Would be interesting to know how serving 250 to 300 addresses compares in terms of efficiency to FedEx Ground or UPS.
I was thinking the same thing. For once, the inefficiency of the postal service may work in our favor.
Now I'm not saying that there are no inefficiencies at the USPS, of course. ;-)
The difference is that USPS hits virtually every address every day. At the low end of the quoted range (250 stops), that's 31.25 per hour or a bit less than two minutes per stop on a eight hour shift, not including driving time. If most of those are single family houses, that's probably a pretty good clip, especially when you figure in driving time and walking door to door. I'm willing to bet FedEx and UPS drivers don't handle 30 stops an hour since they're going to somewhat scattered addresses.
I'm still all for privatizing the post office, but that's another story.
Would be interesting to know how serving 250 to 300 addresses compares in terms of efficiency to FedEx Ground or UPS.It would. I suspect that when those services begin to deliver at least one item daily to nearly every single address in their routes, they will run into some logistical problems. I get several items a day by USPS delivery (envelopes full of junk, mostly), and go weeks and weeks without receiving a FedEx Air, Ground or UPS delivery. I see the FedEx and UPS trucks go down my street every day, though. If they had to stop at every single address, I think they'd need to change their delivery routes a lot.