In The News
U.S. Postal Service to leverage excess truck capacity, sell available space
WASHINGTON — In a filing submitted to the Postal Regulatory Commission, the United States Postal Service (USPS) said it will kick off a market test on May 6 to provide service that will resemble a less-than-truckload (LTL) network, Logistics Management reported.
According to the filing, the LTL-like market test cannot exceed 24 months, with total revenues not anticipated to exceed $10 million. The USPS said it will leverage its national transportation network that serves its processing facilities, which primarily comprise approximately 440 sectional center facilities and more than 40 bulk mailing centers. USPS does not have an asset-based transportation network, as it contracts out its over-the-road trucking business.
When the service gets underway, the USPS plans to leverage excess capacity on its trucks moving to and from these facilities — due to a significant decline in its mail volumes — by selling that capacity on a “space-available†basis. It added that delivery unit loads will be on pallets, with exceptions on a case-by-case basis. And delivery times will range from one-to-four days, depending on origin and destination.
The filing also noted that the USPS “would accordingly be unable to set prices substantially above costs, raise prices significantly, decrease quality, or decrease output without risk of losing business to other firms in the LTL shipping market.â€
An industry source whom declined to be identified told Logistics Management that the plan “makes sense on various levels,†considering the USPS has plenty of excess capacity on the roads at the moment with a network that is already delivering mail on a daily basis. And he added that if viewed as an LTL player, the USPS has a bigger LTL footprint — or network — due to its existing mail routes.
“There is no place the USPS does not go,†explained the source.
Kevin Jones of
The Trucker
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