What is postal service

postal service

1 Postal Service

2 postal service

3 postal service

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5 postal service

6 postal service

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8 postal service

9 postal service workers

10 postal service clerks

11 postal service mail carriers

12 postal service mail sorters, processors, and processing machine operators

13 postal service center

14 postal service district

15 postal service prohibitive order

16 Postal Service, United States

17 USPS United States Postal Service

18 United States Postal Service

19 Army and Air Force Postal Service

20 Army Postal Service

См. также в других словарях:

Postal service — may refer to: *Postal administration, a country s organization providing postal services and postal policies *Mail, anything sent through postal services *The Postal Service, an electronic indie pop band *Australia Post *United States Postal… … Wikipedia

Postal Service — Postal Ser|vice, the also the US Postal Service the official name for the US government department responsible for collecting and delivering mail … Dictionary of contemporary English

postal service — n. POST OFFICE (sense 1) * * * … Universalium

postal service — n. POST OFFICE (sense 1) … English World dictionary

Postal Service — The Postal Service The Postal Service Pays d’origine Seattle … Wikipédia en Français

postal service — pašto paslauga statusas Aprobuotas sritis paštas apibrėžtis Pašto siuntų surinkimas, rūšiavimas, vežimas ir pristatymas. atitikmenys: angl. postal service pranc. service postal šaltinis Lietuvos Respublikos pašto įstatymo pakeitimo įstatymo… … Lithuanian dictionary (lietuvių žodynas)

Postal Service — The United States Postal Service replaced the Post Office Department in 1971. It is administered by a governing board whose members are appointed by the President. The head of the Service is the Postmaster General … Black’s law dictionary

Postal Service Training and Development Institute — (PST&DI) (See Management Academy) (Formerly known as postal training center) … Glossary of postal terms

Postal Service Manual — (obsolete) The manual containing all USPS regulations that was reorganized and republished as six subject based policy manuals … Glossary of postal terms

Postal Service schedule — (PS) The wage structure that applies to USPS craft employees … Glossary of postal terms

Postal service

Contents

Though the digital revolution has provided us with Wikivoyage and other on-line material, many travellers want to send or receive postcards, letters or packages through postal service.

In a time when we drown in e-mail, a physical postcard from far away is usually more welcome than ever.

Postcards [ edit ]

These used to be available in nearly every bookstore, every news stand, every five-and-dime and every corner drugstore; hotel and motel operators routinely distributed free, blank postcards which contained an advertisement for their inns. They are becoming a bit harder to find now that e-mail is cheap and postal mail is expensive. An independent bookstore may still be worth a try; souvenir shops at individual attractions and tourist information bureaux may either have blank cards for sale or know who does have a few left.

In some countries, the post office may have blank postcards, but these tend to be generic; the images are of the country as a whole and not the specific town you’re visiting. A few countries (such as the United States, for USPS First Class Mail) may allow postcards to be mailed at a slightly cheaper rate than other first-class correspondence. In some cases lower rates apply for postcards in domestic mail only and international postcards are sent at the same (higher) rates as international letters. The cards need to be within a specific size range (at least 3.5 x 5″ and typically 4×6″, printed on stock thick enough to not jam during automated sorting) to qualify. Turning one of your own 4×6″ travel photographs into a postcard is possible, but the printed image will either need to be glued to cardstock or printed on heavier-than-standard cardstock so that it will go through the sorting machine undamaged.

Stamps [ edit ]

Availability of postage stamps varies between countries. One cannot usually count on finding them at every grocery store, so stocking up on stamps on arrival in a new country might be a good idea. In the worst case, post offices are the only place to buy stamps — and they’re often closed on weekends. Some countries also have stamp vending machines. While they have the benefit of (usually) being available year round at any hour, the machine produced stamps are almost always of a rather bland, standardized design. Often stamps are available in shops that sell postcards, but they might not want to sell you stamps if you don’t buy postcards there as well. A few countries operate franchised «postal substation» or retail post office counters at the back of chemist’s shops or other retail businesses; hours of operation vary but are usually better than those at the main station.

To be certain that postage stamps are available for mail on a trip, and they are of a certain design, visit the online shop of the postal service in question when planning for the trip.

Many stamps are beautiful; if visiting a small or remote country, they make nice souvenirs at a low cost. Small territories like Montserrat, if they issue their own local postage, often operate a philatelic bureau just to feed the appetite of foreign collectors for rare and colourful stamps. Most countries issue series or sets of stamps during limited time periods to commemorate individual events or famous people. These are usually available from any post office.

Postmarks and seasonal greetings [ edit ]

A few post offices display unusual or seasonally-themed names such as «North Pole», «Bethlehem» or «Santa Claus» which are a popular novelty when sending greeting cards.

There are various schemes which generate «North Pole» or Christmas-themed mail. Not all involve travel:

A similar holiday remailing scheme, operated since 1946 by volunteers, stamps a Loveland (Colorado) postmark and a verse on Valentine’s Day mail «From The Sweetheart City.» Romeo Michigan and Juliette Georgia have issued matching seasonal picture postmarks since 1994 as an implicit literary reference. Other options include Valentine Nebraska, Romance Arkansas and Loving New Mexico.

If you travel longer distances by boat it is often possible to post mail on board, using postage stamps of the country where the ship has home port, or postage stamps of the country where you boarded the ship. On passenger ships it might even be possible to buy postage stamps, and perhaps there is a mail box. Mail is handed in at the ship reception desk or to the ship clerk. The postcard or letter will receive an auxiliary stamp with either the text paquebot (French for ship mail) or the equivalent in another language. Mail is then posted in first coming port and gets a local postmark. This kind of mail is collected by specialised philatelists.

Postal history [ edit ]

Due to its historic role as a primary means of intercity communication, the postal service has a rich history. Among the points where it has left its imprint are:

There are entire museums devoted to postal history or philately:

(This list is not comprehensive; see also postal museum and list of philatelic museums on Wikipedia.)

In many cities, a current or former main post office building is an architectural landmark or appears on a national historic register. One example would be the main New York City post office (8th Ave at 34th Street, postcode 10001) with the famous inscription «Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.» As a seasonal custom, holiday mail sent as in the closing scenes of «Miracle on 34th Street» (1947 film) is answered with the aid of volunteers.

Because postal mail readily migrated to each new form of transportation, from pony express to airmail, in search of faster time to destination, its history extensively overlaps that preserved in other museums and archives such as heritage railway museums, marine museums and transportation museums. In some remote communities, the only scheduled passenger service is still aboard the bush plane which provides or used to provide scheduled mail delivery; in the 1980s, a post bus was a bright-red Royal Mail passenger van which carried people and mail to remote Scottish villages unable to sustain a stand-alone passenger coach service. In more modern times even high speed rail was used to deliver mail with the French TGV la Poste. While they are no longer in use, they are not found in a museum (yet).

Receiving mail [ edit ]

A few options exist:

For short trips, it may make more sense to have your home post office hold your mail (or a friend check it) until you return instead of forwarding it to reach you during your travels.

If you are staying longer than a couple of weeks, it might make sense to get an address you may have post sent to and give it to those you wish (or have to) receive letters from. Check whether you can get post that for one reason or another arrives late, after you have left.

Parcel handling [ edit ]

Postal technology

Technological progress in postal transport

Postal administrations have been among the first to utilize new forms of transport. They have often applied considerable technical skill in maximizing the benefits to be derived from progress in this field, particularly in originating the traveling post-office concept and apparatus enabling express trains to pick up and discharge mails without slowing. They have also developed their own transport systems to combat traffic congestion in certain busy cities, such as the pneumatic tubes of Paris, New York, and other cities and the automatic underground railway, opened in 1927, that links London’s chief mail centres to railway terminals.

The advent of aerospace and telecommunications technology in the mid-20th century gave rise to research aimed at adapting this technology to postal systems. Experiments have been conducted using ballistic missiles to transport mail, but this remains a novelty because of costs and the problems of reusability and accuracy. Advances in computer and message transmission technologies are, however, being utilized by postal administrations.

Since 1980 public facsimile services have been available in a number of advanced postal administrations in various parts of the world. The United States, Great Britain, France, and Sweden were among the first countries to introduce tele-impression services, whereby bulk correspondence in electronic form is transmitted to regional postal printing centres for enveloping and delivery.

Automation of mail handling

Since the 1950s there has been a marked intensification of research and development efforts to apply technology to the handling of mails, especially in countries faced by manpower problems and higher labour costs. The wide variety of projects undertaken in many countries and the progress made have been summarized in CCPS studies.

Actual implementation has generally been slower than expected. There have been good reasons for this. Primarily, most postal administrations, being government agencies, are subject to strict control of their capital investment programs. Second, mail traffic patterns—with marked peaks of work—make economic utilization of machines difficult: the introduction of measures to counteract this problem takes considerable time. Similarly, the introduction of postal address codes and the standardization of sizes of envelopes and cards, which are prerequisites for mechanical handling, are relatively slow because of difficulties inherent in the change of procedures.

Materials-handling equipment

Postal systems continue to rely heavily on human labour for bulk materials handling and distribution, both at loading bays and between work processes within sorting centres. New mail centres, however, are normally built in the style of factories and include all appropriate materials-handling equipment.

Equipment used for loading and unloading sacks of mail, rigid containers, and loose parcels includes mobile belt conveyors, roller conveyors, forklift trucks, mobile and fixed cranes, and table lifts. Handling equipment within buildings includes chain conveyors; horizontal and rising belt conveyors of all types, for the transport of loose letters, packets, and trays of letters (notably used for continuous clearance of public posting boxes); tow conveyors, which allow wheeled containers to be hooked onto a fixed-path underfloor traction system; bucket or pan elevators; and chutes and other gravity devices.

The use of a wide range of equipment is necessitated by the varied handling characteristics of different types of mail at particular stages. Buffer-storage facilities, in the form of ramps, hoppers, and moving belts, have to be incorporated to compensate for normal postal traffic fluctuations. The smooth distribution of traffic through the system is often monitored by closed-circuit television, which allows effective centralized control. Automatic regulation and recording, using a variety of sensing and counting devices linked to a computer, are the ideal. Modern systems-engineering techniques are thus able to ensure a carefully planned continuous mechanized mail flow with maximum productivity benefits.

Segregating machines

Mail collected from branch post offices and street mailboxes, although for the most part made up of ordinary letters and cards, also contains small parcels, newspapers, magazines, and large envelopes. These items, because of their size or shape, cannot be handled on machinery designed for the normal-sized letter and have to be segregated from the majority of standard “machinable” letters. Owing to its varied characteristics, most packet mail has to be manually stamped and sorted, although its movement between work processes may be fully mechanized. So-called packet sorting machines are, in fact, essentially conveyor systems for distributing manually sorted mail.

A commonly adopted type of segregator consists of a laterally inclined rotating drum, into the upper end of which a regulated flow of “mixed” mail is fed from a storage conveyor. Letters within a thickness standard, but of excessive length or breadth, are picked out by various simple mechanical devices installed on the conveyor belt that eventually delivers machinable letters to the storage stacks of the facer–canceler equipment.

Facing and canceling equipment

Facing is the process of aligning letters so that all will have the address side facing the canceler, with stamps in a uniform position. The process is normally combined with a separation of the mail into at least two streams, letter and printed-paper rate or first- and second-class, to allow priority handling for one of the streams.

Facer–canceler machines perform these processes by passing letters through sensing or stamp-detecting units, which identify the presence or absence of a stamp on the side of the envelope facing them, and, when present, its position. Sensing units are also designed to separate mail in the priority class from nonpriority mail by identifying the stamp or commonly used combination of stamps representing the basic postage rate and manipulating selector gates accordingly. This identification is usually achieved by printing distinctive indexes on the stamps in normally invisible, phosphorescent or luminescent inks that are sensitive to ultraviolet radiation emitted by the sensing unit.

Coding and sorting machines

For manual sorting of letters, each operator normally uses a device with between 40 and 50 pigeonholes. This has been found by most administrations to be the optimum arrangement in view of the limited arm span and “memory” of the sorter. The development of various types of postal codes was aimed at making the sorting of a coded letter a mechanical process for the operator by dispensing with the need to memorize a sorting plan. To be totally effective these schemes need complete public cooperation, a requirement that has been difficult to achieve.

Postal administrations have responded to this dilemma by concentrating research on using an operator only to impress the postal code on each letter, employing phosphorescent or magnetic ink patterns that can be read by a sensing unit attached to a sorting machine. After the code has been impressed, the letter can be sorted at any subsequent stage by high-speed automatic machines, which are no longer utilized at the pace of a single operator and indeed can take the output of several operators. Furthermore, any second sortation required—even at an intermediate office or where the code includes the necessary information to letter carriers’ routes at the delivery office—does not need further manual operations. Another potential advantage of this method is that letters may be directly encoded by the mail-processing machines used by large-volume mailers.

Optical character recognition

The ultimate aim in automated sorting has been to perfect a machine that can read some or all elements of the address on letters. Research in this field has been conducted in most of the industrial nations with sophisticated postal services. The immediate aims of these national research programs vary insofar as the type of character to be recognized is concerned: printed, typewritten, or addressing-machine characters; stylized handwritten scripts; and even ordinary handwriting. Some administrations require the machine to read a purely numeric code, others an alphanumeric code, and others the names of towns or regions. Several different techniques are used for the basic task of pattern matching in identifying the characters. For example, the observed character as a whole may be compared with matrices registered in the memory of the machine. Or the different traits of the character observed—vertical or horizontal strokes, curves, etc.—may be analyzed and their combination successively compared with a series of models registered by the computer.

An optical character reader (OCR) can be designed to either directly sort mail or mark it with a machine-readable code so that sorting at subsequent stages can be carried out by high-speed automatic machines. In 1965 the U.S. Postal Service began experimenting with an alphanumeric OCR. By the early 1980s the service had developed a machine capable of scanning up to three lines of an address, verifying the postal code, and imprinting the letter with a routing code.

Research in the United States subsequently has concentrated on various systems that print a machine-readable bar code to allow for high-speed automatic processing to individual carrier routes or blocks of addresses within carrier routes. In 1983 the U.S. Postal Service began deploying OCR’s with this capability to major post offices throughout the country. The postal service regards this application of automation, combined with the use of ZIP+4 (a nine-digit postal code) by business mailers, as a major means of keeping postal costs under control as mail volumes expand.

Numerical speech translator

Another line of research being pursued in the United States is the development of equipment that translates five- and nine-digit ZIP codes and sorting-code numbers spoken by an operator into instructions for a sorting machine. Since this system obviates the need for a keyboard, it leaves the operator’s hands free, making it particularly valuable in the operation of parcel- and sack-sorting machines. It also eliminates the need for keyboard training of operators. The testing of the equipment includes determination of the effects of regional speech variations, background noise, and operator speech fatigue.

History

Message-relay systems of the ancient world

Since good communications were clearly essential for governing the extensive empires of the ancient world, it is not surprising that among the earliest historical references to postal systems were those concerning Egypt about 2000 bc and China under the Chou dynasty 1,000 years later. It was probably in China that a posthouse relay system was first developed and was brought to a high state of development under the Mongol emperors. The great Persian Empire of Cyrus in the 6th century bc also employed relays of mounted messengers, served by posthouses. The system was favourably described by the Greek historians Herodotus and Xenophon. The admiration of the Greeks was natural since their political divisions inhibited the growth of a coherent postal system, although each city-state possessed its corps of messengers.

The development of Rome from a small city-state into a vast empire embracing most of the known world brought with it the necessity for reliable and speedy communications with the governors of distant provinces. This need was met by the cursus publicus, the most highly developed postal system of the ancient world. The relay stages of the cursus publicus, established at convenient intervals along the great roads of the empire, formed an integral part of its complex military and administrative system. The speed with which messengers were able to travel during the peak of the administration was not to be rivaled in Europe until the 19th century: it has been claimed that more than 170 miles (270 kilometres) could be covered in a day and a night. The maintenance of the cursus publicus required a high degree of organization; an inspectorial system existed to control its operation and prevent abuse for private ends.

The fall of the Roman Empire in the west during the 5th century did not completely destroy the cursus publicus. Its advantages were evident to the new barbarian rulers; some, such as Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, who ruled Italy from ad 493 to 526, are known to have maintained the essentials of the Roman postal system within their own domains. Even in the early 9th century, under the Carolingian Empire, the vestiges of the cursus publicus appear to have persisted, and posthouses were maintained. While the service did not follow a regularly organized pattern, it was at least reasonably frequent. The continued decay of the Roman roads, the increasing unwillingness of communities bordering the roads to support the expenses of the system, and the progressive political fragmentation of Europe, however, caused all traces of the Roman postal system to disappear.

The cursus publicus fared better in the Byzantine Empire because its provinces were eventually absorbed into the Islāmic Empire. The substitution of one centralized imperial regime for another meant that the cursus publicus could be incorporated into a similar Arabian postal system based in Baghdad.

The pre-Columbian civilizations of America, responding to the same needs as the imperial states of Asia and Europe, also evolved relay systems, limited to foot messengers. In the Inca Empire, posthouses were maintained at frequent intervals along the remarkable road network, and a like system probably served the Mayan civilization for more than 1,000 years.

Growth of business correspondence in the Middle Ages

The end of the reign of the last Carolingian king in 987 marked the beginning of several centuries of confusion in Europe, in which it is difficult to trace any postal system worthy of the title. Since the kings of the period were constantly struggling to assert their authority over their unruly feudal vassals, the strong central authority that sustained most postal systems was lacking. The uncertain political situation did not favour the creation of a regulated postal service, though it necessitated frequent contact between the kings and vassals and among the great princes. They, along with other powerful institutions—the municipalities, the religious orders, and the universities (notably in Paris)—started to maintain corps of messengers to serve their particular needs.

One of the more significant trends of the later Middle Ages was the development of international commerce and, with it, the growth of business correspondence. Many corporations or guilds established messenger systems to allow their members to maintain contacts with customers. Notable among these was the so-called Butcher Post (Metzger Post), which was able to combine the carrying of letters with the constant traveling that the trade required.

The mercantile corporations of Italy provided the most extensive and regular postal system of this period. Of particular importance were the links maintained from the mid-13th century between the great Italian commercial centres, such as Florence, Genoa, and Siena, and six important annual fairs held in the Champagne area of northern France. Two fixed dispatches were made to each of these fairs: the first to carry orders and commissions and the second to effect settlements. The service was carefully regulated. Conditions of acceptance, scales of payment, and timetables were laid down; the route was fixed, and hostels were maintained along the route. Since the Champagne fairs were attended by merchants from all over Europe, the postal system provided a valuable international link.

Italian business interests were also responsible for the only regular extra-European postal link of this period, between Venice and Constantinople. The extent and importance of Venetian business correspondence may be gauged from the fact that in 1320 the king of Persia accorded its couriers the right of free passage throughout his domains.

Russia shared in the general European trend toward the development of postal services in the 13th century. Horses and drivers for the transport of couriers were kept at regular staging posts to provide the so-called carriage express, which gradually developed into an organized system for the exchange of letters.

Growth of the post as a government monopoly

Institutional postal systems that developed during the later Middle Ages also conveyed letters between private persons, with or without official sanction and for a substantial fee in either case. Initially, such letters were relatively few. Outside the institutions with their own postal services, the number of literate people having interests that ranged beyond their own neighbourhoods was small.

In the late 15th century, however, the trend toward improved postal services was reinforced by Gutenberg’s printing press (c. 1450) and the expansion of education. The growth of demand made letter carrying a profitable business, leading to the rise of private undertakings—the majority, like the Swiss Stumpelbotten, purely local in scope. Some, like the Paar family in Austria, developed postal organizations on a national scale. By far the most famous and extensive of such systems was that built up by the Thurn and Taxis family, who originally came from Bergamo near Milan, Italy. Under the patronage of the Habsburg emperors, they became the organizers of an extensive network of postal routes linking the imperial possessions. Their system developed throughout the 16th century until it covered most of Europe, using 20,000 couriers to operate a relay system that was speedy, efficient, and highly profitable.

Although the remnants of the Thurn and Taxis postal system survived in Germany up to 1867, it was essentially out of keeping—like the empire and the petty German states it served—with the main trend of development in Europe, the rise of nation-states with strong central governments. The first reflection of this trend in the postal sphere was the establishment of efficient national systems of relay posts under the control of the state. In France, Louis XI set up a Royal Postal Service in 1477 employing 230 mounted couriers. In England, a Master of the Posts was appointed by Henry VIII in 1516 to maintain a regular postal service along the main roads radiating from London. Neither of these systems was comprehensive, nor were they intended to serve the public. The security and regularity of the service along certain routes, however, inevitably resulted in an increasing amount of unofficial correspondence being carried. After initial attempts to prevent this practice in France, its fiscal advantages were realized, and the carrying of private mails was legalized about 1600. The basis of a real public service was not created until 1627, when fees and timetables were fixed and post offices established in the larger cities. In Britain, a separate public service was set up in 1635 by a royal proclamation “for the settling of the letter-office of England and Scotland.” Thomas Witherings, a London merchant, was given the task of organizing regular services to run by day and night along the great post roads.

In both countries, these state systems naturally began to develop into monopolies since such an evolution was seen by rulers as advantageous both to the security and to the revenues of the state. In England, the establishment of state posts along the principal roads was accompanied by the suppression, under the royal monopoly, of private and municipal posts, although “common carriers” were still permitted to convey letters on routes not covered by the royal system.

In 1672 France declared postal services to be a state monopoly under which operating rights were sold. Private undertakings that had established legal rights in this field were allowed to continue, but private messenger systems were eventually forced out of business by state competition or were bought out. In 1719 the University of Paris, the most important private competitor, gave up its last postal privileges in return for substantial compensation.

There was still opportunity for private enterprise to succeed by introducing services that were not at that time provided by the state systems. It was in this way that an important step in postal history, the establishment of local collection and delivery services in the great cities of London and Paris, was taken. London was the first city to benefit from an urban service when one William Dockwra set up his Penny Post in 1680. Striking features of the scheme were that letters were prepaid and stamped to indicate place of posting and the time they had been sent out for delivery. Deliveries were made almost hourly. Dockwra’s scheme was so successful that he was prosecuted for infringing the state monopoly, and his service was closed down in November 1682, only to be reopened by the government. Not until 1759 was a similar local service introduced in Paris. It too was quickly absorbed by the state postal system; but its originator, Claude-Humbert Piarron de Chamousset, was paid compensation. Thus, the state monopolies expanded their scope, happily combining an improved service to the public with greater profitability.

The pace of postal progress in England during the later 18th century was accelerated by remarkable economic growth and a consequent demand for better mail services to the growing commercial and manufacturing centres. The most striking improvements came as the result of an extensive program of road building that began about 1765, paving the way for the era of the stagecoach. These were first used by the post office in 1784 and rapidly superseded the mounted postboys on the main routes. They began by averaging six or seven miles an hour, but continuing improvements in the roads and in the design of the vehicles pushed this up to 10 miles an hour in the 1830s. With the stagecoaches making possible a general reorganization of the entire system of mail circulation, letters could be delivered the morning after posting in towns more than 120 miles from London. A carefully regulated postal service—unprecedented for its standards of speed, frequency, and security—was evolved during this period.

Despite the disruptive effects of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, great progress was made throughout Europe in the late 18th and early 19th centuries in improving the speed and regularity of postal service and in providing internal delivery services for most of the larger cities. In the United States, too, postal services expanded at a remarkable rate: in 1789 only 75 post offices existed, but 40 years later there were more than 8,000.

Rowland Hill’s reforms

The publication in 1837 of Post Office Reform: Its Importance and Practicability, by Rowland Hill (later Sir Rowland Hill), a British educator and tax reformer, is justly regarded as one of the most important milestones in postal progress. Based on an exhaustive study of the cost structure of postal operations, it demonstrated conclusively that conveyance charges were an insignificant factor in the total cost of handling a letter. The then current intricate charging scales based on distance were shown to be irrelevant: they inflated operating costs by requiring a host of clerks to apply them and to prepare complicated interoffice accounts. He also realized that another major item in the current cost structure—the collection of money payments on delivery—was easily avoidable. Hill’s solution was a uniform rate of postage, regardless of distance, and prepayment of postage by means of adhesive stamps sold by the post office. Hill proposed a basic rate of one penny for each half ounce, calculating the “natural cost of distribution” to be slightly less than this. The cheapest current rate of postage was fourpence, and the average charge 6 1 /₄ pence (11.56 cents).

Not surprisingly, Hill’s proposals rapidly gained strong support: popular agitation for the “penny post” overcame initial political disinterest, and the uniform rate and a system of prepayment by stamps were introduced in 1840. The originality of Hill’s proposal for an adhesive postage stamp has been questioned but is irrelevant in considering the overall merits of his work. The significance of his reforms lies not only in the fact that they brought the post within the means of the mass of the people but also in the less obvious way in which they gave the postal system the technical capacity to deal with the vastly increased demand for postal service that ensued. The radical simplification of postal organization and methods characterizing Hill’s reforms are the key to the speed and economy with which modern postal systems in many countries handle tens of millions of letters daily.

The chief features of Hill’s system were gradually adopted in varying degrees by other countries throughout the world, first among which were Switzerland and Brazil in 1843.

The introduction of uniform cheap rates of postage for letters was accompanied by the establishment of even lower tariffs for newspapers (carried free in some countries) and for printed matter (e.g., the British “Book Post” of 1848). These reduced rates were perhaps originally intended to favour the spread of education but quickly expanded, under the vigorous pressure of vested interests, to cover all sorts of commercial documents, advertising matter, magazines, etc. An inexpensive form of correspondence, the postcard, first introduced by Austria in 1869, was soon adopted by most other countries.

The general postal reforms of the mid-19th century ensured maximum benefit from the technological progress in transport in the great age of the railway and the steamship. These new modes of conveyance permitted a far speedier, more regular, and more reliable mail service, both internally and internationally. Railways in particular had a marked effect on the organization of postal work: instead of merely using trains to carry mailbags more speedily, postal administrations soon introduced the practice of sorting the letters in transit, using specially adapted railway cars. This greatly multiplied the advantages of railway conveyance. The first traveling, or railway, post offices ran in 1838 between Birmingham and Liverpool and London and Preston. By the end of the century, Britain, many continental European countries, the United States, and India had built up a complex network of such services, allowing the delivery of letters the day after mailing at distances three or four times as great as had been possible with the stagecoach, exceeding 400 miles in some cases.

International postal reform: the Universal Postal Union

The advent of the steamship and the railway had provided the opportunity for speedier international postal services, and the expansion of commerce ensured a growing demand for such facilities. Unfortunately, serious obstacles to the free exchange of international mails existed. Postal relations between states were the subject of bilateral postal treaties that had multiplied alarmingly during the 19th century. Most large European states were party to at least a dozen treaties by the 1860s. Such treaties necessitated the maintenance of detailed accounts between the countries concerned. Owing to the bewildering variety of currencies and units of weight and measurement then in use, the accounts attained a complexity described by a contemporary postmaster general of the United States as “almost beyond belief.” Understandably, the users of the post suffered from this chaotic situation and from the high international postage rates that were its natural result.

The first practical step toward reform did not come until May 1863, when the delegates of 15 European and American postal administrations met at the Paris Postal Conference, convening at the suggestion of the U.S. postmaster general. The conference established important general principles for the simplification of procedures, which were adopted as a model for subsequent bilateral treaties by the countries concerned.

The final step required the embodiment of these principles in a formal international treaty and the creation of an organization to administer them. An example was set by another conference at Paris two years later, which established the International Telegraph Union. Similar developments in the postal field were delayed by the advent of the American Civil War and the Franco-German War.

In 1868, however, a plan for a general postal union was put forward by the director of posts of the North German Confederation. Eventually, an international postal congress met, on September 15, 1874, in Bern. It was attended by representatives of 22 states, all European except for Egypt and the United States. On October 9 a “Treaty concerning the Establishment of a General Postal Union” was signed. It was implemented on July 1, 1875, when the General Postal Union came into being. This title was changed in 1878 to the Universal Postal Union (UPU), and the basic treaty was renamed the Universal Postal Convention. The treaty provides a uniform framework of rules and procedures for the exchange of international mails. The union grew rapidly, increasing its membership to 55 within 10 years. By 1914, when China was admitted, it included almost all independent countries. The scope of the union’s activities also expanded. In addition to its primary role, it gradually extended its functions to cover other international services provided by postal administrations, such as money orders (1878), parcel post (1885), postal checks (1920), cash on delivery (1947), and savings banks (1957). The UPU has been a specialized agency of the United Nations since 1948.

Development of airmail

Balloon posts, apart from those organized during the sieges of Paris (1870) and Przemyśl (1915), for the most part only carried souvenir mail, owing to the balloons’ uncontrollability. Airships overcame this problem but, again, did not establish themselves as a regular means of mail transport. It was only through the development of the airplane in the early decades of the 20th century that airmail truly came into its own. Certain experiments had been undertaken before World War I, such as airmail service between Hendon, on the northwestern outskirts of London, and Windsor in 1911 to mark the coronation of George V and flights between Paris and Bordeaux in 1913. Regular flights did not begin in the United States until 1918, and it was not until 1919, when the reliability of airplanes had considerably improved, that the first regular international service was introduced—between London and Paris. Other European links soon followed. On the long-distance continental and intercontinental routes airmail demonstrated its clear superiority over all surface transport. Technical factors delayed progress in opening up longer routes. The first American transcontinental airmail flight took place in 1920, but regular service did not begin until 1924. In 1926 a service between Egypt and Karāchi began and was linked to London in 1929. It was extended to Singapore by 1933 and to Australia in 1934. It was not until 1939 that a regular air service across the North Atlantic was launched with the takeoff of the Yankee Clipper, an American seaplane, on May 20.

While the growing availability of air flight did not affect basic postal organization as profoundly as the railways, its advantages of speed and operational reliability have been exploited in different ways since the 1920s. Prior to World War II, a number of European countries adopted the practice of forwarding letters to distant destinations at no extra cost to the sender (such as British mails sent to most parts of the British Empire). The consistently high costs of airmail curtailed this trend after the war. During the mid-1960s the UPU, in response to the continuing increase of aircraft capacity, adopted the policy of maximizing air conveyance of mail. In the mid-1970s, the concept of “ surface air-lifted” (SAL) mails was developed in conjunction with the International Air Transport Association (IATA). This arrangement allows some mails to receive, for little or no surcharge, speedier transmission than by surface, but without the priority of fully surcharged mails. Use of SAL varies from country to country.

For individual correspondence, the most practical and inexpensive form of airmail remains the compact aerogram, which was introduced in Britain during World War II as a convenient way of writing to overseas military personnel. It consists of a sheet of lightweight paper suitably folded and gummed on all sides. Recognized by the UPU, the aerogram is available in most countries.

Advanced communications technology

Rapidly advancing computer and data transmission technologies of the late 20th century are being felt far more widely within the postal sector than were previous advances, such as improved roads, the railway, and the airplane. Although the latter enabled postal services to reform or enhance existing services, today’s technologies go further by providing alternatives to the letter in the form of electronic messaging networks and electronic data-processing techniques to improve administrative efficiency.

Postal services in the developing countries

The establishment of efficient and comprehensive postal systems in the developing countries is important internationally as well as from the purely domestic viewpoint. Successful maintenance and progressive improvement of international postal service require the effective cooperation of all member countries of the UPU.

The internal need for a good postal service is sufficient in itself, however, to justify a high priority. A countrywide network of post offices provides government with many points of contact with its people for implementing administrative programs in such fields as social security, taxation, and public information. When its operation is properly developed, the post office may also become one of the principal employers in a country; it may help to promote economic growth through its need for buildings, vehicles, and equipment; and it has the potential to become a major user of transport services. The employment potential of a postal system is evident from the fact that the percentage of the working population engaged in providing postal services is generally several times higher in developed than in developing countries.

An efficient postal service, in addition to promoting national cohesion, provides an essential infrastructure for the expansion of industry and commerce. Postal money transfer and savings services are particularly valuable in developing economies, where banking facilities are limited. They may generate large resources that can be used for public investment.

Postal administrations in developed countries have long appreciated the importance of collaborating in the improvement of postal services throughout the world, and this participation in postal technical assistance is an aim embodied in the constitution of the Universal Postal Union. In addition to fostering bilateral assistance between members, the UPU itself has, since 1964, taken part as a specialized agency in the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). UPU activities in this field are monitored and realigned as necessary at each postal congress.

In view of the rapid expansion of postal business in most developing countries, the training of staff is a most urgent need. The UPU’s initial activity has, therefore, been largely devoted to this field. The needs of individual countries are evaluated by traveling postal experts attached to the International Bureau in Bern. In addition, expert aid is provided for the establishment of national training schools for postal workers and regional centres for middle and higher management staff, such as those set up in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, and in Bangkok and Damascus. Special instructor-training courses are conducted in Britain and France, as well as in multinational schools in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, where seminars are also held for higher grade officials. Specialist aid is also provided to evaluate operational and organizational needs and subsequently to enlist UNDP assistance in meeting them. The missions of experts are thus directed either to the postal services in general or to a certain sector of postal activity. Some larger projects may include overall postal organization as well as postal training; such projects have been undertaken in Ethiopia and Niger. Fellowships are awarded for overseas study of specialized subjects, such as international mails, philately, and, in particular, instructor training. Although the UNDP provides the major share of technical assistance funds, the UPU has increasingly supplemented these from its own resources to meet the increasing demand for assistance from its members. Moreover, a considerable amount of aid is given directly by developed countries within the framework of their own bilateral technical assistance arrangements.

Many developing countries are not able to provide even the minimum scale of postal facilities. To underline the pressing need for improvement and to provide a yardstick for future progress, the UPU has adopted, for the Second and Third United Nations Development Decades, certain key planning objectives, covering management, quality of service, promotion of its financial services, and improved public information. These are to be carried out to favour, in particular, the least developed countries.

The international system

International mail is a key means of furthering economic, social, and cultural links between nations. The international postal system is in itself an outstanding example of worldwide organization and mutual trust. A postal administration relies completely upon the postal authorities of other countries to play their parts in ensuring that its foreign mails reach their destination.

International cooperation in this field has been greatly facilitated by the Universal Postal Union since 1875. It has built a comprehensive international organization, with a membership composed of numerous sovereign states and several dependent territories. The postal administrations that are not represented generally follow the rules of the UPU.

These fundamental rules of the international postal service are to be found in the Universal Postal Convention and General Regulations and have been little changed since adoption of the Bern Treaty. The first basic principle is that all member countries form “a single postal territory for the reciprocal exchange of correspondence.” From it is derived the principle of freedom of transit: every member country guaranteeing to respect the inviolability of transit mails and to forward them by the most rapid transport used for its own mails.

Another important principle is that the charges for letter-post items are not shared. Since 1875 each country has retained the postage it collects on international mail. Although intermediate countries are paid for transit service, the country in which the mail is delivered receives no payment. This principle was adopted in order to minimize the need for complex international accounts and was justified on the supposition that a letter normally generates a reply. Certain developing countries, however, have found themselves at a considerable disadvantage under this rule, due to an excessive imbalance between incoming and outgoing mail. To remedy this, the 1969 Congress of Tokyo provided for compensatory payments in such cases.

As a further measure of simplification, the convention prescribes international postal charges, as well as agreed tolerances, and specifies weight steps, limits of size, and conditions of acceptance for letter-post items. Disputes between postal administrations, which usually concern allocation of liability for the loss of registered or insured items, are to be settled by arbitration. The convention is completed by two other basic documents: the Final Protocol, which allows member countries to register certain general and specific reservations to the provisions of the convention; and the Detailed Regulations for implementing the convention. Apart from these obligatory documents, there are a number of optional agreements concerning services, such as parcel post and cash on delivery. The provision of a registration service is compulsory under the convention.

Mention should also be made of the constitutive acts of the union that prescribe its general aims, its organization, its financial structure, and the rules of membership, namely, the constitution and its general regulations.

This comprehensive framework of international regulations is regularly revised to take account of changing circumstances and technical advances. This is the chief function of the union’s quinquennial congress. Between congresses, the continuity of the union’s work is ensured by its elected Executive Council and its permanent office in Bern, the International Bureau. The bureau acts as a clearinghouse for the settlement of international accounts and for the exchange of information between members, especially notifications of important operational and organizational changes. Problems arising in the technical, operational, and economic fields are studied by another permanent organ, the Consultative Council for Postal Studies (CCPS). Regular contact is also maintained with other international bodies, such as the International Telecommunications Union and the International Standards Organisation.

The UPU Constitution authorizes member countries to establish restricted unions, a provision that enables regional groups such as the Arab, African, and Asian–Pacific postal unions to conclude agreements aimed at improving postal services between their members by such means as reduced rates of postage or the elimination of transit fees. These agreements are more easily achieved on a limited regional basis than on a worldwide scale, and the restricted unions have a valuable role in the task of the UPU, which is, basically, to improve international postal service by simplifying its organization and reducing its cost.