[CarGuy]

A number of articles have appeared in the media in the last 6 months about the US Post Office (USPS) considering the elimination of mail delivery on Saturday. There was another item in today's Daily Sun. A hundred + years ago when the only point-to-point communication was mail, daily or even twice daily delivery made sense. With each increment in communications technology, e.g., telegraph, telephone, email, ..., the need for (and apparent use of) traditional paper mail falls. I am surprized that it has taken this long for someone to wonder about Saturday delivery. I do not believe that eliminating Saturday delivery will do much for the infrastructure costs associated with the USPS, but it should cut down some on delivery costs. Personally, I would push it a bit further and have delivery only 3 days a week. If most postal regions reduced delivery to Mon/Wed/Fri for half of their customers and Tu/Thur/Sat for the other half, I suspect that the delivery costs could be reduced by close to half.

Other thoughts?

[under55]

I do everything online now. Once a week or every 2 weeks would be fine with me.

[BogeyBoy]

Well, I have a couple of thoughts.

Even if mail volume continued to drop it would be difficult to deliver it in three days. If the stats in the paper were right they are loosing about 5% volume a year. Do you really think they could deliver 95% of last year's volume in 50% of the time? Here's what would happen, overtime would skyrocket because it would be like having 3 Mondays a week.

Business customers would have a fit. They count on that cash flow to keep the business operating. (Even if they wanted to have PO Boxes it would be tough, all those letters would have to be handled by someone. Plus I don't think there are anywhere near enough PO Boxes to accommodate every business customer in the US.)

The advertisers would also have a fit. Many of them count on specific delivery days to promote sales, etc.

And the biggest issue, the behind the scenes operations would still have to work 24/7. There wouldn't be enough planes to move the mail between the thousands of locations necessary to get it from point A to point B. And there isn't enough storage area to handle the mail that would have to sit and wait for MWF or TTS to be processed and delivered.

It's a complex operation. I'm still amazed that you can mail something in TV today and it gets to NY by the weekend. (I shouldn't be amazed, I've seen it all from the inside.)

[HMLRHT1]

With your theory then one out two people get mail every day. What about those who are waiting for their prescription meds? Or those that have important papers (taxes,home sales,business) that they are waiting for. Any one waiting for Netflix to show up with the movie they ordered? There is more than the customer on the receiving end that does business with the USPS. A lot of money comes from the mailers and what day they want the item delivered to all customers. If the USPS does not deliver every day then the mailers will use someone else. The USPS loses more money. This is not what they are trying to do. ( I hope)

[Dynasty]

The government seems to have been into buying as of late, maybe they should think of selling the postal service.

[BogeyBoy]

Originally Posted by Dynasty

The government seems to have been into buying as of late, maybe they should think of selling the postal service.

The government doesn't "own" the postal service, they just dictate how it operates so everyone in the US can get uniform mail service. The old Post Office Department stopped operation in 1971 and the US Postal Service was established. The USPS does not get any tax dollars, (before the reorganization they got a "public service subsidy") they are mandated to operate a break even operation. Each class of mail is supposed to generate enough income to pay for delivery of that class of mail. (Which obviously they are not doing.) (They do get some tax dollars indirectly, when any congressman does one of those mailings you get now and then - with no stamps - money is paid to the USPS for delivery out of tax dollars.)

[billethkid]

are the operating expenses associated with that specific day. The core employment and hence the majority expense of operations is unaffected.
Not delivering on Saturday is what I cal eye wash...in a money losing business one has to show some actions being taken to reduce operating costs.
In private business as well as personal business, one has to reduce expenses to match revenues/resources. A requirement obviously not adhered to in government run businesses.

btk

[BogeyBoy]

Here's a little bit of info for you -

When the price of gas goes up 1 penny, it cost the postal service $8,000,000!

Five years ago the price of a stamp was 39 cents, today it is 44 cents.

Five years ago the price of a gallon of gas was about $1.75, today it is about $2.80 +/-, and we all know it was over $4.00 for a while.

The average family mails about 150 pieces of mail per year. So the change in rates from 2005 to now cost them about $7.50 per year.

The average car uses about 500 gallons of fuel per year, so now it cost you about $500 more for gas each year than it did in 2005. Now do the math - the postal service used 444 million gallons of fuel last year.

The USPS cannot add on a fuel surcharge (such as Fed Ex and United Parcel Service).

Some of these things are obviously out of the USPS control. They cannot raise rates unless approved through the Postal Rate Commission, which is a time consuming procedure.

One last little fact - last year the USPS cut workhours by 114 million.

[billethkid]

the post office is not a prime candidate for alternate fuel vehicles? What a perfect opportunity to lead the way and reduce costs. Now doncha just wonder why such an obvious solution has not been pursued? Ditto for all the other businesses that are dependent upon fossil fuels and doing nothing about it.

btk

[BogeyBoy]

Originally Posted by billethkid

the post office is not a prime candidate for alternate fuel vehicles? What a perfect opportunity to lead the way and reduce costs. Now doncha just wonder why such an obvious solution has not been pursued? Ditto for all the other businesses that are dependent upon fossil fuels and doing nothing about it.

btk

FYI - They have the largest alternative fuel fleet in the world.