How local mail goes the long way round

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://tinyurl.com/2hywot

CLUB secretary Keith Gould has accused the Royal Mail of wasting time and money over their attitude to a postbox intended for local mail only.

For years Mr Gould has posted letters to be delivered within Harpenden in the specially-designated box at the Royal Mail delivery office in Station Road.

He had been told many years previously that by putting local letters in the internal postbox they would be sorted manually on the premises rather than being sorted electronically at Watford.

So when he went to post theatre tickets for local people on October 3, to ensure they would not be held up in the postal dispute, he was confident they would arrive promptly.

When they had still not arrived on October 11, the day of the play, he went to the delivery office to find out what had happened - only to be told that the internal box had not been sorted locally for some time.

He was informed that all post went to Watford to be sorted electronically and was then sent back to Harpenden.

Mr Gould said: "I was told by a postmaster some years before that if I was to post letters in the internal postbox, which is clearly marked for this purpose, then letters would be put in pigeon holes upstairs and sorted manually. But the postal authorities now insist it is sent to Watford to be sorted mechanically.

Mr Gould added: "I have posted letters destined for local addresses in that box for 47 years. And on many occasions I have gone out of my way to post my letters in that box - I have avoided using a box in Southdown on the basis that if I posted letters in the Station Road office, they would arrive more quickly."

He pointed out that not only was it a waste of time and money to ferry mail back and forth across the county but it would also increase the district's carbon output.

He continued: "What is the point of keeping a separate internal post box? And some of my letters have still not arrived!"

A spokesman for Royal Mail said the box marked local mail was an historical box and mail had not been dealt with locally for more than a year.

He explained that all post was sorted mechanically at the sorting office in Watford which was much more efficient, cheaper and was delivered the next day.

He added that there was still a backlog of post because of the recent postal strikes and Mr Gould's letters could still be in the postal network.

He did not anticipate Royal Mail changing the sign on the local box because he did not think that the box marked local mail led customers to believe that mail would be sorted and posted out from there.

[ewen1956]

Same happens at the post box outside our RM Depot. There are "Two" posting slots. One states Local Mail, while one states Other Mail. There are two separate Collection Bags inside the box, but when the box is emptied the mail is transferred into one bag!.....!

[sandie]

To my knowledge, the same happens in Cheltenham. All mail has to go to Gloucester 10 miles away and plans were in hand to send it all to Swindon, 40 miles away, but they successfully fought that one. Well done Paul!

[jemima]

It would be interesting to work out the actual costs/savings involved here. Does anyone have any idea of the volume of local mail that's posted separately?
Roughly, if it's only a few items, it won't make much difference carbon-wise since the same size lorry will be travelling the same distance whether those items are on board or not. A few bags of items per day would start to make a difference, whilst a York-load definitely ought not to be transported unnecessarily.

[Lounge Lizard]

At the SPDO I work from, some villagers hand local letters over the Post Office counter, and by the end of the day these have been date stamped and taken five yards to the sorting frame with the certainty that they will be deivered the next day. This may not be the modern way of doing things, but nothing could be more efficient or environmentally friendly.

[ewen1956]

Regarding the "Local Hand Stamp / Frank". It was quite satisfying to see a hand franked letter or post card, but sadly these are all but gone. With the next batch of Post Office cuts and closures even those that are still hand stamping will sadly dissappear!

[F0zziebear]

The majority of mail is destined for neighbouring postcode areas. I did an analysis of this for RoyalMail a few years ago. There is volume that stays within a postcode, but to provide a specifc service for those items that stay locally I would imagine would cost more per item. There are probably specific instances where keeping the mail local is practical, but overall nationally having as simplified system as possible is desirable.

Hand franked letters are nice, but they are an ever rarer occurance and will continue to dwindle overtime as they are e-substituted.

As someone said on a previous post if vans are going to mail centres everyday then the environmental impact is a red herring

[jemima]

Thanks F0zziebear!

The majority of mail is destined for neighbouring postcode areas.

If that's so, and RM keep it local, lorry size can be reduced and so will RM's environmental impact. They won't need to use all those large vehicles that are speed restricted. Nor will they need so much expensive air freight. And some of the smaller older sorting machinery that is set for modernisation can be redeployed in local sorting offices so they won't be inefficient.

Did you analyse this for the whole of the UK or just in one or two specific areas?

[Tman]

[

And some of the smaller older sorting machinery that is set for modernisation can be redeployed in local sorting offices so they won't be inefficient.

Not possible.
Like all automation in all types of working environments, you need specialist operators (ho ho eh RM?) and specialist engineers to maintain it, plus a range of spares, tooling and manuals on-site. It would be pointless to invest in these things only to have the machinery sitting idle, so unluckily for the old boy and his local box, it ain't going to happen.
It's a similar case to AI killing the old TPOs.

[jacko]

I think this goes back to the old days when we had 2 deliverys after your 1st you would empty a box at the end of your collection and the local post would be sorted and if it was on your walk you took it that day.
Remember them newspaper articles that people were amazed how good we were.

[ROCKY]

what happened to the yellow bags for all local mail

[F0zziebear]

I h did some wonderful jobs at RM!

Neighbouring is technically upto 100miles from the post of postage, if U remember correctly. I only covered one territory in the UK, but I had access to the overall volumes. Something like 60% of all mail goes to neighbouring postcodes. There are some anomalies, but the overall point rings true.

The large trucks are there for a reason. Whilst I worked with the Network people I never worked on routing, but I would argue strongly that it wouldn't be in their interests to run inefficient routes, or use oversized lorries. From working with them they have some of the most experienced people in RM within their department, and seems to be run to a high standard. I cannot vouch for whether this is the case for vehicles maintained and run at a local level, before anyone gets on my back about that.

They are actually planning on bringing in even more double-decker lorries, according to recent press clipping as they have been performing well.

One other point. RM's network was originally setup when mail flowed from every city. Today a relatively small number of huge print factories produce large chunks of mail, which distorts this picture. Production is more commonly found never major road hubs such as the M6/M1 junction, which makes sense. If Royal Mail are to compete in the future on the upstream mail (collection/and outward sorting) then they need to re-align their network. Currently many mail centres are located never train stations and too near to city centres, which makes them harder to reach and more difficult to access (anyone seen the chaos in Mount Pleasant etc...?)

For Royal Mail to go round changing the labels on boxes is probably not at the top of the priority list at the moment, and if Joe Bloggs thinks his mail getting sorted locally then so be it. As long as it gets to where it should be going by the time it should be there then how it gets there is Royal Mail's decision not his. I would also argue that offering a same day delivery for the price of a first class stamp, whilst noble is offering over and above the service paid for. Whilst RM (Crozier etc...) would love to offer this, it should be at a higher premium to reflect costs, or the gold plated service being offered. You wouldn't expect to ask for a house red in the pub and then get some vintage brew instead, so why is RM different?

They are planning on bringing in local sorting machinery into larger DO's over the next few years anyway, so maybe this service could be resurrected somehow and a truly premium service that competitors can't offer at probably quite low prices will be possible.

For exmaple Special Delivery does not cost RM that much extra than a 1st class stamp to offer. They make approx. 60% profit margins on this product so there maybe hope, but not sure of the size of market for this offering

F0zz

[Lounge Lizard]

The majority of mail is destined for neighbouring postcode areas. I did an analysis of this for RoyalMail a few years ago. There is volume that stays within a postcode, but to provide a specifc service for those items that stay locally I would imagine would cost more per item. There are probably specific instances where keeping the mail local is practical, but overall nationally having as simplified system as possible is desirable.

Hand franked letters are nice, but they are an ever rarer occurance and will continue to dwindle overtime as they are e-substituted.

As someone said on a previous post if vans are going to mail centres everyday then the environmental impact is a red herring

"A specific service for those items that stay locally ... would cost more per item" - not always. Up to about twenty years ago, in this town there was a post box next to the delivery office where mail posted by 5am was delivered within the town that day. Taking the mail out of that box at 5am and adding it to mail brought in from elsewhere for local sorting and delivery cost nothing and avoided the, albeit perhaps limited, costs of it going to the neighbouring city, being (mostly)machine sorted and being brought back.

[F0zziebear]

Lounge you make a good point. Maybe we should be clear by what we mean by postcode and postcode area. A postcode area is anything from say N1 to N22, a postcode would be N1 (I know this isn't technically perfect RM speak).

Having a postbox outside a DO with mail for that DO area would obviously be efficient and very cheap to run. You could also probably deliver it the same day. I have no qualms with that.

To suggest that this would reduce the costs of the network are not true, as the network is a highly fixed cost (where many of RM's current problems exist). The machinery, and associated costs stay almost static regardless of volume and the same with trucks, to a similar degree.

I would argue that the local almost say day service should be offered at a higher price as you could make greater margins on it without the competition being able to offer a similar service for anywhere near as cheap. If the competition can undercut RoyalMail on bulk mail collection and sortation then RM should be able to undercut the competition on other products e.g. Special Delivery, 1pm/9am etc...

My only question would be to offer the service and market it for what is quite a narrow market may make the offering not so attractive. How people are aware that this service used to exist, and would still use it? In what volumes etc... RM has a research department and spedns millions per year on this type of research so it would be over to them to see whether there is a viable offering to be had.

Offering this service at the same cost as a 1st class stamp and yet offering an improved service over and above the next day delivery service level agreement seems in my mind as a capitalist money-making wannabe fatcat slightly pointless.

Now if RM is there to be a public service that is not profit making well then let's offer it, take round the local paper, possibly the eggs and milk as well!

I am sure in the past RM was given thanks for offering this service, but are those same people willing to pay the true cost of their individually stamped mail to go wherever in the country, obviously not!

[jemima]

I don't have the facts and figures for a full cost efficiency analysis for processing the mail. I expect RM do, as you say, F0zziebear.

But RM needs to look to the future. There will be new legislation to ensure that carbon emissions are reduced (including Hilary Benn's latest proposals for "carbon budgets" and "the Carbon Reduction Commitment" for large organisations"). RM will have to do something to reduce carbon-based fuel use, even if it isn't optimally cost-effective overall. Moving mail for smaller distances within a revised and localised network will reduce energy use. If it costs more to process that mail in local offices, that will have to be accepted. Reduction of carbon emissions will be the government priority - at least 26% to 32% by 2020 is suggested. This will also affect the large printing firms; they'll have to be near paper suppliers. It'll be interesting.