bustedflush wrote:I used to live in Germany and the way their posties work is quite different; most houses that aren't open-plan have boxes/parcel bins outside or on the property perimeter as do flats and apartments. There is little opening of gates and walking down broken paths, or walking down 100-yard drives. They use mopeds/bikes still and there is less walking in a 6-hour stint than we'd do in 3. They also do collections daily. It's a blend of our system with the USA-style perimeter mailboxes.
Austria is (unsurprisingly) similar. I lived in a village of ~1000 people about 22km away from the delivery office. The local postie (who quite probably also delivered to the the village of ~1500 people 2km further away and/or the other of ~600 people at the halfway point), kept his van at home. Delivery was 5 days a week, and seemed to include about 15 D2Ds a week! (About 5 each on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays). I lived in a group of properties that consisted of 2 pairs of semi-detached houses, with a central stairwell leading to 3 flats on the 2nd floor ... Which was was then repeated twice for a total 21 calls. There where a set of letter boxes in the stairwell, parcels could be doorstepped if you signed the form taking responsibility otherwise they where either DTN'd or taken to the local PO.
... and there was none of this silly nonsense we get around here where you get a block of flats with communal letters boxes in the lobby, but some geniuses install letterboxes in their doors (it's almost never the ones on the ground floor!
) and tape the box downstairs shut either!
Saw a couple of posties in/around Salzburg and they had HCT-a-likes.
Royal Mail could probably save themselves a fortune in time, fuel and van repairs if they just installed a box (and a parcelpod
http://www.parcelpod.appliedstorageproducts.co.uk or similar) at the roadside for all those rural properties with long farm track accesses. But they'll never do it because they'll take a look at the up-front cost and shy away ...
