery routes — which could affect as many as 50 million addresses nationwide. Consolidating routes means some customers will receive their mail at a different time — earlier or later in the day. It also means the customer could have a different letter carrier who will have to become familiar with a new delivery route.
Loading ...There were more than 211,000 city carriers delivering mail to 87 million residential and business city delivery points at the end of FY 2008. On average, each carrier’s route has 500 to 700 delivery points. A carrier’s day involves two types of work: sorting mail in the office and delivering mail on the street. In the past, carriers typically spent several hours each day at the post office sorting mail for their route into delivery order. Now, machines sort most letter mail into delivery order automatically, and fewer pieces of mail means it takes less time for carriers to sort mail at the post office. This leaves carriers more time “on the street” allowing them to reach more delivery points.
On the street, the length of time a carrier takes to deliver mail on a route depends on factors such as the number of delivery points and the distance between them as well as mail volume. For instance, a carrier can deliver 10 letters to an address almost as quickly as 1 letter. More than 400,000 new city delivery points were added in FY 2008. When adjusting routes, the Postal Service must consider both mail volume and delivery points — including new delivery points — to build a route with 8 hours of work.
The Postal Service also relies on carriers to help ensure addresses on their routes are accurate by reporting vacant and abandoned buildings. If a carrier has 30 delivery points on her route and a 20-delivery-point apartment complex is torn down, it will reduce the route to 10 delivery points. Approximately 20 delivery points could be added to the carrier’s route.
Do you think consolidating city delivery routes will have a positive effect on the Postal Service’s bottom line? Why or why not? Will it be difficult for carriers — particularly those who walk their routes — to spend more time on the street?
37 Comments
Leave a Reply
If the post office was really serious about saving money and the PO they would look at every position like they do the carriers. Some days we have one supervisor and some days we’ve had five, go figure. Another big problem for the budget and moral is the relocation/ house buying program. The PO spent over 78 million last year buying houses from bigwigs from headquarters that want a “transfer”. Carriers are being forced to “pivot” (carry part of someone else’s route – no OT) to help with making budget. BUT, carriers will have to pivot 3,120,000 hours to make back the money management wasted on just the house buying program! Also, carriers are the ONLY ones “pivoting” NO other employee is doing someone else’s job. In fact we are over staffed in every position except the carrier craft. Many times management have taken a carrier off his route to work the desk when we had 4 supervisors (for an office of 40 routes) already, making carriers work overtime to cover the route of the desk rider, this makes no sense and waste money BUT it will happen again -today, in fact, in our office.
Like or Dislike:
2 
0
Route consolidation; this will work for awhile, but then a carrier can only walk so far in 8 hours. Then it becomes too much. Later, there will be health problems like pain in the feet, knees, hips, shoulders. Then a slow down as pain dominates the mind of the carrier. We will be like the workers making mud bricks for the pyramids. We will age quickly with no end in sight. We need a long term solution like cluster boxes in the city and rural mail boxes in the suburbs. You can give a letter carrier an assignment with high expectations, but that does not mean it can be done. You get rid of the manager/supervisor bonuses, get rid of some top level managers/executives, and then you tell the craft employees, we are in trouble, it is your job, it is your food on the table, protect it by doing whatever you can to reduce overtime. You will save the postal service. At the same time management needs to spend money wisely. No more wacky contracts on new gadgets so my brother in law’s company can get the contract. You guys at the top know what I mean. The pig trough is almost empty.
Like or Dislike:
2 
0
“If a carrier has 30 delivery points on her route and a 20-delivery-point apartment complex is torn down, it will reduce the route to 10 delivery points. Approximately 20 delivery points could be added to the carrier’s route.”
This is a misleading example. Those 20 apartments probably have a collection box in the complex that all 20 apartments use. It’s only 1 (THAT’S ONE) delivery point. I’m not a carrier, so bias remark here.
No wonder the USPS is in financial trouble… look at their math.
Like or Dislike:
1 
0
Delivering to 20 delivery points (park & loop) takes me 20 minutes. Delivering to a 20 unit apartment only takes me 5 minutes on my route.
Sooo.
If I loose my 5 minute apartment building, I will be added 20 minutes onto my route? That will make my route 15 minutes longer than before.
Like or Dislike:
1 
0
On my route, it takes me 5 minutes to deliver to a 20 unit apartment complex.
If I loose that complex, and it is replaced with 20 delivery points (Park & Loop), my route will have been made 15 minutes longer than it was before the loss of the apartment complex.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Acarrier Says what? Talk about selfish and arrogant, I agree carriers are understaffed, but so are most crafts at most locations. From pulling the mail off the truck, to running the machines, to trying to get mail to the carriers in a timely manner, to meeting managements numbers, to getting the bathrooms cleaned to servicing customers at the window, ALL CRAFTS are asked to do more with less. Get your head out of the paper bag and ask your fellow craft employees what additional pressures have been added to there day. Be kind to one another, in the end were all in the same boat, getting older and expected to do more each day. We are all USPS craft employees, and I hope we all continue to have a job.
Like or Dislike:
0 
1
I’m just relieved to have a good paying job. I’ve been with the USPS for over 30 years and have a lot of friends that are out of work. Try a career change at 50. It is not pretty in today’s economy.
As carriers we make a little over $40 per hour (including benefits). We get regular raises every year. Is it fair that the USPS expects more from us? Where else can we find a job that doesn’t require a college degree that pays $40 per hour? Most of our people just don’t get it. We need to supply a little more spring to our step. Our careers and livelyhood depends on it.
Like or Dislike:
1 
0
I agree with the individual who mentioned mailboxes being placed so the carrier can deliver without dismounting. People complain about the price of postage…..then place their mailboxes where the carriers have to dismount. We are getting paid alot of money to park,turn off engine, curb wheels, set brake,unbuckle, dismount, remount, buckle, start, disengage brake, put in gear and go. After doing this 800 times a day, it is enough to drive a person batty. If everyone, except handicapped individuals, that is being serviced by a MOUNTED carrier would place mailbox where it can be reached by one simple motion out the window, the postal financial crisis would be over! Just think of the savings in unjuries alone. Of course there would be no need for TEs anymore…..there goes my job. It is just hard to listen to people complain about prices…….someone has to pay for the time it takes to walk up to their door aprox. 303 times a year.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Hi, Im a letter carrier and I already work harder than anyone in my office… so of course, they keep adding on…. if they add anymore I will seriously be in a wheel chair by age 45… I dont know how much longer I can keep up this pace. So please add to the slow and lazy, before me….
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Truly smart business don’t just look at HUGE things they can do to save money, they look at the small things that add up. In my husband’s office (which I used to work at also), each day management makes carriers go out for a second run of deliveries to make sure all first class letters go out every day. At $20-$40 an hour to pay 3-4 people to go back out for a handful of .30-.45 cent items, it’s a loss of several hundred dollars a day just for one office. Multiply that by 10K offices and how much is being lost every day? The logic fails me. First of all, it’s first class, not Express Mail. Second, customers do not go back out to check their box a second time, so they don’t even know they got it that day! But I guess slogans like “Every piece every day” sound good.
Then their is the pricing of products. Too many deep discounts for mass mailers. So many parcel choices that customers can’t use the automated equipment in the lobby because they don’t even know how they should mail their parcel because there are too many choices and the pricing structure is unclear. Refining product choices, and eliminating redundant or loss-producing choices could save a lot of money.
What about looking at years when they were showing a profit and going back to the same ratio of delivery points per piece of mail? Consolidating not only routes, but offices, and then selling or leasing the excess real estate?
If the Postal Service asked it’s own carriers how to save money, instead of their management, they would get vastly different answers. Real answers. Carriers see where the money is wasted, the man-hours, and they care about preserving the Postal Service and their jobs. Management just wants to keep their budget intact for next year, just as big as last year, so they have no motivation to actually save.
Rural carriers were ripped off in the last count and took huge pay cuts due to lack of mail volume. What about Post Masters? Why not have their salary based on the mail volume of their office, so they can have a nice pay cut too? Or why not eliminate this “figure head” position? When I worked for the Postal service our PM sat in his chair with his FEET ON THE DESK reading the newspaper for HOURS every morning. I don’t think the higher-ups realize how many hours a day could be cut from management without affecting operations.How about one area manager and no PMs? Why not have the number of supervisors and 204Bs an office is allowed to employ be based on the mail volume as well?
I always choose the USPS. They give an outstanding service for a pittance. I get to mail packages for about half what the UPS store quotes me. I get free packing supplies, and super nice clerks. Why doesn’t everyone know how much cheaper they are than UPS? How about instead of advertising for supporting Lance Armstrong or other equally stupid money-wasting BS they actually advertise a comparison of shipping rates? In this economy people want to save money!
There are so many ways to save money and generate income. Other businesses use them all the time. The problem with the PS is they are so big, the high-higher ups who make the decisions don’t know what’s going on in the local offices. There are too many layers to the management, each layer trusting the one beneath it, and what they fail to grasp is that there is an ingrained, good-old-boys club of managers who seek only to keep their cushy positions and meet for lunch. Not a group that can be trusted to do what is best for the business.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
I work ten years on all walking routes, finally bid up to a mixed walking/boxes route which I’ve kept for five years, saving on the wear and tear on my 61 year old body. So what does our union do, remove boxes and replace them with over 2 hours of walking, all in an effort to build routes for our handicapped carriers. Talk about over-the-top unfairness!!!!!
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
My route was recognised as being 8 hours and didn’t need an adjustment.
However…
The carrier servicing the route adjacent to mine is out of shape and cannot handle Park & Loop. during the adjustment process, 80 of my deliveries consisting of apartments were removed from my route. In exchange I was added 80 deliveries of Park & Loop.
The 80 delivery points I lost used to take me 20 minutes to deliver.
The 80 delivery points added to my route take me 90 minutes to deliver!
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
As a senior worker myself, I can imagine the pain of the older delivery staff trying to keep the job while fighting the aches and pains that the aging body brings!
Like or Dislike:
1 
1