
Shippos USPS Time in Transit Data - bmahmood
https://goshippo.com/usps-data-2020/
======
chrisBob
One thing this doesn't account for is fraudulent delivery reports. In my area
a large percentage of my USPS deliveries are reported as delivered around 6pm
on the scheduled delivery day, but I can't find the package anywhere. Then it
suddenly turns up the next day. People on NextDoor also report seeing this
regularly.

~~~
dboreham
Hmm interesting. I had a package I mailed to a relative stolen off their porch
and subsequently did a moderately deep dive with USPS staff to try to identify
the thief. Those folks told me that there is GPS on the delivery
vehicle/handheld scanner such that they have the time and location of the
delivery event, and the location of the vehicle at the time. That story seems
inconsistent with yours.

~~~
joncrane
Is it really inconsistent? The technology is there to investigate if someone
raises a stink, but if no complaint is made, no one investigates/correlates
delivery reporting vs the data you mention.

I honestly believe many delivery drivers (not just USPS, but Amazon, UPS,
FedEx, etc) are brazen because they get away with it 99% of the time.

~~~
ganoushoreilly
I agree, i've had not insignificant amount of _delivered_ then show up three
days later packages with USPS over the past 5 or so years. Mostly business
deliveries, but i've had a few I had to report as lost to the shipper. In a
couple instances we've had things show up two months or so later _found_.
Which I suppose happens, but I've only had one UPS package lost in the same
time frame and none for fedex.

At my house we have a communal mailbox bank (which seems to be normal now for
most new construction). I would bet that 1/4 packages of mine are delivered to
the wrong box / placed in the wrong box. So some of it now can at least be
attributed to those mistakes.

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dawnerd
One key metric missing (unless I’m blind) is time to acceptance scan. I do a
lot of shipping and don’t have time to have the packages scanned in every day
so I use the drop box. Last few months it’s taken the post office an extra day
or two to even scan them in. So while the packages must only be on average
5-10% late they’re also being delayed a day or more just sitting waiting to be
accepted.

It hurt my eBay rating too before I could catch it happening. I’ve resorted to
using the scans form just to make sure they’re the ones taking blame, not me.

~~~
greendude29
Not being as familiar with shipping, how would one find the metrics for this?

Is there some kind of an initial "scan" upon drop-in to the box and then a
second scan when they pick it up?

If not, then I imagine the metrics would only be discoverable from USPS
themselves, which of course, they are going to muzzle.

~~~
moftz
When you drop off a package at the post office, you can either wait in line
for an agent at the counter to scan your package (only during business hours)
and give you a receipt or you can place them in a drop box (open 24/7). The
drop box usually has a last pickup time on the label (3pm, 5pm, etc) for when
someone actually collects the contents and then scan in the packages to get
them into the sorting/tracking system. The problem is that sometimes these
bins of packages might sit for a while until someone scans them for the first
time. There is a bin behind the wall for the drop box and if it gets full,
they pull up a new bin for the drop box so there could be multiple bins of
packages that need to be scanned.

You would need to search the tracking number and see when the first scan
occurs. Shippo is only looking at shipping label creation date which could be
offset quite some time from when the package gets scanned. Large businesses
might have enough employees to where they can pack, label, and ship out an
order that day but small businesses might have someone hand delivering
packages to the post office every other day.

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athst
This feels like a missed opportunity. There's a lot of data Shippo could share
about USPS and that would help add more context to what's happening in the
news. But it's difficult to understand anything concrete from this. It would
be more helpful to see how this fits into long term trends and other context
on how abnormal it is.

~~~
tomohawk
Perhaps we should let Newman, our favorite fictional postman, represent?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22Fr-
g-B0vs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22Fr-g-B0vs)

Mail service dysfunction has been going on a long time, and has been a joke
for a long time.

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iamEAP
Cool to have some “observability” on this, but it’s not the most relevant
metric. I’ve heard of (and experienced myself), much, much longer delays on
envelope/letter mail, but have heard of fewer delays with packages.

Perhaps this is a proxy for measuring personnel/process changes, but totally
misses the sorting machine dismantling going on throughout the nation.

~~~
dsamarin
Fortunately the sorting machine dismantling has been stopped for the relevant
future.

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WrathOfJay
Thank you for putting this together. Independent data sources are vital, since
we know this administration does everything they can to hide reality.

~~~
Fezzik
I wonder if business mail is being handled differently than civilian mail - I
mail letters to my Mother 1-2 times a week and standard delivery times have
gone from (always) 2-3 days between Medford, OR and Mount Vernon, WA to 8-12
days for the last 4 letters I sent that she has received. And the most recent
2 appear to be on the same trajectory. It is sort of wild, though just an
anecdote. I have been sending her letters for decades from various parts of
the Western states and this has never happened before.

~~~
sroussey
First class letters are slow. Packages not so much (better revenue).

~~~
takeda
There were reports of live animal dying because of delays or prescription
being missed.

I do see much less mail in mailbox than I had before. I also had informed
delivery set up and now I'm told I'm not eligible (when it worked a month or
two before). Frustrating, because this is time when the informed delivery
would actually let me know if I'm actually missing some mail.

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suchire
It’s too bad some of these numbers are reported as averages. It would be nice
to see something more percentile based, like p75 or p90, which are more
effective ways of measuring quality of service

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floatingatoll
I'd like to see this data grouped by the population density of the origin zip
code.

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ohadpr
I think this marketing site would perform better if it had a pretty version of
the most interesting graph above the fold.

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herf
I think shippers like Amazon pay relatively high rates to USPS, so they are
higher on the priority list.

It's the heavily-discounted "slow" shipping like medicine that is having
trouble right now.

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ericcj
Does anybody have this data about letters? We need a canary letter mailing
service for analytics.

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tzm
Does USPS publish transit metrics directly? If not, they should.

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justinzollars
Most election mail will be sent zone 0 (Local) or 1.

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TMWNN
This analysis only covers USPS package delivery, which is different from
flats. Ballots are flats. Magazines are flats. Letters are flats. Anything
non-bendable isn't.

This is what has been happening to USPS, folks:

1\. Because of COVID19, flats volume has collapsed, while package volume has
skyrocketed. Flats sorting machines can do absolutely nothing for packages for
reasons that are left up to the reader, so USPS has been shutting them down
and moving them out of processing facilities in favor of package sorting.

2\. Because USPS is losing lots of money overall (higher package volume
doesn't make up for the collapse in flats volume)[1], it has been cutting back
on overtime, just like any other employer would.

3\. People hear about 1 and 2, hear about/experience packages being delivered
more slowly, and think that this surely means that "the Trump administration
is trying to sabotage the post office to suppress voting!!!!". They do this
without thinking about it at all:

3a. As stated, flats volume has collapsed, so there is still a _lot_ of excess
capacity.

3b. Even if every single voter were to vote by mail only, this would mean at
most two additional flat pieces per voter (one ballot to the voter, and one
ballot sent back). Think about how much mail (not packages, mail) you already
receive daily on average. Do you really think two additional pieces would
collapse the system? Of course not, any more than the USPS collapses every
January when the IRS and every single employer, bank, and other financial
institution sends out tax-related documents. (The USPS hires seasonal help in
December for packages, not for Christmas cards.)

3c. If this really were a sinister Trump administration voter-suppression
scheme, it's a pretty weak one that can be defeated by dropping ballots off in
person, and/or voting in person.

4\. An actual serious issue is states and counties that aren't like Oregon
(which has been 100% vote by mail for two decades) trying to convert to vote
by mail without preparation. Think of how much mail your home receives for the
previous tenant (and the one before that, and the one before that). Think of
this all having to be done by early October, to give voters about a month to
receive and return ballots. This is what the administration has been pointing
out, something rarely heard amidst the nonsense about mail-vote suppression.

[1] Congress mandating the USPS to prepay pensions is a _good_ thing. The
postal service is an industry that is, by definition, in secular decline
(barring unusual events like COVID19) because of the Internet. Congress
recognized this in 2006 and thus required USPS to prepare over 10 years to get
its pensions ready, because there's no reason to believe that future revenue
(and future employee-count growth) is going to sustain pensions for retirees
otherwise.

~~~
AaronFriel
The DMV loses money.

The FDA loses money.

The FCC loses money.

These are public institutions, not for profit enterprises. They're funded
partially by fees and usually largely by congressional appropriations.

You beg the question by beginning by comparing the USPS to other carriers.
It's one of the few public institutions required by the constitution! Even the
Defense Department doesn't get that privilege, and it loses hundreds of
billions a year and doesn't have the same requirement to fund pensions for
employees who haven't been born yet.

Lastly, delaying flats and prioritizing packages during a situation when many,
perhaps most people will vote by mail due to a public health crisis is if not
malicious, dangerously ignorant of the societal implications.

Yes, the USPS can handle the volume. But for the sake of our elections, and
based on issues we may have with counting ballots, postmark and receipt date
laws that vary by state, can we agree as a bipartisan issue that mail delivery
now, of all times, shouldn't be compromised?

~~~
9nGQluzmnq3M
But _should_ the USPS be a public institution? Many countries have opted to
privatize their postal services, admittedly with varying results, but with
quite a few successes as well: you may have heard the package division of what
was once Deutsche Bundespost, now known worldwide as DHL.

I do agree that right now is not a great time for radical changes though!

~~~
jksmith
[https://www.ups.com/media/en/terms_service_gnd_pr.pdf](https://www.ups.com/media/en/terms_service_gnd_pr.pdf)
[https://www.uspis.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/USPIS-
FAQs....](https://www.uspis.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/USPIS-FAQs.pdf)

TLDR is, USPS needs a warrant to open first class mail. Private carriers may
be able to open with impunity. Who do you want handling your mail-in ballot?

~~~
9nGQluzmnq3M
Tampering with ballots will still be illegal, even if the company is private.

That's also a bit of weird argument, since we're right now seeing how the USPS
can easily be bent by political pressure precisely because it _is_ a govt
institution and presidents already get to appoint their cronies to run it.

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9nGQluzmnq3M
TL;DR: DeJoy's changes appear to have made USPS slightly slower (0.1-0.5 days)
in some places, but much less than the delta caused by a holiday like July 4th
(see note buried at the very end).

~~~
9nGQluzmnq3M
Is my summary inaccurate? The article is very careful not to extend any
political slant to its data and findings, please extend me the same courtesy.
(I'm not even American.)

~~~
greendude29
It is inaccurate.

You say "slightly slower". The metrics behind the delays are much longer and
your numbers only seem to include time in transit.

Second reason your summary is inaccurate: DeJoy's changes are rolled out in
small pockets of the country thus far. The article seems to be indiscriminate
from where those changes took place. The averages here are hence better than
from those places where the changes have done the most damage.

