Poll of the Day > USPS is pretty fast

(+) Yeah! (+)

It took only a day for a package to get from Illinois to Arizona.

they do tend to have everything figured out, yeah

You do realize they transport almost none of their own packages these days except local/regional and very low priority stuff that has long delivery times that can go by truck. That Package did not get to you by USPS they just did the delivery or what's called "Last Mile Logistics" in the business.

they very much do do their own transportation

I ordered earrings from a jeweler in England fully expecting them to arrive well after Christmas but the USPS shipping message says they'll be here tomorrow. Be awesome if they get here before Christmas

the laptop i just ordered had an estimated delivery of the 28th, but then a few hours later it switched to the 24th

but at the same time they sent it through ups and not usps so this entire thing was pointless but i made you read it

Oh shit your post made me double check my shit and those earrings are coming UPS also

My bad

OneGrumpyUncle posted...

You do realize they transport almost none of their own packages these days except local/regional and very low priority stuff that has long delivery times that can go by truck. That Package did not get to you by USPS they just did the delivery or what's called "Last Mile Logistics" in the business.

I have no tracking for anything but USPS.

Bulbasaur posted...

they very much do do their own transportation

No they don't. I've been in the business for 20 years.
Revelation34 posted...

I have no tracking for anything but USPS.

Yeah the tracking system runs through the usps website, but those movements from facility to facility are actually usually movements from the local post office the area usps sort facility the to the carrier be it FedEx, UPS, etc. Then upon arrival it moves back to the usps system. The don't specify to the customer when the package leaves their system.

Here is just one link about the current FedEx contract:

https://about.usps.com/news/statements/022317.htm

Other carriers have similar deals.

OneGrumpyUncle posted...

You do realize they transport almost none of their own packages these days except local/regional and very low priority stuff that has long delivery times that can go by truck. That Package did not get to you by USPS they just did the delivery or what's called "Last Mile Logistics" in the business.

for instance, if you send a package out with USPS, they will get it on a UPS or FedEx plane (whichever is leaving soonist)

In most areas it is set up as established routes. So when your package arrives at the post office it is sent to the USPS regional facility they sort it out by destination then it is routed to the carrier based off service level and destination according to established routes. So who it goes to next will depend on what service level it is, because if it lower and has a longer delivery date it will go to a truck shipper probably because by volume its cheaper. If its first class, registered or something else high priority it will be directed to an air carrier. Then the way most cargo companies work these days is they transport everything to "Hubs" where they sort everything by specific destination which are typically based off of Cities/Airports. From there it is given back to the delivery USPS regional facilities and they sort it out to local post offices and transport it out to them. They then do the final sort into the mail carrier vehicles and deliver it. This whole process has been streamlined and perfected to the point to where even though it sounds like a ridiculous, complex system it happens everyday and night to the tune of millions of pieces of freight with an extremely loss loss rate and the whole process even when having to go through all the swaps from carrier to carrier can even still happen in one night. Its actually pretty amazing behind the scenes both on a technical but also on a human level because of all the people it takes to pull it off.