Parcel size for van duties.

[Woody Guthrie]

That thread is like a who's who of RMC legends...

[postslippete]

Heard that anything that doesn’t go through the letterbox is gonna go with dedicated van duty, thought it was roughly shoebox size or above going this way, rounds are gonna be made huge if that is this case surely. Is this a local thing that needs to be agreed or nationwide.

Its not practical to do this unless Royal Mail get rid of the USO on letters.

Yonks ago we had dedicated parcel drivers and the system was efficient in that there really weren't that many parcels to deliver hence they were expected to cover a larger area. Its not going to work today given the record number of parcels. All these parcels still need to be sorted and organised and to me its much easier for the walking postie to take the slightly larger than letterbox parcels via their trolley.

If Parcelforce are not able to take these larger parcels that come into our network that often occupy half the space of the van, then thats what I can see a dedicated parcel driver doing.

[Woody Guthrie]

What you can't have is parcels for every second door in the street, then the jumping in and out of the van every 50 yards becomes really inefficient and pointless especially if another guy has just cruised down the street with half a bundle of mail in his hand.

Also you're going to need to cover the parcels for around five duties to make the numbers work and that just isn't going to happen if you're delivering everything that doesn't fit through a letterbox.

[SpacePhoenix]

What about a dedicated van duty taking all the RM specials and then the foreign specials getting done with the normal parcel van/posties as there's no time restrictions on them

[Sugar]

What you can't have is parcels for every second door in the street, then the jumping in and out of the van every 50 yards becomes really inefficient and pointless especially if another guy has just cruised down the street with half a bundle of mail in his hand.

Which is what every other courier has to do with packet deliveries.

RM's way around the walking OPG just "cruising" is to simply give them longer delivery spans which is, as we all know, is their go to answer to any issue / revision that's happened in the past 20 years.

I was asked a few years back to trial this packet driver "idea" and managements solution was to collapse 1 out of 6 duties. Five walking duties took a fifth of the collapsed duty each and the designated packet driver took shoebox size and over packets from those duties. Never got off the ground due to arguments galore over "they have less than me" mentalities, not wanting to come out of their comfort zone and packet driver moaning about the number of packets to do and not being able to finish early like they usually did.

Also you're going to need to cover the parcels for around five duties to make the numbers work and that just isn't going to happen if you're delivering everything that doesn't fit through a letterbox.

Can't see it literally being "anything that doesn't fit through a letterbox". Maybe a few more years down the line once letters have dropped more and technology has caught up they "may" be able to pre plan the days workload based off what's come in to a DO and what each walking delivery will be expected to do letters wise. But this is RM so expect the unexpected.

[SpacePhoenix]

Can't see it literally being "anything that doesn't fit through a letterbox". Maybe a few more years down the line once letters have dropped more and technology has caught up they "may" be able to pre plan the days workload based off what's come in to a DO and what each walking delivery will be expected to do letters wise. But this is RM so expect the unexpected.

They can already see probably 50-75% of what's due for a given walk already. Mech mail will be recorded by the machines. Tracked and normal packets when a 2D barcode is scanned. Don't know about T2K machines.

Wouldn't put it past RM to at some point have another look at machines to at least sort flats and letters together and maybe even sequence them together. Most mail sorting machine manufacturers offer machines that can process flats and letters together

[twoloops]

Anything bigger than a fag packet is a parcel give it to a dedicated parcel gang

[SpacePhoenix]

Anything bigger than a fag packet is a parcel give it to a dedicated parcel gang

Nope, anything bigger than

35.3cm x 25cm x 2.5cm and not weighing more than 750g is a parcel. Anything under that is a letter or large letter (which covers a good chunk of what gets processed in MCs as parcels).

The way that I learn when I first started is that if it fits into a DBF then it's a small parcel

[Woody Guthrie]

When I started everything was a packet.
Parcels were what Parcelforce delivered.

[Sugar]

Can't see it literally being "anything that doesn't fit through a letterbox". Maybe a few more years down the line once letters have dropped more and technology has caught up they "may" be able to pre plan the days workload based off what's come in to a DO and what each walking delivery will be expected to do letters wise. But this is RM so expect the unexpected.

They can already see probably 50-75% of what's due for a given walk already. Mech mail will be recorded by the machines. Tracked and normal packets when a 2D barcode is scanned. Don't know about T2K machines.

Wouldn't put it past RM to at some point have another look at machines to at least sort flats and letters together and maybe even sequence them together. Most mail sorting machine manufacturers offer machines that can process flats and letters together

It's been on the cards for sometime now that the company are wanting to go down the route of less people doing more work by trying to take greater control, via technology, of how each duty looks on a day to day basis. Unfortunately most OPG's bury their heads in the sand and think it'll not happen to them or just carry on regardless running around like headless chickens in a vain effort to finish early.

OPG's really are their own worst enemies and the company exploits this time and time again.

[Manboat]

We’re the biggest bill they have aren’t we, especially now with these pay rises, they’ll be desperate to reduce staff they just see all the other parcel companies out there paying drivers probably all on less than £10 per hour maybe even £9 and only wish they could be paying that, who wouldn’t. The sooner letters delivery is reduced by economy mail and Saturdays the better for Royal Mail.

[Sugar]

We’re the biggest bill they have aren’t we, especially now with these pay rises, they’ll be desperate to reduce staff they just see all the other parcel companies out there paying drivers probably all on less than £10 per hour maybe even £9 and only wish they could be paying that, who wouldn’t. The sooner letters delivery is reduced by economy mail and Saturdays the better for Royal Mail.

Seen Hermes and a couple of other couriers offering £12-£15 an hour recently. UPS offer over £12 an hour just for their indoor sorting staff. With Uber losing their recent appeal about being employed or self employed I can see the employment landscape changing and RM could see a loss of staff to other companies who might start to think by paying more they'll get a better level of employees.

[Manboat]

When I’ve been out and about recently the DPD bloke said he was on about £9 an hour, the Hermes bloke a few months back now did say about £17 an hour but for that he was having to do roughly a 12 hour day to complete all his deliveries 6 days a week, he’s actually gone sick now I’ve heard as pretty much haven’t seen him since that chat, he was run into the ground to be honest and sick as a pig, bearing in mind he gets no sick or holiday pay too I think he said. Hope your right though and things do change for them sort of people on their lack of terms and conditions

[Manboat]

Ups drivers in our area been on £14 an hour Monday to Friday for a while now too, one of my ex neighbours does it who after being a Posty for 10 years moved across, need a c1 driving license though

[Sugar]

When I’ve been out and about recently the DPD bloke said he was on about £9 an hour, the Hermes bloke a few months back now did say about £17 an hour but for that he was having to do roughly a 12 hour day to complete all his deliveries 6 days a week, he’s actually gone sick now I’ve heard as pretty much haven’t seen him since that chat, he was run into the ground to be honest and sick as a pig, bearing in mind he gets no sick or holiday pay too I think he said. Hope your right though and things do change for them sort of people on their lack of terms and conditions

The issue of no sick pay or holidays is what the Uber drivers took Uber to court over and won so change must be afoot with the judges ruling that they did qualify as employees and not self employed. Time will tell if / how this transfers over in to the courier side of things but RM need to up their game in how they treat the workforce because if T's & C's change at other couriers plenty will be off.

Ups drivers in our area been on £14 an hour Monday to Friday for a while now too, one of my ex neighbours does it who after being a Posty for 10 years moved across, need a c1 driving license though

TBH when I saw the morning sorting job at UPS for over £12 an hour I was tempted..lol