How Is Mail Delivered?  The Rural Method

     Mail arrives at your local post office via truck.  It is sorted into five separate parts.  Each picture below can be clicked on for a larger image.

1.  DPS.  DPS stands for Delivery Point Sequence.  On a mailman's route, the delivery sequence is the order in which the mail is delivered, from the first house to the last.  This information is loaded into a sorting machine.  As letter-size mail is sorted by the machine, it is put into delivery sequence.  It arrives at the local post office in a tray, like you see at right (click for larger view).  A typical route will have anywhere from 3 to 6 trays of DPS mail per day

2.  Flats.  Flats are catalogs and magazines.  They are also sorted by machine, however, they are not put into Delivery Point Sequence.  They are delivered to the local post office in tubs, like you see to the left (click for larger view).  On a given day, a route may have only one or two tubs, or it could have 10 tubs.  These tubs are usually only half full of mail, allowing them to be stacked together with ease. 

3.  Bundled Mail.  Magazines or catalogs often come in bundles, already sorted by route.  A bundle may have 10 or more magazines or catalogs, and the route number is listed on the address area.  These are sent to the route's case for sorting by the mail carrier.  Bundled mail can also include what we call "boxholders," or "door-to-door."  A boxholder is an item that goes in every single mailbox on the route.  These are typically sale flyers from a store.  They can be addressed, or come without addresses.

4.  Accountable Mail.  This includes Certified, Insured, Registered, and Express Mail.  This is mail that you have to sign for in order to receive.  It may be letters or parcels.

5.  Parcels.  The Post Office calls packages "parcels."  These are sorted into hampers (one hamper per route), and they are rolled over to the route's case.  On a given day, a route may only have a handful of parcels, or it may have a hundred.  On average, there are about 20-40 parcels per day per route.

Preparing Mail For Delivery

I've heard people say I have an easy job.  All I have to do is show up for work, grab the mail, and start walking.  However, before the mailman delivers the mail, he must case it, which takes anywhere from one hour to four hours.  Each route has a case, where the mail is sorted (picture at right).  The mail is placed in the route's case by the mail clerks.  A mail clerk memorizes the streets and routes in the city, and can tell based on the address which route the mail goes to.

Each delivery point, or house address, has a place in the case.  When the mailman begins casing the mail, he reads the address and places it in the corresponding cell in the case.  Whereas the city mailman only cases first and second class mail, the rural mailman cases everything.  All the mail goes out every day.

After casing the larger flat pieces, the carrier will case the letter mail.  Although we rely upon the computer-sorted DPS, every day we pull mistakes out of the DPS, where the machine sorted pieces wrongly.  These are sorted by the clerks and given to the carrier to case.  Also, some mail pieces will not feed through the sorting machine correctly, and they have to be hand-cased.  Typically we have about 2 feet, or one tray full, of letter mail to case.  Depending on the thickness of the mail pieces, this could be anywhere from 200 to more than 500 pieces. 

After the flats and letter mail is cased, the carrier sorts his parcels, or packages.  Most carriers use a marker card of some kind for a parcel.  The house that is getting a parcel gets one of these marker cards.  When the carrier gets to that house, he sees the marker card, and knows that a package goes to that house. 

After the parcels are marked, rural carriers have an extra step if they choose to.  They have the option of casing their DPS mail.  City carriers must carry their DPS mail in their left hand as they walk.  Notice in the parcel marker picture that the mail is "U" shaped in the cell.  This is a rural route method.  The mail for a house is all put in the middle of the U, and that bundle of mail gets delivered to the house.  If the DPS is cased, the carrier does not have to pull the mail from several sources while on the street.  All he/she needs to do is reach over and get the next roll of mail. 

After the mail is cased, the carrier will pull the mail down.  On the rural side, the carrier will normally use straps to hold the mail together.  Starting with the first house. he/she pulls until he has about a foot of mail, then he fastens the strap around the mail, making a bundle, consisting of anywhere from 5-20 houses worth of mail (picture of bundle at right).  Note the bundle is also numbered.  The number helps the carrier get the correct bundle of mail for the next set of houses.

After all the mail is pulled down, the hamper is then loaded and ready to be pushed outto the vehicle.  In many cases, rural route carriers use their own personal vehicles to deliver mail, and they receive a maintenance allowance.  The vehicle is loaded, with the bundles within reach, usually sitting on the back seat, as in the picture at left below.  The parcels are loaded into tubs, and usually go in the rear of the vehicle behind the bundles (second picture).  The third picture is from the front seat, showing that the carrier can reach backwards and grab the next bundle of mail.  He will have to get out at certain points and pull the next tub of parcels forward from the back of the vehicle.

   

When the carrier reaches a mailbox, he usually has a bundle of mail in the front seat with him.  If he cased his DPS, he merely grabs the next roll of mail, verifies the address, and tosses it in the mailbox.  If he did not case his DPS, the carrier will have to sort through the DPS, find all the mail for the next box, and then grab the next roll of flats.  Some carriers will keep a handful of mail in their lap, and will sort through it, pulling the next mailbox's mail while they drive.  Flipping through the mail to find the next delivery is called "fingering" the mail.

Once the end of the route is reached, the carrier returns to the post office with the outgoing mail that he collected along the way.  While in the post office, the carrier will case the bulk business mail that was brought to his case while he was out, and then his day will be done.