In October 2023, the Postal Service deployed a major change to operations when it began piloting its Local Transportation Optimization (LTO) initiative. The initiative was designed to reduce the number of transportation trips to and from select post offices and increase the amount of mail transported on each trip. As of November 18, 2024, the Postal Service implemented the LTO initiative in 16 regions, including the New Orleans region on August 12, 2024. Our audit objective is to determine the impacts associated with the Postal Service’s LTO initiative in the New Orleans region.

This report presents the results of our self-initiated audit of the Network Changes: Local Transportation Optimization in the New Orleans Region (Project Number 25-057). Our objective was to determine the impacts associated with the Postal Service’s Local Transportation Optimization (LTO) initiative in the New Orleans Region.

Background

As part of its Delivering for America plan, the Postal Service announced several initiatives to modernize its processing and delivery network, some of which impact costs and service performance. One of those strategies was to redesign its surface transportation network to create high performing, lower cost, efficient, and reliable surface transportation capable of moving more volume on fewer trips. To support this strategy, the Postal Service began piloting its LTO initiative, which was designed to reduce the number of transportation trips to and from select or “optimized” post offices. The LTO initiative was deployed in its first region around Richmond, VA, on October 28, 2023. The LTO initiative was implemented in 17 regions, including the New Orleans region on August 12, 2024, and officially concluded in January 2025, with the final implementation near the Little Rock, AR Processing and Distribution Center (P&DC).