The challenges of delivering parcels and letters on time and reliably are increasing. The causes are traffic congestion, more online purchases and customers’ desire to receive Internet orders as quickly as possible. Nevertheless, Swiss Post has managed once again to exceed the requirements of the postal legislation for letters and parcels. For parcels, in 2018 Swiss Post exceeded the already high quality values of the previous year. And this despite the fact that the volume of parcels has increased to 138 million consignments. This corresponds to a growth in parcel volumes of more than 6 percent. Nevertheless, Swiss Post delivered 97.2 percent of PostPac Priority parcels (+1.2 percentage points) and 97.7 percent of PostPac Economy parcels (+0.2 percentage points) on time.

Swiss Post wants to respond to the increasing volumes of parcels in good time. Therefore, by 2020, it will build three new regional parcel centers in Cadenazzo (Ticino), Vétroz (Valais) and Untervaz (Graubünden), to continue to reliably and punctually deliver the steadily increasing volume of parcels. The three new regional parcel centers will relieve the pressure on the three existing parcel centers in Daillens (Vaud), Härkingen (Solothurn) and Frauenfeld (Thurgau). This is because parcels will be sorted and delivered in their respective regions, rather than transiting via the current parcel centers. In the future, for example, parcels that are posted in Ticino and delivered in Ticino will be sorted in Cadenazzo and will no longer be sorted at the Härkingen parcel center. This shortens transport routes and times, reduces transport volumes and minimizes the overall climate impact.

Raising the bar even higher

In the case of letters, too, Swiss Post was very punctual in 2018 and exceeded the requirements of the postal legislation. Although not as significantly as in the previous year, Swiss Post once again provided its customers with a very reliable service with 97.4 percent for A Mail letters and 98.9 percent for B Mail letters. However, Swiss Post has higher expectations of itself and takes these results as an incentive to return to the high quality levels of 2016 and 2017 in 2019.

Swiss Post often uses the railways to transport nearly 1.9 billion addressed letters, but traffic congestion also affects the punctuality of postal items. The fact that the high delivery figures from the previous year were not quite attained in 2018 and slightly declined for A Mail and B Mail letters by 0.2 and 0.1 percentage points, is partly the result of the more demanding traffic situation between letter and logistics centers.

Independent scientific measurements

The high quality and punctuality of the delivery of letters and parcels is due to the excellent work of Swiss Post’s employees – their commitment during the pre-Christmas period from November to December is particularly impressive. This good performance is reflected in the scientifically conducted delivery time measurements.

For this purpose, around 90,000 test letters (domestic letters) are sent each year. And parcel delivery times are measured using a scientific sampling method including around 2,400 test consignments. In order to obtain reliable data, these measurements are conducted on behalf of Swiss Post by the independent market research institute GfK Switzerland AG in accordance with European standards. Another independent company, Consult AG, also monitors these measurements. The supervisory authority PostCom checks and approves the year-end results.

Information:
Nathalie Dérobert, Media Spokesperson, 058 341 21 96, presse@swisspost.ch