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Finnish Mail System Abandons Tuesday Delivery
Reader jones_supa writes: In a world moving to electronic communications, the snail mail traffic has seen a huge drop. Because of this, Posti, the mail delivery organization of Finland will not be delivering letters and magazines on Tuesdays anymore. Tuesday was selected because it generally has the lowest volume of mail. For example, magazines and advertisements are targeted to the end of the week, so that people have more time for shopping dreams in the weekend. Another reason is that Posti recently launched a lawn mowing service which operates on Tuesdays.
The USPS would be willing to make similar reforms, but is prevented from doing so by a congress that wants to cripple it with unreasonable pension obligations that not one single company would have to meet, and all manner of restrictions that prevent it from actually competing with private couriers.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
>> snail mail traffic has seen a huge drop. Because of this...mail delivery organization...will not be delivering letters and magazines on [day] anymore
Seems reasonable: it you have less volume, reduce your costs by dropping your capacity. Coming soon to USPS I hope? (Even every other day might be worth it - the USPS's "no Saturdays" plan actually leaves a three-day gap in most weeks.)
Really? Delivering newspapers and mowing lawns? Do they only hire teenagers?
some reindeer then.
Another reason is that Posti recently launched a lawn mowing service which operates on Tuesdays.
http://www.theatlantic.com/int...
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
This all sounded reasonable until the last line. What!? Did I read that right? A lawn mowing service? Talk about a non sequitur. Does anyone have any insights into this? I've never been to Finland, but I imagine they only need to mow their lawns for a few months a year. What do they do on Tuesdays during the rest of the year? Are these the postal workers who are mowing the lawns?
The mail carriers trade in their mailbag for a lawnmower every Tuesday? I guess that's one way to torment the neighborhood dogs.
Seems reasonable? Really? How do poor people get mail, then? In the US, poor people used to have guaranteed mail delivery 6 days a week. Now, if, they can afford to live in the right place, and can afford to get Internet service, and the Internet service happens to work correctly, and they can afford a working computer, THEN they can pay their bills? That doesn't seem reasonable to me at all.
I don't respond to AC's.
All the more reasons to privatize it, uhm?
What's so "unreasonable" about keeping a government monopoly to a higher standard?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Heh. Dog store named after me. Cool.
welcome our Finnish, mail delivering, and lawn-mowing overlords.
good grief, they couldn't manage to come up with even "Finnish Tuesday Mail Delivery Finished"?!!! Is that really asking that much?!!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
" How do poor people get mail, then?"
The same way they do now, by going to their mail box and picking it up? This is about frequency, not coverage. So rather than mail being delivered daily, it's delivered every other day. Seriously, how many people do you know who check their mail every day? Now out of that embarrassingly small number, how many actually get anything important every day? Now out of that even smaller number, how many of them get things they needed that day and couldn't wait a day? I check my mail once a week at best, never miss anything. I tend to think most people get important things in the mail about as frequently as I do.
USPS was (barely) self-supporting, before its government's monopoly on First Class Mail was obsoleted by e-mail.
I wonder, if Finland will now similarly make it illegal for private competitors to mow lawns...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Seems reasonable? Really? How do poor people get mail, then? In the US, poor people used to have guaranteed mail delivery 6 days a week. Now, if, they can afford to live in the right place, and can afford to get Internet service, and the Internet service happens to work correctly, and they can afford a working computer, THEN they can pay their bills? That doesn't seem reasonable to me at all.
If they are receiving bills that are due without even two days for turnaround time, then that's the unreasonable thing. Fortunately that rarely if ever happens.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
>> How do poor people get mail, then? ...pay their bills?
1) Centralized and postbox mail pickup would still be daily.
2) If you're waiting until the last possible day to pay your bill, that's dumb for another reason: mail isn't guaranteed to be delivered by a certain time even it it's received.
3) The mail would still arrive every OTHER day, and we know that's no problem already because (wait for it) sometimes we already SKIP TWO DAYS in a row (e.g., Sunday + a federal holiday on a Monday) and nothing bad happens.
Seems reasonable? Really? How do poor people get mail, then?
How does alternate-day snail-mail substantially and disproportionately impact the poor?
Put down the Kool-Ade. Not every "basic" service needs to operate a firehose so your mythical underserved poor can take a sip of water on occasion.
Except that there is no significant cost reduction. You've got a certain amount of mail to deliver. That doesn't change. Reducing the number of delivery days simply means you have to deliver 6 days worth of mail in 5 days, so your overtime costs go up.
Meanwhile, the USPS continues to ignore the biggest thing that is killing them: low priced junk mail.
There is an old joke: "We lose money on every sale, but we make up for it with volume". Unfortunately, the USPS doesn't get the joke and continues to deliver billions of pieces of junk mail at a loss, under the delusion that the high volume somehow magically offsets the money they lose.
A truck full of junk mail, at 13 cents (or less) per piece uses just as much fuel as a truck full of first class mail at 47 cents a piece. A mail carrier gets paid the same wages whether he's delivering 13 cent junk mail or 47 cent first class mail.
Eliminating "bulk rate" pricing, except for non-advertising related mail (i.e., "bills") would result in significant savings. Your mailbox would no longer be crammed full of shit you don't want and didn't ask for (sort of like adblocking for snail mail), mail volume would drop significantly, requiring fewer people and less equipment at every stage.
There's plenty of people in the world, mostly outside of the USoA, that don't need instructions included on punny headlines.
Me, I'm simply being nostalgic to well-before-I-was-born, as back in the 1800s mail was often delivered two or three times a day, so you could send a letter and get a reply by the next day. Typically hand-written and a lot more cogent than today's emails.
As a US Mailman of 27 years, we abandoned Tuesday delivery years ago.
Posti has developed new home-delivered services to add more work to mail delivery operations,” the statement said. “Traditional mail volumes are falling, but mail routes nevertheless reach some 2.8 households on every weekday.
If I only delivered to 2.8 households each week day, I'd have a lot of spare time on my hands too.
>> Except that there is no significant cost reduction. You've got a certain amount of mail to deliver. That doesn't change. Reducing the number of delivery days simply means you have to deliver 6 days worth of mail in 5 days, so your overtime costs go up.
Actually I'd expect a significant cost reduction in letter carrier costs, which, as you pointed out, is mostly time spent walking or gas burned driving from box to box. If you cut the delivery days in half, your delivery cost should drop nearly as much since you have to make half the trips (and employ only about half the people for about half the wages).
Except that there is no significant cost reduction. You've got a certain amount of mail to deliver. That doesn't change. Reducing the number of delivery days simply means you have to deliver 6 days worth of mail in 5 days, so your overtime costs go up.
Are you sure about that? Are you sure that it's not "you have a certain amount of houses that need delivery to". If delivery trucks are operating at capacity then yes, reducing the number of days wouldn't help but the point is that the volume is down so by moving to every other day delivery, the volume on the remaining days increases while the same number of houses are served. The amount of time it takes to drive to each house is the same regardless if it is one letter or 10 letters but the revenue per house is 10 times if there are 10 letters per house instead of one with approximately the same gas and payroll expenses.
Seriously, how many people do you know who check their mail every day?
Uh, everyone? Are you seriously telling me that you don't check your mail every day?
Now out of that huge number, how many actually get anything important every day?
FTFY. Now here, you might have a point. Because yes, how often do you get something in the mail that absolutely positively could not wait one extra day to arrive?
I check my mail once a week at best, never miss anything.
The mail thieves in your neighborhood are glad that you believe that. Alternatively, I'm sure the mail carrier really appreciates having to shove stuff into an already-full mailbox.
For the .8 (th?) house do they cut 20% of the letter off and deliver it the next day?
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
USPS was self-supporting, and still would be, were it not for conservatives in congress sabotaging it at the behest of their corporate paymasters.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
See:
http://www.postnl.nl/klantenservice/veelgestelde-vragen/bezorging-en-ontvangst/postbezorging/bezorgt-postnl-ook-post-op-maandag.html
(in Dutch so use your favorite translator if you need to)
The former Dutch monopoly postal service stopped delivering letters/mail on mondays some time ago. Packages are still delivered (which is different process within the company).
I don't check my mail every day. Most of us have locked mailboxes which are large enough that they don't fill up that fast. You don't have to pay bills the second they land in your mailbox, waiting a day won't hurt.
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Most of us have locked mailboxes
What weird subculture does "us" refer to? Most Americans certainly don't.
if the mail carrier doesn't like shoving stuff in an a full mailbox, stop bringing 99% junk mail that I didn't request. I often go a day sometimes two between checking my mail, and depending on the junk mail may have a mailbox so full it is hard to pull out.
The 75 year rule means that the USPS must not only fully fund the pension obligations of it's current retirees (good), current employees (good), future employees (wait a minute) and future employees that haven't even been born yet (ridiculous).
No, the residents in the address are sorted using some method (likely age) and if the recipient is in the top 80%, the mail gets delivered; else the next day.
And lets talk turkey. Bills? I went paperless ages ago. I get an alert on my phone and then I pay the bill, also on my phone.
About the only thing that I expect to get in the mail are election ballots and replacement credit cards, and maybe a monthly update on my health insurance or my retirement plan. The USPS is delivering all of that to me essentially as a free service (because I no longer even buy stamps). For Christmas packages etc., I generally use UPS.
So most of the time, the only thing I can expect to find in my mailbox is a huge pile of coupons, most of which goes straight into the recycling bin without so much as being unfolded. As a result, I check my mail maybe three times a week. Sometimes I'll go a few days without thinking about it.
Breakfast served all day!
Yeah, but the Finnish aren't yet advanced enough to come up with the value-added innovation of shoving the mail down the storm drain.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Except that there is no significant cost reduction. You've got a certain amount of mail to deliver. That doesn't change. Reducing the number of delivery days simply means you have to deliver 6 days worth of mail in 5 days, so your overtime costs go up.
Is sorting mail really the most costly function of the USPS in 2016? I would have thought it was physically having a carrier walk to each address on his or her route and stuff the pile of mail into each mailbox. If you have the carrier walk the route half as many times per week and simply stuff a slightly thicker pile into each box, it seems to me you would slash your delivery costs by almost half.
Breakfast served all day!
Are you poor? If you have a cell phone and credit to pay bills on your phone, then you're not poor. So, unfortunately, the fact that you pay your bills via your phone (super dumb, IMHO), is really irrelevant to this discussion.
My concern is that the USPS was designed to be a catch-all for ALL Americans, rich or poor. Anybody living anywhere in the US could have anything picked up or delivered for a reasonable price. By taking that away (even gradually), we're making the US a less democratic place.
I don't respond to AC's.
There are still quite a few places in the US that don't have cable service for TV's let alone decent email. So what do we do, just decide that they don't require/deserve mail service ? Granted Finland is very proactive in having connectivity everywhere but it is a relatively small country as well.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Why does the USPS have to be "self-supporting"? What sense does that make?
I don't respond to AC's.
Most of the US has sufficient view of the magical sky beasts we call satellites which can deliver perfectly acceptable* TV and email services.
*By acceptable, I'm referring to the level of discourse of cable TV stations - whether that meets your personal standard is an entirely different issue.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
This is what Canada should have done rather than phasing out home delivery of mail in favour of not-so-super "super mailboxes".
For those not in the know "super mailboxes" are basically community mailboxes located somewhere in your neighbourhood. The not-so-super aspects of this is that they are subject to vandalism, theft, and arson (yes, arson). Additionally, some people feel it acceptable to drop their junk mail straight on the ground, rather than take it home for recycling. And, finally, for some folks (elderly, disabled) fetching mail by trekking out to a super-mailbox in the middle of a Canadian winter is a less than pleasant experience.
One can only assume that the sensible approach of cutting mail delivery from 5 to, say, 3 days a week was not taken so as not to upset the postal union (CUPW).
Fee.org? Lets just say they have their own axe to grind and are not unbiased source.
But then again, you knew that which is why you intentionally cite libertarian/conservative/randroid sources.
Seems reasonable? Really? How do poor people get mail, then? In the US, poor people used to have guaranteed mail delivery 6 days a week.
Who do you think end-up paying for that mail delivered 6 days a week? How does that improve the situation of the poor?
You're making an excellent point, here. Thank you for doing so.
.. pa-ra-bo-la, pa-ra-bo-la, 2 pi R, 2 pi R, where's your latus rectum, where's your latus rectum, 2 pi R
I usually don't reply to AC posts, but something here needs to be cleared up. Bulk-rate "junk mail" is exactly what is keeping the postal service in the black, given that the number of letters has fallen off dramatically with the advent of electronic communications. Incidentally, bills go via bulk rate postage, too.
If you don't want junk mail in your box, you can contact the people that send it and get taken off their mailing lists. I do this every five years or so. It's a bit time consuming, but it does work.
.. pa-ra-bo-la, pa-ra-bo-la, 2 pi R, 2 pi R, where's your latus rectum, where's your latus rectum, 2 pi R
I didn't cite it for their opinion, which may, indeed, be biased. I cited them for their facts: the figure collected by NYC in parking fines from delivery-companies. Unless you are accusing them of bona-fide lying, your rebuttal is without merit.
But then again, you knew that already — and just had to say something, didn't you?..
No, that's because reality has a Libertarian bias.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Khm, at least, you aren't questioning "the sense" of a nation's postal service mowing lawns... Now that would have been a tough one...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
All that because they have to wait until Wednesday for their mail?
I'm not comfortable with a reduction in mail service but if there has to be a compromise this doesn't sound bad.
This will get buried under all the stupid arguing about the USPS, but if anyone is interested New Zealand Post went to 3 times a week deliveries last year. Seems to work OK, it just means some of the bills that still get mailed to me might arrive a couple of days later.
Personally, I would be quite happy with Snail Mail delivery every other day. The US Population could be devided up into two groups. One gets their mail every M, W, F and the other would get their mail T, Th, Sat. Given that, you only need 1/2 the mail carriers. Priority mail would still get delivered as normal. Thus if it has to be there on a certain day then it will be if it was sent via Priority Mail. However, for bills, coupons, promotional offers and the occasional birthday/Christmas/Easter card, an extra days wait is no big deal.
They seem to have lost something in translation here... The Finnish version states 2.8 million households, which I think is all of the households.
All but the wealthiest americans have had their mailboxes centralized into a community one in the last few decades. People with personal mailboxes in front of their houses -- the only kind that don't have locks -- have become quite rare.
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New Zealand moved to a 3 day delivery cycle a few months ago. Priority mail and parcel mail is still 6d though.
And yet, I get Sunday afternoon Amazon deliveries from a USPS truck. I'd be perfectly willing to wait an extra day. Hopefully I'm not the only house they're driving to!
For example, magazines and advertisements are targeted to the end of the week, so that people have more time for shopping dreams in the weekend.
Huh? Wouldn't delivery at the beginning of the week give people more time?
And what is this "shopping dreams in the weekend"? Is that a Finnish thing?