Quickening world outpaces snail mail

Stormproof · Post by **Stormproof** » 13 Dec 2008, 22:35

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... 337629.ece

From The Sunday TimesDecember 14, 2008

Quickening world outpaces snail mail
Amid the row over the speed of postmen, our correspondent finds everyone else has got fasterMaurice Chittenden
The fastest postman in Britain is Alun Vaughan, a Welsh international runner, who maintains a speed of more than 12mph when competing in long-distance races.

When he is delivering the post, however, he drops to a relatively sluggish 2mph, the pace of the average British postal delivery worker.

Two years ago he led a Royal Mail team to victory in an international corporate race in New York. His bosses, however, believe that he, like the rest of the workforce, could go faster when doing his rounds.

A row broke out at Royal Mail last week after the postal workers’ union claimed bosses were trying to get postmen and women to double their walking speed to 4mph.

British postal workers lag behind their continental counterparts. In Belgium they walk at 2.4mph, though being Belgian they would no doubt insist on calling it 3.8kph. In Denmark they pride themselves on being even faster, although a spokesman for Post Danmark said: “Our awards for the best postmen are measured on quality, not speed.”

Everyone else is speeding up, too. Most people in Britain are walking 10% faster than they were 10 years ago, according to researchers.

Doctors have even found that it is good for us. People who walk faster tend to live longer, according to the research, unless they step out in front of a bus in their hurry.

The slowness of the British postie is said to be one of the reasons for the backlog in Christmas mail. Postal workers in Preston said last week that they were racing against time to deliver a growing mountain of Christmas parcels and blamed their bosses for refusing to stump up overtime pay for extra deliveries.

A planned one-day strike against reorganisation by postal workers at sorting offices in Liverpool, Coventry, Milton Keynes, Bolton, Crewe and Stockport will further disrupt deliveries on Friday.

The quickest delivery workers in the world are probably in Singapore, but even they have trouble reaching 4mph. E-mail enthusiasts refer to postal delivery as snail mail.

Researchers from the University of Hertfordshire measured the speed of walkers in 32 cities over 60ft and found that those in Singapore averaged 3.77mph.

Posties in Singapore increased productivity by 58% over 11 years, from delivering 1,842 items a day each to 2,905 items in 2006. Last year its postal service won the Universal Postal Union’s world mail award for quality. In one demonstration of its commitment to customers, Singapore Post’s management and office staff left their desks to help to deliver the latest Harry Potter book on publication day.

In Britain the Communication Workers’ Union (CWU) protested last week after a postman in Evesham, Worcestershire, complained he was expected to walk at a speed of 4mph on his morning round.

The union said its members were under pressure to complete unrealistic delivery routes because of “misuse” of software called Pegasus. It claimed Royal Mail managers had been given presentations at which they were told that the “desired” walk speed was 4mph.

Bob Gibson, CWU’s national official, said: “Royal Mail is using this system to meet financial savings without considering the physical realities of delivery rounds. This is putting pressure on delivery workers and leading to bullying and harassment.”

Royal Mail imported Pegasus from Canada and uses it to map out its 66,000 delivery rounds to 28m addresses across the UK, 23,000 of which are done entirely on foot. It says the average round is 5½ miles but takes 3½ hours to complete at an average speed of 2mph once garden paths, gravel drives and stair-wells in flats are added into the equation. It denies trying to double the speed.

Vaughan, 29, from Felinheli, near Caernarfon, could do 5½ miles in less than 30 minutes if he had his running kit on. Ranked 24th in the UK over 5,000m, he said: “I run to work at my sorting office but I take my time doing my job so I don’t make mistakes. I am fairly quick but my round still takes about 3½ hours.”

The average walking speed for a human is between 2mph and 3mph, depending on height, weight, age and the terrain. The researchers from the University of Hertfordshire measured people walking at noon in 32 cities and compared their speeds with walkers in the 1990s. The average increase was 10% .

Richard Wiseman, a professor of psychology who led the research, said: “We are walking faster than we have ever done before. The fastest people are in Singapore but 4mph is even faster than their average.”

A Royal Mail spokesman said: “Royal Mail carefully plans every postman and postwoman’s walk so that no one is asked to cover a greater distance or deliver more mail than they are capable of doing.”

norbert · Post by **norbert** » 13 Dec 2008, 22:46

What a load of b***ocks ! - so there is a backlog in Preston because the postmen are too slow - nothing to do with RM ? -everything to do with :lfo being an executive with Sky - one of Murdoch's companies along with News International - stinks !

Come to think - who ran the 92 versions of the same 12 obscure Spanish Practices story to get :cfo out of the s**t ?

DGP1 · Post by **DGP1** » 13 Dec 2008, 23:05

TBH I really don't care what anybody else says, what is important is - Can the delivery be done without running - Big Daz has done the Pegasus revision which seems to be do-able and any problems are to be dealt with quickly which would be very sensible but alas most office have either poor reps or overly aggressive managers.

not me · Post by **not me** » 14 Dec 2008, 09:21

The average walking speed for a human is between 2mph and 3mph, depending on height, weight, age and the terrain. The researchers from the University of Hertfordshire measured people walking at noon in 32 cities and compared their speeds with walkers in the 1990s. The average increase was 10% .

yet a postie should be able to double that carrying delivery weight?

DGP1 · Post by **DGP1** » 14 Dec 2008, 12:40

custard wrote:
The average walking speed for a human is between 2mph and 3mph, depending on height, weight, age and the terrain. The researchers from the University of Hertfordshire measured people walking at noon in 32 cities and compared their speeds with walkers in the 1990s. The average increase was 10% .
yet a postie should be able to double that carrying delivery weight?

And remember that we don't walk in a straight line, we constantly stop to open gates, walk up paths (sometimes unkept and in some cases downright dangerous), try to take out the post and post it through the letterbox (sometimes too small or in difficult to reach places) then back up the path and close the gate

banner18 · Post by **banner18** » 14 Dec 2008, 15:21

To compare posties in britain with those in singapore is rubbish. How can the layout in the suburbs of singapore be anything like that of Great Britain. How can their average speed be compared to ours. When I was in Spain I noticed streets where every single house had a box built into the front gates. Spanish posties could therefore deliver far more volumes of mail than us who walk up greasy slippy paths, open shite gates with 25 year old bolts on and post through letter boxes made in victorian times. Maybe in Singapore they have adequate bag drops so that they carry very little weight, unlike here where virtually every round I have ever done doesn't have enough.
Of course you would be able to cover extra distance if everywhere was flat and without obstacles, posting was instant and bags were lighter.
Talk about a crap comparison!