If you’ve ever wondered how the Postal Service can decipher illegible handwriting, the answer is at the USPS Remote Encoding Center in Salt Lake City, UT. Each of the 1,500 postal employees at the Center examines 7,000 images every day to determine where the indecipherable mail should be delivered. The majority of letters received by…
A new Surface Visibility (SV) device will allow USPS plant workers to scan mail and packages more efficiently. The lightweight mobile device will replace current equipment. Testing has been completed at plants in Dulles, VA and Nashua, NH. Postal employees at those facilities said that the SV device made their job easier. The device will…
Brick-and-mortar retailers including Macy’s, Nordstrom and Wal-Mart are providing customers with same-day delivery to combat the growing online competition. Such retailers often have entire inventories near customers’ homes. Macy’s uses contract drivers from Deliv, an Uber-like company. It delivers to customers in eight cities and Macy’s will soon increase these speedy deliveries. However, not all…
Test mailboxes in rural and suburban communities in California, Colorado and North Dakota are popular with customers and postal employees. The mailboxes are the same height as normal mailboxes but wider to accommodate the ever-growing number of packages received by customers. Customers volunteered to test the boxes earlier this year. Read more Read more
As Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Jason Chaffetz, (R-UT) is working to improve relationships with Democrats. He has visited ranking member Elijah Cummings (D-MD) in Cummings’ home district, and has invited longtime postal reform advocate Gerald Connolly (D-VA) to join the Subcommittee on Government Operations, which oversees the USPS. Democrats have praised Chaffetz’s efforts,…
The USPS is preparing to replace its fleet of long life vehicles or LLVs. On July 6, 2015 the Postal Service announced it has awarded a contract to Morgan Olson LLC to build 3,339 new delivery trucks. The contract is worth more than one quarter of a billion dollars. The new vehicle –“Walk-In Body Intermediate…
People may react faster to email advertisements, but they are more emotionally attached to hard copy mail, according to a USPS Inspector General (IG) June white paper. Direct mail made up 31% of USPS total revenue in 2014. The IG worked with Temple University’s Center for Neural Decision Making in a study to determine consumer’s…
Erica Farmer and Marc Whitacre couldn’t just slap on a coat of paint and move into their new house because their home is one of America’s treasures: an abandoned post office in Havre, Montana, that’s on the National Register of Historic Places. Read more
E-commerce is growing dramatically. Competition is increasing among package delivery companies as customers increasingly favor online retailers over brick and mortar stores. Online shoppers want their purchases delivered quickly, reliably and affordably. Hence, the USPS must optimize its parcel delivery service to meet demand and increase revenue. The USPS Office of Inspector General (OIG) noted…
On July 9, 2015, Senator Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) introduced (S.1742), The Rural Postal Act of 2015. This bill is intended to improve both rural mail service and the morale of rural postal workers. Following her “Fix My Mail” initiative—wherein Heitkamp examined the postal concerns of rural North Dakotans—Heitkamp has introduced a bill that proposes to…