CEN/TR 16706:2014
(Main)Postal Services - Quality of Service - Measurement of incorrect delivery - Feasibility Report
Postal Services - Quality of Service - Measurement of incorrect delivery - Feasibility Report
A feasibility study has been performed to see whether a standard for this subject can be developed. CEN/TC331 decided it was not feasible but the results should be kept therefore the report is transferred into a Technical Report.
Registered postal items contain - by nature - important messages or goods. Any of such items, which may be delivered to a person not being authorized to receive them may cause substantial problems, even if the correct addressee receives it afterwards. The knowledge of the quality performed by the operator would therefore give the customer an indication, to which extend registered postal items are delivered.
It was originally aimed to specify requirements for a method and its implementation aiming at measuring another aspect of the quality of delivery. It deals specifically with registered postal items delivered to someone not authorized to get them.
Messung fehlerhafter Zustellung - Machbarkeitsstudie
Services postaux - Qualité de service - Mesure de la livraison erronée - Rapport de faisabilité
Poštne storitve - Kakovost storitev - Merjenje napačne dostave pošiljke - Poročilo o izvedljivosti
Tehnično poročilo CEN/TR 16706 zagotavlja rezultate študije o izvedljivosti za ugotavljanje, ali bi se lahko pripravil evropski standard za merjenje napačne dostave pošiljke. Tehnični odbor CEN/TC 331 se je odločil, da evropski standard ni izvedljiv, vendar naj bi se rezultati ohranili, poročilo pa preneslo v to tehnično poročilo.
General Information
Standards Content (Sample)
SLOVENSKI STANDARD
01-oktober-2014
3RãWQHVWRULWYH.DNRYRVWVWRULWHY0HUMHQMHQDSDþQHGRVWDYHSRãLOMNH3RURþLOR
RL]YHGOMLYRVWL
Postal Services - Quality of Service - Measurement of incorrect delivery - Feasibility
Report
Messung fehlerhafter Zustellung - Machbarkeitsstudie
Services postaux - Qualité de service - Mesure de la livraison erronée - Rapport de
faisabilité
Ta slovenski standard je istoveten z: CEN/TR 16706:2014
ICS:
03.240 Poštne storitve Postal services
2003-01.Slovenski inštitut za standardizacijo. Razmnoževanje celote ali delov tega standarda ni dovoljeno.
TECHNICAL REPORT
CEN/TR 16706
RAPPORT TECHNIQUE
TECHNISCHER BERICHT
July 2014
ICS 03.240
English Version
Postal Services - Quality of Service - Measurement of incorrect
delivery - Feasibility Report
Services postaux - Qualité de service - Mesure de la Messung fehlerhafter Zustellung - Machbarkeitsstudie
livraison erronée - Rapport de faisabilité
This Technical Report was approved by CEN on 7 June 2014. 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, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania,
Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, 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: Avenue Marnix 17, B-1000 Brussels
© 2014 CEN All rights of exploitation in any form and by any means reserved Ref. No. CEN/TR 16706:2014 E
worldwide for CEN national Members.
Contents Page
Foreword .3
1 Scope .4
2 Normative References .4
3 Summary of Feasibility Study .4
4 Feasibility Study .5
4.1 Introduction .5
4.2 Clarification of ToR and Rationale from the Project .6
4.3 Set up our Working Plan according the ToR and Rationale .7
4.4 Results of previous research about measurement incorrect delivery .8
4.5 Some initial definitions about basic terms and process .9
4.5.1 Introduction .9
4.5.2 What is incorrect delivery? .9
4.5.3 What is delivery of registered postal item? .9
4.5.4 Who is the recipient (addressee)? . 10
4.5.5 Who can be an authorized person? . 10
4.5.6 What is the role (and influence) of address and addressing on correct delivery? . 10
4.5.7 How should one correct process of delivery look like? . 10
4.6 Main issues which arise from our research . 12
4.6.1 Introduction . 12
4.6.2 Technical view . 12
4.6.3 Legal view . 12
4.6.4 Economic view . 13
4.7 Conclusion . 13
4.7.1 General . 13
4.7.2 Merging PT-E and PT-F . 13
4.7.3 Recommendations for future research. 14
4.8 Literature . 14
Annex A (informative) Measurement of wrong delivery and correct notification . 16
A.1 Background . 16
A.2 Project features . 16
Foreword
This document (CEN/TR 16706:2014) 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 [and/or CENELEC] shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.
1 Scope
This Technical Report provides the results of a feasibility study to determine whether a European Standard for
the measurement of incorrect delivery could be developed. CEN/TC331 decided a European Standard was
not feasible but that the results should be kept and the report transferred into this Technical Report.
NOTE 1 At the end of 2011, TC/331/WG1 established Project Team F to research the measurement of incorrect
delivery in accordance with the tender “RENEWED open call for project team experts for the execution of the work called
for in the grant agreement SA/CEN/ENTR/EFTA/428/2009-06 Postal Services - Elaboration and adoption of standards
documents in the EU and EFTA”. The Working Plan of PT F was approved at the plenary meeting of CEN/TC 331 in
December 2011.
NOTE 2 According to the Working plan, PT-F presented to the TC/331/WG1 a first report at the meeting in Belgrade in
March 2012. PT-F expressed the opinion that the development of a standard was not feasible and that they suspected that
a standardization document would not produce the expected results, that is a reduction in the number of incorrectly
delivered postal items. PT-F highlighted that such a measurement system had no capability to recognize and record when
a real event occurred (only when the sender and/or the receiver submitted a complaint), and therefore it will be unreliable.
PT-F also mentioned the difficulty in finding existing and feasible measurement methods which would reliably measure
such rare events.
NOTE 3 In an open discussion with WG1 members at the March 2012 meeting, PT-F also mentioned a previous
Feasibility Study and other research which came to the same conclusion that such a measurement is not feasible. PT-F
and WG1 proposed to TC331 to adopt the feasibility study on “Measurement of incorrect delivery” at the Plenary Meeting
in Ljubljana in May 2012.
2 Normative References
None.
3 Summary of Feasibility Study
The task has been to produce a feasibility study for measurement of incorrect delivery. PT-F focused on the
following two issues:
— how to find an appropriate measurement system and a measurement method; and
— how to find a unambiguous and clear definition for incorrect delivery which will be unanimously accepted.
An appropriate measurement system is very difficult to establish as it shall be able to recognize incorrect
deliveries in amongst mail that has been correctly delivered. Use of customer complaint data would not
provide a reliable estimate as the intended recipient may not be aware an item has been incorrectly delivered.
A method by which it would be feasible to measure the number of incorrect deliveries is almost impossible to
define, because these are rare events. Some indicators suggest that incorrect delivery occurs once in 100000,
or more, correct deliveries (according to available data from EN 14012). Although a number of approaches
were discussed, with those which are currently used in the postal measurements (test mail and real mail);
telephone studies, field studies and others in social research, PT-F concluded that there is no one feasible
method to measure such rare events.
The definition of incorrect delivery is directly related to any deviation from the correct delivery. Because the
definitions and procedures for correct delivery vary by country PT-F was faced with many differences when
they tried to propose a common definition for the term “incorrect delivery”.
Incorrect delivery may have two aspects: delivery to an unauthorized person, which is usually regulated by
national postal legislation, and the improper procedure of confirmation, which postal operators usually define
with product and service manuals. Who can be the authorized person is difficult to define and may differ for
every country due to different legal systems and numerous national legislations. A further complication is that
it is often difficult to determine who has been responsible for an incorrectly delivery. For example, if the sender
wrongly addressed the postal item, and the postman delivers that item as addressed, is it a correct or an
incorrect delivery? When an unwanted event happens there is an obligation to determine who was responsible
for the incorrect delivery; the sender or the postman or even an objective circumstance. However, this means
that it is necessary to separately assess each event before it can be determined that it is an incorrect delivery.
To conclude, if it is impossible to build a measurement system that will identify each unwanted event when it
happens, if it is impossible to find an acceptable method by which such rare event can be measured, if it is
impossible to determine at the time of the event who is responsible for the incorrect delivery, if it is impossible
to find a common definition of who can be authorized person in numerous postal legislative acts,., then this is
why it was concluded that the measurement of incorrect delivery was not an appropriate topic for a standard.
In accordance with the conclusion, it should be noted that the previous feasibility studies all rejected the
possibility of developing a standards for the measurement of incorrect delivery. In this sense, we wish to note
that we reviewed a lot of postal studies, legal acts and standards where we found direct and indirect support
for that conclusion. Finally, let's look at the reasons why it’s impossible to continue this project from technical,
legislative and economic points of view.
From a technical point of view, it is difficult to find an adequate method for measuring the number of incorrect
deliveries because it is a very rare event. Also, it is very hard to set up a recognizing system which would be
responsible for detection of all unwanted events. Now, systems count only events when the sender or the
addressee complain about incorrect delivery, which NPO collects using EN 14012, and where he
determinates the responsibility and yearly publishes the cumulative results.
From a legal point of view, it is not possible to provide a common definition for the event of incorrect delivery
due to different legislative systems and the large number of different postal legislative solutions. Neither is it
possible to standardize who could be the authorized persons for all countries or how the procedure of
notification for all postal operators be consistently performed? Therefore, how can we measure events that we
do not know for sure have occurred?
From an economic point of view any solution, which includes standardization documents, would be very
expensive without clear benefits for customers, regulators or operators. Also, our consideration suggests that
quality postal inspection or supervision could be a better solution for resolving rare cases of incorrect delivery
than measurement.
Therefore, our final conclusion based on technical, legal, economic and other aspects is that a continuation of
the project “measurement of incorrect delivery” is not feasible.
4 Feasibility Study
4.1 Introduction
The main task of when preparing a feasibility study (FS) is to investigate the positive and negative results of a
planned project before it starts. In other words, for developing the FS it is necessary to review legal,
economic, technical and other factors, according to a project’s Terms of Reference (ToR), in order to
objectively identify the strengths and weaknesses of the proposed investment and the prospects for success.
Therefore in the FS we first tried to explain most important parts of project “ToR and Rationale” which we
received with the Agreement and basic concept of our Work Plans, wh
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