How are the letters organised for collection and delivery?

[ryan125hst]

I’ve gone down a bit of a rabbit hole reading here and on Reddit so I have some idea, but there’s a few gaps and questions I have that I hope can be answered here.

Letters are collected from post boxes, usually collected by postmen during their round. Letters and parcels are also collected from Post Offices. How much sorting do the Post Offices have to do? Until a couple of days ago I would have assumed everything gets collected together and put through a scanner with each item identified and then sent over to the correct sorting equipment, but I now understand this isn't the case and it's a lot more manual. Is this a historical thing that just hasn't changed over the years?

As far as the Delivery Office is concerned, do they do any sorting of the mail before it is put on the lorry to the Mail Centre or is it just sent straight there for them to sort it out? Presumably if I sent a letter to the other side of town it would still have to go all the way to the Mail Centre and back even if the destination of the letter is a couple of miles from the post box? I suppose it's cheaper than having sorting machines at every delivery office, even if it's not ideal.

When mail arrives at the Delivery Office from the Mail Centre, how much actually needs to be sorted? It seems there's still a lot to separate out and organise which is surprising given the technology we have these days. Are other postal services around the world similar?

I understand some mail is sequenced for the delivery and some is unsequenced, IPS, that is sorted into boxes at the Delivery Office. How is the IPS arranged so that each letter can be sorted into (I think) only 48 places? Does it need to be sorted multiple times for it to end up in the right place?

[Barnacle]

For very obvious reasons, we don’t give detailed descriptions of our processes. For all I know, you could be planning to target some Post Offices or mail vans and want to save yourself time by knowing what will be in which sack.

[TopperGas]

For very obvious reasons, we don’t give detailed descriptions of our processes. For all I know, you could be planning to target some Post Offices or mail vans and want to save yourself time by knowing what will be in which sack.

The questions do seem pretty in-depth for just an interested member of the public!

[yubin282]

For very obvious reasons, we don’t give detailed descriptions of our processes. For all I know, you could be planning to target some Post Offices or mail vans and want to save yourself time by knowing what will be in which sack.

The questions do seem pretty in-depth for just an interested member of the public!

don't forget to tell about the mountains of d2ds, they might be "interested"

[ryan125hst]

The questions do seem pretty in-depth for just an interested member of the public!

I'm always the same, I start reading about something and then end up going into far too much depth! Full of useless information that no-one is interested in

For very obvious reasons, we don’t give detailed descriptions of our processes. For all I know, you could be planning to target some Post Offices or mail vans and want to save yourself time by knowing what will be in which sack.

That's understandable, apologies for going too far with the questions . I'll have to edit my post to be a bit less specific.

[yellowbelly]

For very obvious reasons, we don’t give detailed descriptions of our processes. For all I know, you could be planning to target some Post Offices or mail vans and want to save yourself time by knowing what will be in which sack.

The questions do seem pretty in-depth for just an interested member of the public!

don't forget to tell about the mountains of d2ds, they might be "interested"

Or they might be interested who is receiving underpants through a subscription.....

[sindba]

The mail is downlined from PO to MC.
It's the pre-sorted by DTS into 1c DSA, 2c DSB and 3C DSC.
The P4999s are then completed, and the Mail is dispatched to DOs in Waves1 -4 transport operations
On arrival to DOs the mail is then tipped into a Sorting Skip and the highly complex process affectionally known as "the Sorting Scrum" begins
After screening and streaming and screaming, mail is allocated to rounds, or "this effing beast" as we call them.
We then complete final procedures including "trimming" and "skimming", have a lively debate with managers about our non-completion position, and load the vans.
Kick the tires, light the fires, and off we go!

Hope this helps!

[jessicarabbit]

I can give a simple one word answer to your question.....

BADLY

[WalkerX]

For very obvious reasons, we don’t give detailed descriptions of our processes. For all I know, you could be planning to target some Post Offices or mail vans and want to save yourself time by knowing what will be in which sack.

The questions do seem pretty in-depth for just an interested member of the public!

don't forget to tell about the mountains of d2ds, they might be "interested"

Or they might be interested who is receiving underpants through a subscription.....

aha, our Dutch friends, the marvellously named "On That Ass".

[Mr Rush]

Or they might be interested who is receiving underpants through a subscription.....

aha, our Dutch friends, the marvellously named "On That Ass".

I always assumed they were edible to be sent with such frequency.

[Barnacle]

Or they might be interested who is receiving underpants through a subscription.....

aha, our Dutch friends, the marvellously named "On That Ass".

I always assumed they were edible to be sent with such frequency.

[ryan125hst]

don't forget to tell about the mountains of d2ds, they might be "interested"

I've not had any of them lately but I did have a window cleaner post his own flyer through the letterbox yesterday... in an envelope! God knows why he went to that trouble.

screaming

Well I've just had notification that a parcel I ordered before Christmas is expected to be received by Royal Mail, a Tracked 48. Does the screaming start now knowing it has to be sorted or when it arrives at the DO when the posties find out they have yet another Tracked to deliver?