Quarterly Performance for Presort First-Class Mail®
Mailpieces Delivered Between 01/01/2012 and 03/31/2012

Overview

For Presort First-Class Mail®, the Postal Service™'s service performance measurement system uses documented arrival time at a designated postal facility to start the measurement clock, and an Intelligent Mail® barcode (IMb™) scan by an external, third-party reporter to stop the clock. Mail piece tracking from IMb™ in-process scans is used in conjunction with the external data to extrapolate results to the entire volume of Presort First-Class Mail® with Full Service Intelligent Mail®. Data collected by the Postal Service™ are provided to an independent, external contractor to calculate service measurement and compile the necessary reports. The system used for this reporting is called Intelligent Mail® Accuracy and Performance System (iMAPS).

The external contractor determines service performance based on the elapsed time between the start-the-clock event recorded by the Postal Service™ and the stop-the-clock event recorded by anonymous households and small businesses that report delivery information directly to the contractor. The service measure consists of two parts: (1) how long mail pieces take to get through processing, and (2) how long mail takes from the last processing scan to delivery. The second portion is used as a delivery factor differential to determine the percent of all Presort First-Class Mail® delivered on the last processing date versus the percent delivered after the last processing date. Service performance is measured by comparing the transit time to the service standards to determine the percent of mail delivered on time.

The Service Performance Measurement (SPM) application of the Full Service Seamless Acceptance and Service Performance system (SASP) serves as the data source for iMAPS. SPM captures data from all Full Service Intelligent Mail® and applies business rules for service measurement before sending data to iMAPS.

In November 2010, the Postal Service™ established a new certification process for all commercial mailers. Only pieces tendered by mailers certified as compliant and accurate were included in service performance measurement in FY11 Q1 through Q3. In FY11 Q4 the explicit certification of mailers was replaced by system changes that automated much of the certification process so that all Full-Service mail could be evaluated for compliance. All pieces that met service performance business rules were included in measurement beginning in FY11 Q4.

The service performance measures for Single-Piece First-Class Mail® flats (using data from EXFC) serve as proxies for estimating the service performance for Presort First-Class™ flats. The following service performance results combine the results for letter performance calculated by the iMAPS program with the proxy data for flats to measure service performance for all Presort First-Class Mail® with Full Service Intelligent Mail®.

Presort First-Class™ Parcels are categorized as competitive products as of October 3, 2011, and are no longer included in the Presort First-Class Mail scores.

Limitations

Data for FY12 Q2 were limited to mailers passing service performance business rules. Overnight performance data were available for 66 out of 67 origin districts, two-day data were available for 62 out of 66 possible origin districts, and three-to-five-day data were available for 61 out of 67 origin districts. The results may not be representative of mail flowing across the full postal network due to the limited number of mailers and the mailing patterns of mailers participating in Full Service. However, mail was sent to all districts and ZIP Code areas during the quarter for at least one service standard group.

Performance Highlights

National Overnight performance in FY12 Quarter 2 was 97.2 percent on time, with 99.5 percent delivered within the service standard plus one day. National Two-Day service performance was 95.8 percent on time, with 99.1 percent delivered within the service standard plus one day. National Three-To-Five-Day performance was 95.3 percent on time, with 98.9 percent delivered within the service standard plus one day. Nationally, at least 99.8 percent of mail across all service standards was delivered within the service standard plus three days in FY12 Quarter 2. Pacific Area led the nation in Overnight and Two-Day service performance and Northeast led the nation in Three-To-Five-Day service performance.

In Quarter 2, at the district level, Dakotas continued to have the highest Overnight service performance at 99.2 percent on time, with 41 districts scoring at or above the performance target of 96.65 percent on time. For Two-Day service, Los Angeles had the highest performance at 98.6 percent on time, with 57 districts scoring at or above the performance target of 94.15 percent on time. Northern Virginia had the highest Three-To-Five-Day performance at 97.3 percent on time, with 64 districts scoring at or above the performance target of 92.85 percent on time.