Pravda PROVES mail volumes are down

[Harry_Perkins]

Sorry, I mean, The Courier, of course. Page 10/11 of this month's edition. But hold on, the (brief!) article begs more questions than answers:

... our annual results for last year show we delivered 62 million pieces of mail a day. That's significantly down from about 80 million items five years ago

This is then followed a bit later by:

Mail volumes for delivery used to be determined in our delivery units by weighing mail.....

So... when was this changeover? Are they comparing like for like here? Are Door to Door items included in these figures? If not, why not?

Then it states that 30% of mail is essentially counted Manually. How?

An average is calculated for each type of container and mail format

Eh? Surely this means potentially quite a wide variation?

I have no doubt volumes have fallen but I am dubious about the extent to which RM claim and with such authority! Time for an independent look at this, me thinks.

[krussel]

From an on the shop floor perspective its really difficult to judge the true volume of mail. My delivery certainly generates more work than it did 5 years ago but that’s prob due to about a 40% increase in delivery points.

Also the bags seem bulkier due to the increase in packets which is still growing. Wed's are a nightmare now.

So iam not really sure of the true volume letter count going through the system.

However when you take into account the DSA and the d2d’s I would say that its about the same but WHAT i do know is there are less of us to actually deliver the stuff.

[fishtank]

I don't believe D2D is being counted in "volumes".
There are 28million addresses in the U.K. at an average of over 2 D2D(i think it was more than that in 2009) is an increase of 56 million items per week or 9 million per day.

Last years "volumes" were 68m...this years 62m.
If that was the case and D2D had been included it would mean a catastrophic 22% decrease in letter volumes in one year which i'm not buying...so no D2D isn't included in these figures RM are chucking about.
If it was there would be an increase in "volumes".

[bedfordrl]

If it was there would be an increase in "volumes".

And that would not do would it, I mean how can they then flog off a company that is doing well on the cheap to their mates or even themselves as per QuinetiQ ?.

[POSTMAN]

There is no doubt (i would think) that the mail going through the machines is (should be at least) counted correctly.So you get a national figure.
The problem as we all know is when the stuff is sent to us,what is in the boxes is a guess.

An average is calculated for each type of container and mail format

Now that is 100% wrong and we all know that,which fecks us.

What i don't get is the traffic figures x by our DO's = wrong national figures?

[OnAFlyer]

I don't think there's any doubt that mail (letters for sure) is down to a certain degree.

What is doubtful is that it is down by the percentages given, our managers and DOM regularly do counts on our mail, and the actual figure is always roughly 10-20% higher than the count we've been given. I'm reasonably sure that's the case for most DO's as the average figure per box/shroud will be the same throughout the country.

[comeracing]

it does not take a genius to realise that SOME doms not all tinker with certain figures so they reach there set target,and hey presto the DOM gets a nice BRUSIE BONUS,what do delivery staff get !.It takes me longer on delivery now than it did say a couple of years ago,packets have gone through the roof due to ebay etc,these take longer to deliver,especially if nobody is at home.Page 10 of the courier,TMMs TRAFFIC MEASUREMENT MANAGERS,these are on hand to support collegues to record traffic correctly,YES I BET THEY ARE MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.INTERESTING..

[kingofmcr]

might as well be pravda quoting the figures ..the way we all roll over and accept all the extra work royal mail have dumped on us . ...bet when you were on the picket line last year ..you did not think you were striking for extra work ..and no payment for twice as many d2ds ..and the loss of your early start payment ..royal must have looked on .at the employees providing rope for their own necks ..and thought all their christmases had come at once

[MrPPatt]

If it was there would be an increase in "volumes".

And that would not do would it, I mean how can they then flog off a company that is doing well on the cheap to their mates or even themselves as per QuinetiQ ?.

Hmmmm - Methinks you have hit the nail right on the head there my friend.

[pokos27]

volumes are down, but walks are 100% bigger, packets are hideous, ips is hideous, sickness is hideous.

[Danelectro]

There was a CWU document from about 7 years ago? that stated that mail volumes had steadily increased since 1989
and were still increasing and also that each delivery officer was now carrying and delivering far more than in 1989.

Its only been the last 4 years or so that theres been talk of a decline and im sure though that when i started 10
years ago the mail volume figure for each day i was given during training at mail centre was similar to the one used by Royal Mail at present.

So with the 70000 less staff,the fiddling of average container/mech and the increase in packets and the increase in population/delivery points- its damn lies and statistics but what dosnt get mentioned is the steady increase from 1989 until about 2006.or have i remembered wrong?

[pinstripe]

In my DO they used to display the traffic figures for each day, and they were a bit on the low side. As soon as we started the CSS operation, coincidently, giving us access to the exact mech figures, which in the first week alone were double the office totals for all mail, these traffic figures were no longer displayed.

[OnAFlyer]

There was a CWU document from about 7 years ago? that stated that mail volumes had steadily increased since 1989
and were still increasing and also that each delivery officer was now carrying and delivering far more than in 1989.

Its only been the last 4 years or so that theres been talk of a decline and im sure though that when i started 10
years ago the mail volume figure for each day i was given during training at mail centre was similar to the one used by Royal Mail at present.

So with the 70000 less staff,the fiddling of average container/mech and the increase in packets and the increase in population/delivery points- its damn lies and statistics but what dosnt get mentioned is the steady increase from 1989 until about 2006.or have i remembered wrong?

No you haven't remembered wrong. The peak letters volume was the mid 2000's (2006 I believe). Now we have lost around 25% of posties, gained all their work + more packets, bulk mail and D2D than there has ever been before.

Add onto this slower delivery methods (also known as modernisation ) and it's not hard to see why the job is much more difficult than it ever has been before.

[bandit650]

Your right it don't add up when you talk CSS figures they are on the ball but the reason for that is the machines are checked each month and re calibrated as are MTT.ILSM,CFC,etc the manual mail for the purpose of the new delivery methods is they give you a % of your mech figure for each walk they don't know if that is correct, it is just a guess,How many of you have looked at the way in which the mail that comes into your office is correct?is the manual mail to the correct fill, is it over or is it under?when you get a tray of flats is the perstop over filled or is it correctly filled?when york's of packets come into your office have you counted that york to see if you have the correct number in the york or is it over?
Nobody really looks at it we just go blindly on, if you start looking and counting the manager will know that some thing is going on if you don't believe in your office figures then start asking questions! How do you as an office record your traffic? we use to weigh in but now i believe it just arrives and your relying on the outward office for your traffic figure's!How good are their figure's? Do they book everything out or do they say i cant be bothered?just send it on its way!we have found so many issues with our traffic figure's the upper managers are trying to give us a kicking but we don't care,traffic =job's and that is the bottom line all of us should take an extra interest even if it is just to pee them off!

[Jaggs]

The problem with what they are saying is that the manual counting at Mail Centres isn't done properly. Before I got my current job at at a DO I was a casual at an MC and the supposed manual counting of Yorks coming in is done by very few. The figures about dropping mail appears to be largely based around people in mail centres not being bothered to do their jobs properly when recording yorks coming in and being sorted. If proper records were kept there would be a much clearer picture but unfortunately some people seem to think the time taken to do it which is a matter of a few seconds per york isn't worth it.