Postal services - Transit time measurement for cross border postal items using real mail feasibility study

A feasibility study to explore the use of real mail data in measurement of the transit time of end-to-end services for single piece crossborder priority mail.

Postalische Dienstleistungen - Messung der Durchlaufzeit von grenzüberschreitenden Postsendungen unter Nutzung von echten Sendungsdaten

Services postaux - Mesure du délai d’acheminement du courrier transfrontière à partir des flux réels - Rapport de faisabilité

Poštne storitve - Merjenje prehodnih časov za čezmejne poštne pošiljke z uporabo študije realnih poštnih zmogljivosti

Ta dokument je študija o zmogljivosti, pri kateri se je raziskovala uporaba realnih poštnih podatkov pri merjenju prehodnih časov od sprejema do vročitve za posamezne čezmejne pošiljke prednostne pošte. V tem dokumentu so podani opis konteksta, način izvedbe te študije, rezultati študije in nasveti za CEN/TC 331 »Poštne storitve« ter CEN in Evropsko komisijo.

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Status
Published
Publication Date
03-Sep-2019
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SLOVENSKI STANDARD
01-november-2019
Poštne storitve - Merjenje prehodnih časov za čezmejne poštne pošiljke z uporabo
študije realnih poštnih zmogljivosti
Postal services - Transit time measurement for cross border postal items using real mail
feasibility study
Postalische Dienstleistungen - Messung der Durchlaufzeit von grenzüberschreitenden
Postsendungen unter Nutzung von echten Sendungsdaten
Services postaux - Mesure du délai d’acheminement du courrier transfrontière à partir
des flux réels - Rapport de faisabilité
Ta slovenski standard je istoveten z: CEN/TR 17386:2019
ICS:
03.240 Poštne storitve Postal services
2003-01.Slovenski inštitut za standardizacijo. Razmnoževanje celote ali delov tega standarda ni dovoljeno.

CEN/TR 17386
TECHNICAL REPORT
RAPPORT TECHNIQUE
September 2019
TECHNISCHER BERICHT
ICS 03.240
English Version
Postal services - Transit time measurement for cross
border postal items using real mail feasibility study
Services postaux - Mesure du délai d'acheminement du Postalische Dienstleistungen - Messung der
courrier transfrontière à partir des flux réels - Rapport Durchlaufzeit von grenzüberschreitenden
de faisabilité Postsendungen unter Nutzung von echten
Sendungsdaten
This Technical Report was approved by CEN on 21 July 2019. It has been drawn up by the Technical Committee CEN/TC 331.

CEN members are the national standards bodies of Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia,
Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway,
Poland, Portugal, Republic of North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and
United Kingdom.
EUROPEAN COMMITTEE FOR STANDARDIZATION
COMITÉ EUROPÉEN DE NORMALISATION

EUROPÄISCHES KOMITEE FÜR NORMUNG

CEN-CENELEC Management Centre: Rue de la Science 23, B-1040 Brussels
© 2019 CEN All rights of exploitation in any form and by any means reserved Ref. No. CEN/TR 17386:2019 E
worldwide for CEN national Members.

Contents Page
European foreword . 3
Introduction . 4
1 Scope . 5
2 Normative references . 5
3 Terms and definitions . 5
4 Symbols and abbreviations . 6
5 Existing QoS measurement system . 6
6 Operational measurement . 7
7 Objective of the study . 8
7.1 Objective . 8
7.2 Research questions . 8
7.3 Summary of the purpose of the feasibility study . 9
8 Existing and proven technology . 9
8.1 Image quality . 9
8.2 Image analysis . 10
8.3 Image matching . 10
8.4 Volume of data associated to image analysis and matching function . 11
8.5 Proven technology . 11
9 Key points in the results of the survey . 12
9.1 Overall remarks. 12
9.2 Key points in question 1 . 12
9.3 Key points in question 5.1 . 12
9.4 Key points in question 12 . 12
9.5 Key points in question 14 . 13
9.6 Key points in question 30 . 13
10 Answers to the research questions 1 to 4 . 13
10.1 Answers to research question 1 . 13
10.2 Answers to research question 2 . 14
10.3 Answers to research questions 3 and 4 . 14
11 Decision of CEN/TC 331 Postal services regarding the feasibility study . 15
Annex A (informative) Questionnaire sent to 32 EU postal organizations . 16
Annex B (informative) Results of the survey filled out by 18 Eu postal organizations . 21

European foreword
This document (CEN/TR 17386:2019) has been prepared by Technical Committee CEN/TC 331 “Postal
services”, the secretariat of which is held by NEN.
Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of
patent rights. CEN shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.
This document has been prepared under a mandate given to CEN by the European Commission and the
European Free Trade Association.
Introduction
Under the current Standardization Request M/548, CEN and CEN/TC 331 Postal services identified a
need for a feasibility study to use real mail processing in the measurement of the quality performance.
This feasibility study has been carried out, researching the costs versus the benefits of a method for
transit time measurement for cross border postal items using real mail.
Based on this study, is became clear that the time and resources needed to develop such a method are
too extensive to justify it. Therefore, the members of CEN/TC 331 Postal services have decided that this
method is not feasible and that the method will not be developed within the current Standardization
Request M/548.
1 Scope
The scope of this document is a feasibility study that was carried out to explore the use of real mail data
in measurement of the transit time of end-to-end services for single piece cross-border priority mail. In
this document a description is given of the context, the way this study was carried out, the results of the
study and the advice given to CEN/TC 331 Postal services and, finally, CEN and the European
Commission.
2 Normative references
The following documents are referred to in the text in such a way that some or all of their content
constitutes requirements of this document. For dated references, only the edition cited applies. For
undated references, the latest edition of the referenced document (including any amendments) applies.
EN 13850:2012, Postal Services - Quality of Services - Measurement of the transit time of end-to-end
services for single piece priority mail and first class mail
3 Terms and definitions
For the purposes of this document, the following terms and definitions apply.
ISO and IEC maintain terminological databases for use in standardization at the following addresses:
• IEC Electropedia: available at http://www.electropedia.org/
• ISO Online browsing platform: available at https://www.iso.org/obp
3.1
International Postal Corporation
IPC
cooperative association of postal operators in Asia Pacific, Europe and North America
3.2
Office of Exchange
OE
postal facility which handles the foreign mail departing to and/or arriving from another country
3.3
PostEurop
trade association that represents European public postal operators
3.4
Research question
RQ
investigations carried out as part of the feasibility study
3.5
Sequencing sort
sorting of the mail pieces in the order of the postman delivery
3.6
Test Letters
TL
tracked and traced letter with which the cross-border time is measured between OE’s
3.7
UNEX™
postal QoS system of IPC which contains several specific modules and is used to measure international
letter service performance between 37 postal operators using test mail methodology, one of which
modules measures the end-to-end postal quality of service for single pieces priority in Europe
4 Symbols and abbreviations
CFC Culler Facer Canceller
DPI dots per inch
FC Facer Cenceller
KPI Key Performance Indicator
OCR Optical Character Recognition
QoS Quality of Service
RFID Radio Frequency Identification Technology
RMM Real Mail Measurement
RoI Return of Investment
SPPM Single Piece Priority Mail
USP Universal Service Provider
5 Existing QoS measurement system
The IPC UNEX™ CEN module measures the transit time of end-to-end services for single piece priority
and first class mail in Europe, according to the standard EN 13850:2012 Postal Services – Quality of
Services – Measurement of the transit time of end-to-end services for single piece priority mail and first
class mail. The measurement is end-to-end from posting in the original country (C) to delivery to the
final addressee in the destination country (I). This includes the time of collection, sorting and
transportation as indicated in Figure 1.

Figure 1 — Postal process from origin country to destination country
This performance measurement monitored since 1994, indicated the percentage of mail flows reaching
the final addressee within J+3 and J+5 after posting. The percentage objectives have been set
respectively to 85 % (J+3) and 97 % (J+5) (see the 1997 European Union on Postal Services Directive
(97/67/EC Directive)).
In order to accurately evaluate these two performances, CEN Test Letters representative of the real mail
streams are produced and panellists located in urban and in rural areas are in charge to record the
posting and receiving dates of these test letters. In addition to this manual operation, there are around
40 % of these test letters with a specific RFID device which can be read automatically when the letter is
under a RFID antenna located at the entrance and at the exit of each sorting centre. That means for
these 40 % of test letters it is possible to record automatically the date when the letter is detected at the
various locations indicated in Figure 1: D E F G H.
In 2016 and 2017, 797 mail flows have been measured between 32 EU countries. There were around
1,200 panellists handling around 66 000 test letters per year.
The following Figure 2 provides the J+3 performance (also identified as speed indicator) across years
since 1997.
Figure 2 — J+3 performance across years
6 Operational measurement
In order to process the cross-border mail flows between EU countries, bilateral agreements between
USP in each country are in place in order to perform the transport from sender to receiver.
The transport between the sender (C) and the receiver (I) requires services to be delivered by each USP
in country A and in country B in addition to the international transport - see Figure 3.
Three different legs have been identified:
— Leg 1 corresponds to the transport from the sender in country A up to the hand-over to the first
carrier for the international transport – ref to segment C to E in Figure 1;
— Leg 2 corresponds to the international transport up from end of Leg 1 up to the hand-over to the
USP of the receiving country B. Multiple carriers may be involved – ref to segment E to F.in Figure 1;
— Leg 3 corresponds to the transport from end of Leg 2 up to the delivery to the addressee in country
B – ref to segment F to I in Figure 1.
Figure 3 — Operational measurement
For the traffic from country A (sender) to country B (receiver), the Operational Responsibility is defined
as the following:
— The Inbound Post B is only responsible for Leg 3;
— Leg 2 which may include multip
...

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