42 Amazing USPS Technology Facts
- The Postal Service’s financial position is dire. Since 2007, the Postal Service has experienced nearly $80 billion in cumulative losses – with FY 2019 approaching $9 billion and 2020 closing in on $11 billion in losses despite a statutory requirement that the Postal Service be self-sustaining.The OIG will soon report that over 4,000 people received more in overtime than they made in base salary pay in FY2019. This is more than a 400% increase from FY2014.
The Postal Regulatory Commission, founded in 2006 to regulate pricing and products, has been conducting a 10-year review for nearly 4 years. It has been nearly 3 years since the Commission concluded that the current system is not working, yet it has still not finalized a replacement system.
Sorting machines for flats and letters are only used 1/3 of the available time.
The Postal Service has always evaluated use of its equipment. Resources match volume requirements. Letter sorting and flat machines are only being used for about one-third, 32 and 38 percent, respectively, of their available machine hours. There is ample machine capacity to handle spikes in mail volume.
While he did not initiate the evaluation or removal of this equipment, Postmaster General DeJoy has given the directive to stop the removal of additional mail processing machines through the election.
The Postal Service has more than enough capacity to handle election mail volume.
The Postal Service is ready to handle whatever volume of election mail it receives. Postmaster General DeJoy’s number one priority is to deliver election mail on-time and within the Postal Service’s well-established standards. Effective October 1, he is committed to engage standby resources in all areas of Postal Service operations, including transportation, to satisfy any unforeseen demand.
To put it in context, the Postal Service delivers 433 million pieces of mail a day. Even if all Americans were to vote by mail this year, 330 million ballots over the course of the election would be only three-quarters of what the Postal Service delivers in one single day.
The Postal Service has more than enough capacity, including collection boxes and processing equipment, to handle all election mail this year, which is predicted to amount to less than 2% of total mail volume from mid-September to Election Day.
Removing blue collection boxes is a decades-old protocol.
The Postal Service’s regular review and removal of blue collection boxes began years ago. Postmaster General DeJoy has been in the job since June 2020.
Over the past 10 years, over 30,000 collection boxes have been removed from around the country, averaging 3,500 boxes per year. This year, 1,463 collection boxes have been removed. In the last election year in 2016, nearly the same amount – 1,467 – were removed. No further boxes will be removed between now and the election.
Sorting machines for flats and letters are only used 1/3 of the available time.
The Postal Service has always evaluated use of its equipment. Resources match volume requirements. Letter sorting and flat machines are only being used for about one-third, 32 and 38 percent, respectively, of their available machine hours. There is ample machine capacity to handle spikes in mail volume.
While he did not initiate the evaluation or removal of this equipment, Postmaster General DeJoy has given the directive to stop the removal of additional mail processing machines through the election.
The Postal Service’s coordination with state and local election officials helps ensure every ballot is delivered and counted.
Currently, certain states have deadlines for requesting and casting mail in ballots that are incongruous with the Postal Service’s delivery standards. Many of these laws do not consider the new realities of increased vote-by-mail anticipated during the COVID-19 pandemic this year.
The Postal Service’s outreach to states is standard cycle, and it began in February to educate states and voters. However, the Postal Service has asked election officials to take into account the realities of how long it takes to send and receive mail, which are the Postal Service’s delivery standards, when informing voters how to successfully participate in an election when they choose to use the mail. The Postal Service’s advice regarding Election Mail has been consistent for years.
States should do their part to ensure their guidelines allow for the proper time to request and send in ballots, and to educate their voters on how to effectively utilize the mail if they decide to use the mail to vote. The Postal Service continues to partner with election officials to help ensure every ballot is delivered and counted.
- In 2019, usps.com recorded 2.6 billion visits — averaging 7.1 million visitors each day. … In 2019, stamp and retail sales at The Postal Store on usps.com — the official online Post Office — totaled $301 million.
- The Postal Service is at the core of the $1.6 trillion U.S. mailing industry that employs more than 7.3 million people.
- Veterans. The Postal Service employs more than 97,000 military veterans and is one of the largest employers of veterans in the country.
- The Postal Service has more than 228,000 vehicles, one of the largest civilian fleets in the world. New next-generation vehicles will have improved ergonomics, safety features, fuel efficiency and design flexibility.
- The Postal Service has the nation’s largest retail network — bigger than McDonald’s, Starbucks and Walmart combined, domestically.
- Security. U.S. Mail is protected by more than 200 federal laws enforced by the Postal Inspection Service, one of the nation’s oldest law enforcement agencies.
- Zero tax dollars used. The Postal Service receives NO tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations.
- In 2019, the Postal Service handled 45.7 billion mail pieces from more than 501 mailers under Seamless Acceptance and collected $675,000 in additional postage.
- The Enterprise Payment System allows customers to pay for and manage their use of Postal Service products and services online, using an integrated single payment account. In 2019, EPS collected $16 billion in revenue.
- The commercial mail acceptance program enables automation of verification and acceptance of commercial mail. USPS currently has 10,802 business mail entry units and 874 detached mail units. In 2019, commercial mail acceptance processed 27 million commercial postage statements.
- The Electronic Verification System allows high-volume package mailers and package consolidators to document and pay for postage using electronic manifest files. In 2019, eVS processed 3.6 billion packages from 3,219 shippers and collected $8.8 billion in revenue.
- More than $57 billion in postage was collected from more than 50,000 customers through permits, meters and PC Postage in 2019.
- In 2019, the Postal Service released several stamps that highlighted printing technologies that were new to the production of our stamps, including the Frozen Treats stamps — the first “scratch and sniff” stamp.
- In 2019, the Postal Service released several stamps that highlighted printing technologies in the production of its stamps.
- The “1969: First Moon Landing” stamps were printed on a metallic chrome foil to give a sense of the mirrored effect on NASA space suits.
- The “Transcontinental Railroad” stamps had intricate gold foil representing the golden spike and framing the two train engine stamps.
- The “Spooky Silhouettes” stamps used rainbow holographic foil giving a sense of lighted windows behind the Halloween themes.
- The “Tyrannosaurus Rex” stamps were the second lenticular stamp issued by the United States Postal Service. The stamp showed movement of T. Rex roaring and added flesh to the bone display. It also combined regular printed stamps with lenticular on the same pane.
- The Delivery Barcode Sorter reads the barcode on letters and sorts them at 36,000 pieces per hour.
- The new Enhanced Package Processing System in Portland, OR, sorts packages at 25,000 pieces per hour.
- The Automated Delivery Unit Sorter sorts packages and bundles of mail at a rate of 4,000 pieces per hour with a sort accuracy of 99.95 percent.
- The Robotic Containerization System sorts trays and automatically loads rolling containers or pallets.
- The Automated Flat Sorting Machine sorts flat mail at 17,000 pieces per hour.
- The Postal Service uses more than 8,500 pieces of automation processing equipment to sort nearly half the world’s mail.
- Mobile Delivery Devices provide real-time scanning for daily delivery operations. There are more than 260,000 devices in use nationwide.
- The Postal Service maintains 46,000 point-of-sale terminals and 2,733 self-service retail kiosks nationwide supported by the IT team.
- Postal Customer Councils connect business mailers with local Post Office leadership to develop more effective and profitable mailings through training and information sharing. Since the 1960s, PCCs have been the go-to local resource for helping mailers learn, innovate and build their businesses.
- The National Postal Forum is an annual mailing industry conference that provides educational and networking opportunities for thousands of business customers. Attendees learn about the latest mail trends and innovations through more than 100 workshops and seminars.
- The Advanced Facer Canceller System positions letter mail and postmarks stamps at 36,000 pieces per hour.
- The Postal Service is one of the largest material-handling systems in the world for moving mail. There are more than 200 miles of conveyors within postal facilities.
- Every Door Direct Mail is an online service that uses demographic data to help business mailers target their marketing mailpieces to customers in a select neighborhood, city or ZIP Code. Since 2011, there have been more than 4 million transactions, 20 billion mailpieces and $3.5 billion in revenue.
- The USPS Printer Directory provides customers free access to local print, design and mail preparation services for Every Door Direct Mail and other direct mail products through a searchable database and mapping program. More than 700 listings populate the directory that serves small and medium-size businesses nationwide.
- With Informed Delivery service, you can digitally preview your incoming mail and manage your packages from a computer, tablet or mobile device. More than 20 million customers have enrolled since it was launched in 2017.
- Our communications network supports and maintains more than 147,000 desktop computers, 31,000 notebook computers, 86,000 printers, 23,000 smartphones, 250,000 phone lines and 310,000 handheld scanners.
- The Postal Service has one of the world’s largest computer networks — linking more than 31,000 facilities and connecting hundreds of thousands of employees and hundreds of systems.
- There are 581 remote locations within the postal system that receive network connectivity via satellite.
- USPS has 90 petabytes of storage capacity — equivalent to playing more than 228,085 years of songs on an MP3 player with no repeats.
- More than 141,000 meetings per month are hosted online, representing more than 41 million minutes of conference time.
- The Postal Service has the largest gantry robotic fleet in the world using 174 robotics systems to move 314,000 mail trays per day.