“In a hub and spoke model, you would have zero sorting at a local office. This would be like your UPS (STAPLES) or Fedex (KINKOS) Retail Outlet sorting boxes, it makes no sense.”
UPS and Fedex deal primarily with standardized packages and large envelopes in contrast to what the USPS receives. Zero sorting results in all classes of mail being dumped together and shipped to the regional plants, a process that creates a bottleneck at the receiving end. Rough sorting at collection points solves this which is why it is done at local offices. It’s a process that begins with clerks at the retail counter and carriers picking up mail on their routes.
An expert trying to impose an idealized model is the bane of those who have to make a system function on a daily basis. Such experts invariably have little real world experience with the work that they expound upon with such confidence.
It wouldn’t be a receiving problem if the system was optimized around it, and you don’t even need regional hubs.
1-2 national hubs would do the job.
Yes, your letter will take longer to arrive if it was to a local address, but USPS wouldn’t be bleeding money.
There isn’t any reason 1M or more lbs of mail couldn’t be processed per hour when you have invested in the right equipment and centralized the operation.
Why don’t you look at what happened when the garbage was outsourced? No one saw them doing what they did at the time either. Look at them now.
You’re right!