Most people probably don’t know what a universal service obligation is, much less that the Postal Service is bound by one. But a USO, as it’s commonly called, is essential to ensuring that everyone receives the mail service they need. And the Postal Service’s USO is long overdue for updating and clarification, as you can see in our new white paper, Guiding Principles for a New Universal Service Obligation.
For the major express companies, preparation for the next holiday season started right after the last one ended. If you’re one of the many Americans whose packages arrived after Santa did last year, you are undoubtedly glad to hear this. In 2013, an unexpected surge in online orders, combined with winter storms and sparse airplane capacity, resulted in FedEx and UPS missing deliveries for Christmas.
Pretty soon, Americans will have no reason to leave their homes. We can order everything online and have it delivered to our doors – even groceries. That’s good news for package delivery companies, if not for Americans’ Vitamin D intake.
The world may be getting smaller, but cities are getting bigger. More than 80 percent of the country’s population lives in urban areas, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
Fortunately, cities are getting smarter too. Using technology, data, and analytics, cities can implement “smart”...
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Mail collection boxes are practically as American as apple pie. They also seem to be disappearing as quickly as mom’s homemade apple pie.
Nationally, the number of collection boxes declined by more than 12,000 in the past 5 years. Some customers have complained the U.S. Postal Service...
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Neither the Internet nor smartphones can hold advertising mail down. Even with digital advertising growing at a rapid pace over the past 20 years, advertising mail has kept its same share of the market — around 10 to 12 percent.
What’s advertising mail’s secret?
Well, besides the...
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We are conducting an audit to verify the accuracy of clerk and mail handler costs attributed to products and services. The Postal Service categorizes all costs as either attributable costs, which are directly or indirectly related to products, or institutional costs, which are not related to...
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The U.S. Postal Service uses highway contracts routes (HCRs) to transport mail between plants, post offices, or other designated points where mail is received or dispatched. HCRs are contracts with independent drivers to travel specified routes. Postal Service policy states HCRs must be surveyed...
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The Mobile Delivery Device (MDD) is the latest handheld device to be used by Postal Service carriers to track package activities in real time. The MDDs access a wireless network for real-time tracking, thereby creating package visibility that is essential for the Postal Service to maintain and...
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