CEN/TC 331 - Postal services

This document specifies new methods available to customers from the logistic transportation companies for safe secure and contactless delivery of postal items.
The methods specified in this document provides the senders and the receivers with a proof of receipt or proof that an attempt of delivery was made. It includes methods on how to deliver without having the customer to sign for the delivery.
More specifically, the methods specified in this document cover the process of last mile delivery of postal items, including home delivery and delivery at public places, residential buildings and corporate buildings.
This document describes all delivery methods, including those requiring physical contact, and rank them from a health and safety, and operational point of view.

This European Standard specifies methods for measuring the end-to-end transit-time of domestic and cross-border bulk mail, collected, processed and delivered by postal service operators. It considers methods using representative end-to-end samples for all types of bulk-mail services with defined transit-time service-levels as offered to the postal customer. It specifies a set of minimum requirements for the design of a quality-of-service measurement system for bulk mail, involving the selection and distribution of test mail sent by business senders and received by selected panellists.
This European Standard is applicable to the measurement of end-to-end priority and non-priority bulk-mail services. For the purpose of this standard, bulk mail services can include all types of addressed bulk mail including, but not limited to letter mail, direct mail, magazines and newspapers and encombrant-format mailings.
This European Standard relates to the measurement of bulk-mail services offered to businesses that have pick-ups at their offices or give their mail to postal service operators. If a third party agent acts for the postal operator, then the time the mail is handed over to the agent will form part of the measurement. Where a third party agent acts for the sending customer, the measurement will be from the point when mail is handed over to the postal operator.
This European Standard is of modular structure. It is designed to assess the service performance of postal operators for bulk mail services on the level of a single bulk mailing as defined by the postal customer or any aggregations thereof, including the performance of an individual customer / operator or the performance of a group of customers / operators or the performance at national level.
The standardized QoS measurement-method provides a uniform way for measuring the end-to-end transit time of postal items. Using a standardized measurement-method will ensure that the measurement will be done in an objective and equal way for all operators in accordance with the requirements of the Directive 97/67/EC and its amendments.
The end-to-end service measured may be provided by one operator or by a group of operators working either together in the same distribution chain or parallel in different distribution chains. The method for end-to-end measurement specified in this European Standard is not designed to provide results for the measurement of parts of the distribution chain.
This standard does not include other service performance indicators than those related to end-to-end transit time. In particular, this standard does not measure whether the timings of collections meet customers’ requirements.
The transit-time quality-of-service result will be expressed as percentage of mail delivered by, on or between expected dates. These dates can be defined absolute as calendar-days or relative to the date of induction. The transit time calculation rule will be in whole days.
This quality of service indicator does not measure the postal operator’s overall performance in a way, which provides direct comparison of postal service operators. This European Standard nevertheless provides minimum requirements for the comparability of end-to-end transit-time measurement results of specific bulk mailings.
This European Standard is not applicable for the measurement of end-to-end transit-times of single-piece mail services and hybrid mail, which require different measurement systems and methodologies (see, for example, EN 13850, Postal Services - Quality of Services - Measurement of the transit time of end-to-end services for single piece priority mail and first class mail. (...)

This document establishes a common methodology for the calculation, allocation and declaration of Greenhouse gases (GHGs) as well as air pollutant emissions related to any parcel delivery service.
It only covers a part of the entire retail value chain. The retail value chain usually consists of creating the product, storing the inventory, distributing the goods and making the product available for consumers.
This document includes only the distribution of goods but considers the entire value chain of the parcel transportation process flow, namely the collection and delivery rounds, the trunking and the operations due to processing and the physical handling of parcels. See Figure 1 below for a graphical illustration.

This document defines key terms for postal addressing, postal address components and constraints on their use.
Specifically, this document specifies postal address components organized into three hierarchical levels:
—    elements, such as organization name or postcode, which have well-defined conceptual meaning and are not themselves made up of subordinate components, though they can be sub-divided for technical purposes;
—    constructs, such as organization identification, which group elements into units form a logical portion of a postal address;
—    segments, such as addressee specification, which group related postal address constructs and/or postal address elements into units with a specific defined function.
This document also specifies a mechanism for the creation of sub-elements, which correspond to either sub-divisions of element content, such as door type or door indicator or to multiple occurrences and locations of elements in an address, such as levels of administrative regions.
This document does not specify the length of any component nor the value range of any component.
Moreover, this document specifies the codes to identify elements and sub-elements.
Further, this document specifies postal address rendering rules. This includes:
—    identification and ordering of output lines in a rendered address;
—    conditions for the selection of candidate lines;
—    the order and concatenation of postal address components;
—    required and optional components;
—    parameters to contextualize an address for rendering;
—    the formatting of the components, subject to constraints on the space available for that task.
Postal address rendering rules are represented in this document as a postal address template.
Finally, this document specifies language suitable for computer processing to formally express postal address templates.
This document does not cover the topic of data protection. Users of the document are nevertheless reminded that the storage and exchange of personal data are subject to legislation in many countries.

This document:
- specifies a methodology for the measurement of defined print quality attributes of Digital Postage Marks in the form of two-dimensional bar code symbols on mail-pieces;
- defines methods for grading the results of these measurements and deriving an overall symbol quality grade as a guide to estimating the readability of the Digital Postage Marks;
- provides guidelines for printing and gives information on possible causes of deviation from high grades to assist users in taking appropriate corrective action;
- defines a test procedure for the assessment of printing systems for the production of Digital Postage Marks.
These provisions apply to the Digital Postage Mark blocks as they appear on fully produced mail items when remitted to postal operators, including the characteristics resulting from operations other than printing per se that affect their appearance to a mail processing system (covering, inserts into transparent window envelopes, affixed Digital Postage Mark labels).
This document does not define the qualification tests or sampling requirements necessary to determine the practical feasibility of any specific read rate.
Although this document is not intended for barcodes (other than Digital Postal Marks) which can be printed on mail pieces for item identification or additional services, a similar methodology can be applied.

This European Standard specifies methods for measuring the end-to-end transit time of domestic and cross-border Single Piece Priority Mail (SPPM), collected, processed and delivered by postal service operators. It considers methods using representative end-to-end samples for all types of single piece priority mail services for addressed mail with defined transit-time service levels offered to the customer. This standard is applicable to the measurement of End-to-End priority mail services.
The standardized QoS-measurement method provides a uniform way for measuring the end-to-end transit time of postal items. Using a standardized measurement method will assure that the measurement will be done in an objective and equal way for all operators in accordance with the requirements of the Postal Directive 97/67/EC and its amendments.
This European Standard is mandatory and mainly used for performance measurement connected to requirements of the Universal Postal Service; domestic and international (UNEX).

The scope will be defined during the preliminary stage.

The scope will be defined during the preliminary stage.

This document covers physical properties and characteristics for the packaging for small and light weight postal items to be delivered into the consumer’s letterbox. It covers the main design features for the packaging of letterboxable postal items, notably the sizes and stacking as well as postal and environmental requirements.
This document is targeted to e-retailers and postal operators.

2020-07-08 - TC - Correction of two formats in rows "Item identifier" and "Additional barcode" in Table 1

The objective of this document is to define the framework for secure, trustworthy and user-friendly opening systems for parcel boxes for home use. Particular attention is given to facilitating secure electronic authentication of the delivery operator. This document exists considering the Standardization request M/548 from the European Commission and it aims to solve the lack of operability between parcel box manufacturers and delivery operators.
Therefore, this document describes the minimal requirements of a digital, optional online connected, opening and closing system for parcel boxes and prerequisites to create favourable conditions of interoperability between all market participants.
This document is designed to fit with solutions already on the market and define the good practices and pathway for future systems. It adopts an approach which is open to innovation. It is expected to be possible to achieve the necessary requirements through different technologies.
The systems of opening rights are intended to open parcel boxes as defined in CEN/TS 16819. However, the specification is extended to other receptacle solutions, in the frame of the home use (e.g. garage door, bags, etc.), when these receptacle solutions are compliant with the requirements of CEN/TS 16819 when the case allows.

This document specifies the information exchanges between various parties' infrastructures that take place in support of DPM applications. It complements standards that address the design, security, applications and readability of Digital Postage Marks.
The following items will be addressed by this document:
-   identification of parties participating in exchanges of information described by this document;
-   identification of functions (interactions, use cases);
-   definition of parties’ responsibilities in the context of above functions;
-   definition of messages between parties: message meaning and definition of communication protocols to support each function;
-   definition of significant content (payload) for each message;
-   security mechanisms providing required security services, such as authentication, privacy, integrity and non-repudiation.
This document does not address:
-   design of DPM supporting infrastructure for applications internal to providers and carriers;
-   design of DPM devices and applications for applications internal to end-users.
NOTE   Although there are other communications between various parties involved in postal communications, this document covers only DPM-related aspects of such communications.

This European Standard specifies complaints handling principles related to domestic and international postal services. It applies to both national and cross border services. The standard also gives guidance for compensation and redress procedures.
This European Standard may be applied to all types of postal service both Universal service and non-universal service and by all types of postal organizations. It defines various types of complaints and establishes a methodology for handling complaints in order to improve the service given to postal users. It also gives guidance for complaints handling processes to be set up by postal service providers in order to improve quality of service.
This European Standard provides guidelines beyond the requirements given in ISO 10002 and ISO 9001 in order to consider both the effectiveness and efficiency of a complaint handling process, and consequently the potential for improvement of the performance of an organization. When compared to ISO 9001, the objectives of customer satisfaction and product quality are extended to include the satisfaction of interested parties and the performance of the organization.
This European Standard is applicable to the processes of the organization and consequently the quality management principles on which it is based can be deployed throughout the organization.
It should be noted that the number of complaints received might not be related to the level of service given. A large number of complaints may on the contrary reflect the effectiveness of the postal operator's complaint handling process.

This document will specify the interface between the e-merchant (any commercial customer sending parcels) and the first logistic operator, including both public and private carriers. For the application of this document, a cross border parcel is a parcel crossing a border into and within Europe.
The interface composed on two items:
- the physical label attached on the parcel: contents, sizes, minimum requirements to guarantee the quality and efficiency of the logistic process (sorting, delivery).
- the electronic exchanges between the sender and the logistic operator with the description of the data to be provided, the forma of the exchanges.
While designated operators of UPU have drawn up business requirements using proprietary standards and related data components, online merchants have developed open, not‐for‐profit standards for final delivery which are integrated into their existing supply chain management environment.
The document aims to specify the interface between the e‐merchant (any commercial customer sending parcels) and the first logistic operator composed by incorporating the 3 elements:
- physical label attached to the parcel with information for item identification;
- electronic exchanges between the sender and the logistic operator concerning parcels dispatch;
- data needed for various delivery chain parts, in particular final delivery to the recipient, in order to facilitate exchange between the item‐specific identifiers.
NOTE 1 The last element enables the growth of integrated, data‐driven systems which support highly efficient and customer‐driven cross‐border ecommerce. This reflects the current trend to B‐to‐B‐to‐C delivery solutions in the European and international cross border e‐commerce markets. Delivery from original source to final consumer can be split over more than one service provider.
NOTE 2 C‐to‐B‐to‐B‐to‐C solutions will be an extension, in particular when returns are specified. The “first C” would indicate that consumers wishing to return items, or induct items themselves, will be able to print labels following the fundamentals specified in this standard.
E‐merchant exchange data with logistic operators (i.e. the postal operators, but not limited to those designated to fulfil the rights and obligations of UPU member countries) to help, simplify and enable the consequential logistic and transactional tasks. The establishment of common definitions and electronic formats, safeguards the reliability and decreases the overall costs by avoiding software development costs, multiple printing equipment, over‐labelling during the process, and the manual sorting. reliability and decreases the overall costs by avoiding software development costs, multiple printing equipment, over‐labelling during the process, and the manual sorting.

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.

This document covers physical properties and manufacturing requirements for envelopes having an address window on the flap side. It covers the main design features of the reverse envelope, notably of the flap and address window, and the materials used for the manufacturing thereof. It applies to reverse envelopes with advertising or communication printed on the plain side, eventually on its entire surface.
This document covers empty envelopes, but also finished mailpieces that have been properly inserted, addressed and franked (reversed mailpieces) and are submitted to Postal Operators. In particular, reverse mailpieces will be compliant with relevant Postal standards applicable in the member states.
By extension, these requirements also apply to non-window envelopes used for reverse mailpieces and having the address printed on the flap side.
This document does not apply to:
-   envelopes with a large window on the plain side (opposite to the flap) as these are already common and widely accepted;
-   paper requirements to ensure print quality (except for the postage mark and address) and notably colour rendering.

This European Standard specifies a recommended procedure for the development of specifications for applications of digital postage marks (DPMs) – i.e. applications linked to the use of digital printing and image data capture technologies in the postal industry, most particularly for the evidencing of postage accounting and/or payment. It is not intended to prescribe or to recommend any particular architecture or design for such applications, only to specify the process through which such an architecture or design should be developed.
The document covers only requirements and considerations relating to applications that use digital postage marks, on individual postal items, as a means of communicating data (messages). The clause on design covers only the design of the digital postage marks themselves. It does not cover other aspects of design, including the possible use of other messages, transported by other means (e.g. statements of mailing), to provide for the communication of additional data, even though these might be just as important.

In addition to EN 13850:2012 Postal Services - Quality of Service - Measurement of the transit time of end-to-end services for single piece priority mail and first class mail, this European Standard specifies methods for measuring the end-to-end transit time of domestic and cross-border non-priority single piece mail, collected, processed and delivered by postal service operators. It considers methods using a representative end-to-end sample of all types of single piece addressed letter mail with defined transit-time service levels offered to the customer. This standard is applicable to the measurement of End-to-End single piece non-priority mail services.
This European Standard has been developed from and is compatible with the requirements of EN 13850:2012. As such, surveys for both priority and non-priority single piece mail may be undertaken concurrently while reporting separate estimates of priority and non-priority transit times.
The overall transit time quality-of-service result is to be expressed as the percentage of mail delivered within (J + n) days end-to-end according to the EU Postal directive .
This European Standard relates to the measurement of so-called "normal" services given to private persons / households and smaller businesses that post mail at street letter boxes, over the counter at post offices, have bring services from their offices or give their mail directly at postal service operators’ sorting centres.
For technical reasons this European Standard may not in all parts be suitable for the measurement of very small volumes of mail and for operators with limited coverage.
This European Standard is not applicable for measuring the end-to-end transit time distribution of large bulk mailers’ services or hybrid mail, which require different measurement systems and methodologies; (see, for example, EN 14534 Measurement of the transit time of end-to-end services of bulk mail).

An IDT-PAE interface enables interoperability among several systems and processes by providing specifications to the following requirements:
a)   Data Collection and Transfer:  Specification of data transported from the devices to higher level systems.  There may be more than one permissible protocol referring to different OSI layers. The standard will define where the communication requires polling and where asynchronous messages are used.
   The basis is messages triggered by events.
b)   Data Storage and Format:  Specification how data is formatted and structured. This concerns the choice between XML, CSV, EDI, JSON and other formats including possible binary representations.
c)   Data Model:  Specification of the semantics (meanings) behind the data. This is the most important part and the one of the most important objectives for the specification. This means that conceptual data model and its mapping to the Data Format will be developed. Major focus on specifications level of detail will be placed in order to provide a document that will provide detailed specification information without being too general or too specific.

Method for measurement of parcel transit time for cross-border parcels is mainly from an e-merchant perspective, especially for small and medium-sized companies. Based on an earlier study, the method will be based on events of the track and trace process.
Events used need to be kept simple and transparent for the measurement of the complex matrix of the flows between European countries.
The last part of the process (delivery options) is dependent on the country and on its historical development of postal and logistic operators - this part of the logistics process is currently too complex for simple measurement. Therefore the Technical Specification (TS) will focus on the main part of the process: from entrance (hand over) in the logistics chain to the first attempt of delivery.
(...)
The Technical Specification should:
-   be technically and supplier neutral;
-   not be limited to postal operators but open to all operators transporting parcels;
-   take into account events relevant for the customer’s (sender or receiver) needs;
-   define calculation rules;
-   be easy to implement.
This Technical Specification does not set quality of service standards or targets.

TC origin - Mistakes in cross references

This Technical Specification describes the technical features of parcel boxes for end use. This covers technical features such as size of parcels, ergonomics and safety, corrosion and water penetration resistance and security of delivery.

This Technical Report specifies methods for measuring the quality of a re-forwarding service of domestic addressed mail that is collected, processed and delivered by postal service operators. As a European Standard or technical specification it relates to the measurement of services given to household and business customers who receive mail at their homes, their post office boxes, or at their office premises and have contracted their national Postal Operator (PO) to re-forward their mail for a defined stretch of time to an address that deviates from the one presented on the postal items that are to be delivered to them.
It is not the purpose of this standard to measure the POs performance in a way that provides direct comparison of postal service providers.

The purpose of this Technical Specification is to define the syntax rules for a data stream for the submission of printing data to a Hybrid Mail operator or between Hybrid Mail operators. The Technical Specification defines a XML Schema Definition (XSD) describing the data stream.
The description is based upon the XML (eXtended Mark-up Language) definition of rules and semantics for defining an XSD. The purpose of this is to offer a generalised syntax description that can provide seamless integration with a number of existing applications generating data that is liable to be forwarded to or from a Hybrid Mail operator.
The use of an XSD will ensure that the documents confirm to the standard defined and that the output has the correct syntax. Software manufacturers can use an XSD to program applications that will produce correct outputs.
This Technical Specification defines the syntax for creating a data stream that will eventually be converted into a deliverable. The overall object (a batch) can be divided into one or more objects that again can be divided into objects. The hierarchy includes bundles that contain a common part and letters. Each object has a number of characteristics attached to it.
This diagram shows the structure of a HML (Hybrid Mail Language) document: each letter is self-contained (contains all the necessary information to be delivered on a certain destination).
Each letter can have one contact. Each contact can have multiple alternatives for delivery.
This Technical Specification does not define the specific services offered by local operators (Hybrid Mail operators).
This Technical Specification does not define the communication method used. It does only define the format of Hybrid Mail as such.

This Technical Specification defines a uniform structure and meaning for the information that fully represents postal rates for a broad variety of postal products in all mail categories. The postal rates definition is viewed as an important interface between posts and their customers and as such will benefit from standardization. Such representation of postal rates allows automated systems to uniformly use postal rates as they are introduced for new products or updated for existing postal products by postal operators. A postal rate file (PRF) is an XML document, which fully describes postal products rates. It contains all necessary and sufficient information for both postal operators and their customers to efficiently create, respectively acquire, update and process postal product rates. The structure, types and constraints of XML elements in an XML document are defined by an XML schema. The Extensible Postal Rates (EPR) schema is the XML schema that governs Postal Rate Files.
This Technical Specification contains a complete description of the EPR schema, its hierarchical structure, information types and semantics of its elements.
This Technical Specification neither defines nor constraints how postal rates are created by postal operators but rather provide a powerful and flexible tool that supports efficient rates definition, management and distribution.
This Technical Specification does not define communication protocols that can be used by posts to distribute postal rates files to their customers. Suitable communication protocols are typically well known and already standardized (for example: Web Services, File Transport Protocol, email, etc.). The standard also does not define valuation of postal products as applied by postal operators and their customers.

The purpose of this Technical Specification is to define the requirements of the OCR/VCS Standard interface and to convey these requirements in context to the reader.
This document is arranged under 4 main clauses as described in Figure 1:
-   UCM (Use Case Model) describes the use cases for the IC/ED Interface using sequence diagrams with messages.
-   IDD (Interface Design Description) defines the data model for the IC/ED interface.
-   SDD (System Design Description) defines the mandatory specification of the IC/ED interface in terms of architecture, services and behavioural models. In the Common Part of this clause no middleware or transport layer is specified. The common part of this clause is intended to be middleware-independent.
-   SDD-TCP/IP, SDD-CORBA, in these specialized clauses. The specifications for 2 compatible transport solutions TCP/IP, CORBA are provided. Further middleware solutions (such as SOAP) can be added when available, provided that they are fully compatible with the Common Part.
As shown on Figure 2, there are many interfaces from an Enrichment Device to the rest of the system. This document is only concerned with the Mailpiece Processing part of the complete Standard Interface.
The mailpiece processing is concerned with the passing of a mailpiece to an Enrichment Device for processing.
Figure 3 depicts the system model of an Enrichment Device. As visible on the figure, an Enrichment Device is one of:
-   an OCR:
a single or a pool of automatic recognition and interpretation engines, which are capable of retrieving information from an image of a mailpiece without human intervention;
-   a VCS:
a single or a pool of video coding desks, which produce results from images of mailpieces; all tasks related to the management of the coders and the coding desks are encapsulated within the VCS system, or are accessible via interfaces which are outside the scope of the interface described within this document;
-   a Voter:
a system which can determine the most appropriate result for a mailpiece using data and/or an image of a mailpiece; typically, a voter determines the most appropriate result from two or more results.
This document therefore covers the Mailpiece Processing interface between the Image Controller and the Enrichment Devices.
The document describes the requirements in the case of real-time enrichment: operational mode of an Enrichment Device, where the ED replies within the specified expiration time to the IC; the IC has to keep track of all mailpieces waiting for a reply from an ED. The ED does not keep persistence of mailpieces outside a channel connection with the IC. The ED has to have the processing power available to enrich a mailpiece. There is one and only one response for a mailpiece.
A later version of the document shall describe the case of deferred enrichment: operational mode of an Enrichment Device, where the ED may pre-request mailpieces from the IC. The ED has to keep persistence of the mailpiece to enrich it later and keep the result available for a result request from the IC. There is no response expected by IC from the ED.
The interface between Image Controller and Image Controller is NOT part of this document.
Furthermore, there may be many IC connected to many ED’s, as shown in the following object model:
The submission strategy in case of one IC connected to many ED’s is not part of the interface. It is for optimizing the mail flow in case of identical ED’s, or for defining the order in which different ED’s are activated (cascaded versus parallel submission).
The submission strategy of the IC shall be part of the specification and certification of the IC, which is not part of this document.

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.

This European Standard specifies the requirements and the test methods of the apertures for the delivery of letter post items when fitted in accordance with the manufacturer's instructions.
It takes into account security, impregnability, safety and performance for the recipient, and ergonomics and efficiency for delivery personnel. It allows the daily delivery in good condition of a great majority of letter post items.

This Technical Specification constitutes the functional specification of a secure electronic postal service, referred to as the postal registered electronic mail or PReM service. PReM provides a trusted and certified electronic mail exchange between mailer, postal operators and addressee/mailee. In addition, evidence of corresponding events and operations within the scope of PReM will be generated and archived for future attestation.
The PReM service is defined by reference to the concepts, schemas and operations defined in CEN/TS 15121-1:2011. It utilises six SePS operational verbs (CheckIntegrity, LogEvent, Postmark, RetrieveResults, Sign and Verify) and the five additional server-side operational verbs (SendMessagetoDestination, Subscribe Notification, UnscbscribeNotification, RejectMessage and ReceiveNotification) to fulfil the operational requirements of a PReM System.
Return of Investment (ROI), market potential, revenues model, business plan and pricing policy are outside the scope of this functional specification. Postal operators are advised to make the necessary marketing study and research prior to considering leasing, procuring or developing such a PReM system in accordance with this functional specification.

This Technical Specification specifies the sort plan file content and structure. It does not deal with other configuration files in sorting machines nor is it applicable to the transport mechanism.
The content of a sort plan allows the specification of the following capabilities:  
-   sorting by address and non-address attributes;
-   sorting of code ranges;
-   sorting of rejects;
-   support of display and label texts;
-   dynamic outlet groups;
-   sorting to more than one outlet;
-   overflow handling;
-   support of cut off time before dispatch;
-   sequence sorting;
-   provide volume information (option);
-   support of Cards;
-   possibility to add simple manufacturer specific information;
-   support of various sort code formats and non-address attributes;
-   support of various display and label formats;
-   check against characteristics of the sorting machine.

This Technical Specification specifies a methodology that allows postal operators to define specific statements of mailing submission customised according to their environment and applications.
The document defines information requirements for existing generic postal information processing applications related to major postal functions, namely operations, finance and marketing by specifically identifying the information that could be collected within the mailer’s domain and transmitted to the postal domain.
In addition, this document defines the organisation of data into messages by describing data content, format and communication protocol suitable for communication of data originating in the mailer’s domain.
The specification also provides a detailed analysis and recommendations for implementing application level security threats and countermeasures particularly relevant for postal revenue protection in controlled mail entry settings.
Finally, this document provides several examples of concrete statements of mailing submissions and an example of a secure communication protocol recommended for transmission of such statements.
NOTE   The SMS describes letter mail or flats that are submitted for distribution and would not deal explicitly with content of letters or flats whether it concerns customs or any other party that could in principle be interested in knowing the content of these mail units.

This Technical Specification describes the “Open Standard Interface between Image Processor, Machine Control and Image Controller” (IP/MC/IC Interface) in the context of postal automation equipment.
The following architectural overview is the basis for this interface standardization:
It was agreed to unify the interfaces between
a) Image Processor and Image Controller,
b) Image Processor and Machine Control and
c) Machine Control and Image Controller
and to produce one common specification for this so-called IP/MC/IC Interface.
The communication partners of this interface will be called Machine or Machine Control (MC) on the one side and Reading/Coding (RC) System on the other side.
There may be several instances of this interface, depending on the implementation of the MC and the connected RC.
NOTE   interfaces for synchronizing the lifted images with their mailpiece_IDs provided by the machine are not shown in the figure above and are not subject of standardization within the first release of this interface.
From the customer point of view the following two scenarios are relevant. The systems MACHINE and RC SYSTEM are to be considered as "black boxes" thus not detailing internal system structure and interfaces.
1) The Machine already includes Camera and Image Processor and will be connected to a 3rd-party RC System including Image Controller and Enrichment Devices.
2) The Machine will be connected to a 3rd-party RC System including Camera, Image Processor, Image Controller and Enrichment Devices. The Camera and (possibly) the Image Processor will have to be mechanically integrated into the machine.
NOTE   The camera can be provided by any 3rd-party. This should not impede on the IP/MC/IC interfaces !
This standard is arranged under 4 main clauses as described in Figure 4.
- UCM (Use Case Model) describes the use cases for the IP/MC/IC Interface using sequence diagrams with messages.
- IDD (Interface Design Description) defines the data model (...)

This European Standard specifies the performance requirements and testing methods for standard letter mail trays, as specified in the classification below. The trays should be used to facilitate the exchange of international mail. The technical specification of the trays should be such that the performance requirements specified herein are met and tests specified herein successfully completed. The technical specifications of trays as such however, are beyond the scope of this standard.
This standard covers a one-size universal letter mail tray suitable for carrying C4, C5 and C6 mail:
Table 1 - Letters (maximum accepted sizes)
   Height   Width
C4   353 mm   250 mm
C5   173 mm   250 mm
C6   120 mm   250 mm
The trays are suitable for containing C4 mail stacked in a horizontal plane and for stacking C5 and C6 mail vertically.

This document specifies a standard XML interface that will enable software applications to call a secured electronic postal service (SePS), provided by a postal service, which is based on the concepts, schemas and operations described herein.
The specification provides:
-   a definition of standard operations which can be combined to support secured electronic postal services;
-   a full description of all mandatory and optional request parameters required for use of these operations;
-   a full description of all response elements and the detailed circumstances under which they are returned.
The specification also describes the functionality and edit rules of the actual technical specification artifacts, which are represented by an XML Schema (XSD) and an associated Web Services Definition Language (WSDL) specification. The versions of these applicable at the date of publication of this version of the specification are contained in this document as Annex A and Annex B respectively. These can also be obtained in electronic format from the UPU Technical Standards CD-ROM or from the UPU Standards Secretariat.
In case of any conflict between Annex A and other provisions of this specification, Annex A shall be regarded as definitive.
The SePS schema specification in Annex A is discreet and version specific. Postal Services are free to select which discrete interface versions they support. However, except in the case of upgrades to V1.15 adopted to ensure cross-border compatibility, postal services who upgrade from older versions of the schema (e.g. from V1.14) to a newer one are required to support backward compatibility of previously supported versions of the SePS interface specification as it applies to both processing requests/responses and honoring previously issued PostMarkedReceipts. Individual posts are free to address this backward compatibility challenge as they see fit.
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This document specifies a secured electronic postal service, referred to as the Electronic Postal Certification Mark (EPCM) service, which provides a chain of evidence, stored by an administration as a trusted third party, to prove the existence of an electronic event, for a certain content, at a certain date and time, and involving one or more identified parties.
The service is defined by reference to the concepts, schemas and operations defined in
CEN/TS 15121-1, Postal Services - Hybrid Mail - Part 1: Secured electronic postal services (SePS) interface specification - Concepts, schemas and operations. It requires support for five core SePS operations and permits optional support seven others.
This version of the specification does not cover:
-   a description of the issues surrounding inter-operability between multiple postal SePS implementations when a business transaction Lifecycle requires the participation of more than one SePS implementation in a cross-border scenario involving two or more postal services;
-   issues surrounding SePS usage in a ‘multiple Certificate Authority’ scenario where inter-operating posts are participating in a cross-border transaction as described above;
-   examination of "Certificate Authority deployment model" alternatives necessitated by the cross-border scenarios described above.

This part of the Technical Specification defines the representation of ID-tags as a 62-position bar-no-bar code (BNB-62) printed in fluorescent ink in area R1 on the reverse side of items.
BNB-62 encoding is one of two encoding specifications supported by this Technical Specification  ) for the printing of ID-tags in area R1, the other being BNB-78, which is specified in CEN/TS 15844-2.
NOTE 1   Representation in the form of a 4-state code printed on the front of the item is covered in CEN/TS 15844-4 for flats and CEN/TS 15844-5 for small letters.
BNB-62 encoding is authorised for use only by three issuers: An Post (Ireland), Canada Post and USPS. It should be encountered, on incoming items, only on mail items which originated in Canada, Ireland or the United States. Other issuers wishing to apply ID-tags in area R1 are required to use the BNB-78 encoding defined in CEN/TS 15844-2.
NOTE 2   ID-tags encoded in area R1 are required by article RL 123 of the UPU Letter Post Regulations [2] to be compliant with UPU standard S18 - and by this with the related CEN/TS 15844. This supports only two encodings in area R1, namely BNB-78 as defined in CEN/TS 15844-2 and BNB-62 as defined herein. The latter is authorised for continued use only by the three issuers mentioned above. Where ID-tags are used, and are applied in area R1 on the reverse side of letter mail items of size up to and including C5, the use of BNB-78 encoding is mandatory for all other issuers.
NOTE 3   BNB-62 encoding is not considered suitable for use on flats. CEN/TS 15844-4 defines a 4-state encoding which may be used for this purpose.

This part of the Technical Specification defines the representation of ID-tags as a Postal-4i symbology 4-state bar code printed on the front side of small letters.
Postal-4i symbology 4-state encoding is the only encoding specification supported by this Technical Specification  ) for the printing of ID-tags on the front of items.
NOTE   Representation in the form of fluorescent BNB bar codes printed on the reverse side of small letters (not flats) is covered in CEN/TS 15844-2 and CEN/TS 15844-3.

This part of the Technical Specification defines the representation of ID-tags as a 78-position bar-no-bar code (BNB-78) printed in fluorescent ink in area R1 on the reverse side of items.
BNB-78 encoding is one of two encoding specifications supported by this Technical Specification  ) for the printing of ID-tags in area R1, the other being BNB-62, which is specified in CEN/TS 15844-3.
NOTE 1   Representation in the form of a 4-state code printed on the front of the item is covered in CEN/TS 15844-4 for flats and CEN/TS 15844-5 for small letters.
BNB-78 encoding supersedes the earlier specified BNB-62 encoding and shall be applied in all cases in which ID-tags are placed in area R1 on the reverse side of letter mail items of size up to and including C5, by issuers other than those explicitly authorised to continue use of BNB-62 encoding, namely An Post (Ireland), Canada Post and United States Postal Service.
NOTE 2   ID-tags encoded in area R1 are required by article RL 123 of the UPU Letter Post Regulations [1] to be compliant with UPU standard S18 – and by this with the related CEN/TS 15844. This supports only two encodings in area R1, namely BNB-78 as defined herein and BNB-62 as defined in CEN/TS 15844-3. The latter is authorised for continued use only by the three issuers mentioned above. Where ID-tags are used, and are applied in area R1 on the reverse side of letter mail items of size up to and including C5, the use of BNB-78 encoding is mandatory for all other issuers.
NOTE 3   BNB-78 encoding is not considered suitable for use on flats. CEN/TS 15844-4 defines a 4-state encoding which may be used for this purpose.

This Technical Specification  ) defines the information content, structure and possible printed representations of the S18 ID-tag  ). This is an identifier for individual mail items which:
   is globally unique;
   can be applied to any item which is not already ID-tagged by any postal administration (or other issuer) which previously processed the item;
NOTE 1   The S18 ID-tag provides a standard means of ID-tagging which can be applied on a world-wide basis, allowing inter-administration mail items to be encoded without risk of disruption of the automated system of the delivery post. It may be applied to any size of item.
   can be read, with a high degree of reliability, by any postal handling organisation possessing appropriate equipment.
NOTE 2   ID-tags are encoded on items using a bar code symbology. As with any other form of bar code, poor quality printing, ink smudging, damage to the item, etc., can result in read errors. The S18 ID-tag encoding specifications incorporate an error protection mechanism to allow detection and correction of a large proportion of such errors.
The S18 ID-tag defined in this Technical Specification may be placed on items so that, in subsequent processing, individual items can be recognised and associated with computer-based information relating to the item concerned.
NOTE 3   Items need not be ID-tagged if this is not required for processing purposes, though it is anticipated that the use made of ID-tagging will increase. Examples of ID-tag applications are given in Clause 7.
Whilst being generally applicable to domestic mail, the specification has been designed to allow the encoding of cross-border mail and to support its application in the automated processing of such mail.
NOTE 4   UPU regulations prevent the encoding of information on the bottom 15 mm strip on the front of international letter mail. (...)

This part of the Technical Specification defines the representation of ID-tags as a Postal-4i symbology 4-state bar code printed on the front side of flats. Many of the provisions are applicable also to small letters and are therefore referenced by Part 5 of the specification (CEN/TS 15844-5), which covers these.
Postal-4i symbology 4-state encoding is the only encoding specification supported by this Technical Specification  ) for the printing of ID-tags on the front of items.
NOTE   Representation in the form of fluorescent BNB bar codes printed on the reverse side of small letters (not flats) is covered in CEN/TS 15844-2 and CEN/TS 15844-3.

This document defines a file format for the generation of postal address directories. It is designed to hold all information necessary to support address reading software including data required for forwarding applications. In typical postal automation systems these files will be processed by directory generation software which creates application specific loadable data. This data – usually referred to as operational directory – is heavily compressed and contains access tables tailored for the specific reading software.
Not in the scope of this document are topics external to file like compression, checksums, the interface for transmission to the supplier, modification permissions, error handling on inconsistent data and undo in updates.

This Technical Report takes into account the existing systems for measuring access to postal services and the targets that are already in use in member states. To get an understanding of the existing systems regarding population coverage, a questionnaire entitled “Methodology for the Measurement of Distance to postal Access Points” was circulated to postal operators and postal regulators (see Annex A).

In applying the European postal directives (97/67/CE and 2002/39/CE), standards regarding the quality of service are to be set and published in relation to the universal services. With the development of the internal market, these standards aim to ensure a better quality of universal services in Europe.
In this context, a project team was mandated (mandate M/312) by the European commission to develop a European standard or standards relating to the quality of access to postal services and to the quality of postal delivery. The work item was under the control of CEN technical committee 331.  A report was produced by the project team which identified information availability with regard to access and delivery as a priority for standard development.  
This Technical Specification is intended to provide a measurement methodology to assess information availability using desk research and a Mystery Shopper Approach.  The Technical Specification does not intend to impose service commitments.  
Information is considered to be one of the key steps in accessing postal services and postal users need to have information available on the proposed services as well as the applicable conditions for access. Increasing the level of information available will inevitably reduce complaints, resulting in improved customer satisfaction and higher overall customer loyalty.

This Technical Specification defines a mechanism for the unique identification of individual receptacles. It specifies the method of construction of the identifier, referred to as the receptacle asset number, and defines one required and a number of optional methods by which this identifier can be associated with (affixed to) the receptacle itself.
The receptacle asset number is defined in accordance with the specification of ISO/IEC 15418 data identifier number 5B, which defines a Receptacle Asset Number or container identifier constructed in accordance with the hierarchical principles defined in ISO/IEC 15459.
The specification also identifies a number of receptacle attributes, or characteristics, which it may be useful to communicate between parties making use of the receptacle concerned.
A coded representation of one of these attributes - equipment qualifier - is integrated into the structure of the receptacle asset number. The others are not defined in detail in this document. Precise definitions and encoding formats for them will be developed over time, as a result of practical experience of use of the specification. The definitions will be included in an appropriate reference specification, such as UPU standards S25 [17] and M82 [10], which serve as baseline definition documents for attributes used in postal industry communications about postal items, mail aggregates and receptacles.
The application of this specification is voluntary in the sense that receptacles are not required to be individually identified.
NOTE 1   Not all receptacles need to have a receptacle identifier. In particular, in today's environment, mailbags and disposable trays are not normally identified explicitly - rather their contents are. Many posts are, however, starting to individually identify more valuable receptacles and this practice is expected to spread, including to trays, as the advantages of being able to individually track and control receptacle movement become more appa

This document specifies methods for measuring the level of loss and substantial delay, using a survey of test letters, of domestic and cross-border priority and first class single piece letter mail, collected, processed and distributed by postal service operators.
It is impossible in practice to distinguish between items which will never arrive and items which have been delayed for a very long time. A minimum period is therefore defined after which an item that has been sent shall be treated as if it has been lost or substantially delayed for the purposes of measurement.
The resulting overall figure for loss and substantial delay is to be expressed as a percentage of the total posted priority and first class single piece mail. This indicator does not measure the postal operator's overall performance in a way which provides direct comparison of postal service operators, and does not include other service performance indicators other than those related to loss and substantial delay.
According to this document, loss and substantial delay is estimated within specified accuracy limits. When the level of loss is very small it may only be possible to estimate an upper limit for the level of loss.
This document has been developed from and is compatible with the requirements of EN 13850 for the measurement of the transit time of end-to-end services for single piece priority mail and first class mail, so that the same survey may be used to measure loss and substantial delay and on-time performance. Thus it comprises a set of requirements for the design of a measuring system involving the selection and distribution of test letters sent and received by selected panellists, according to a specification that ensures that the test letter sample design is representative of the real mail flows.

This Technical Specification defines a set of physical marks called Address Block Locators (ABLs). ABLs are marks, printed in the vicinity of addresses on postal items, that are intended to facilitate automatic recognition of address location and processing of the addresses on mail sorting and video-coding equipment.
The Technical Specification describes two families of ABLs which may be printed on all types of postal items, including letters, flats and parcels.
In the first family, address block locators take the form of pictograms which bear no other information than being a landmark for the address block. One such pictogram is defined herein for use in association with the delivery address block. It may be printed at the same time as the address or pre-printed on an envelope, an insert, or a label, with the address being printed, on the same physical support, at a later stage.
The second family covers address block locators which contain an encoded specification of the address block type and location and which can also be used for encoding other data, not directly related to address block location. Such data may include addressee or postal item identifiers, routing data, non-delivery instructions, a return address and references or other data which are relevant for either the mailer or the addressee. It may also include address checking data which may be used to verify correct interpretation of the printed address by the OCR system. In this family, three types of ABL are defined: one based on a pattern of alphanumeric characters; one on a linear bar code and one based on two-dimensional symbologies. These locators can be applied to the delivery address block and to forwarding or return address blocks. They will normally be printed within the same process as the address itself.
The Technical Specification is intended to be used by:
-   mailers, during the production of mail;
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The purpose of this Technical Specification is to define a facing identification mark (FIM), with procedures for its use, which can be used by any postal operator. It is primarily addressed to those postal operators that have not yet implemented the use of FIMs for automated facing and has been designed to minimise conflict with FIM marks that are already in use. Nevertheless, operators with existing FIMs are encouraged to consider support for migration onto this Technical Specification as and when they upgrade or replace facing equipment.
Use of the standard FIM offers the possibility for automated preparation of letters which do not carry a stamp and which arrive, in a postal facility, without being faced. These items can them be included in the domestic and international mechanised streams of mail.
This Technical Specification allows facer-cancellers and culler-facer-cancellers (or other automated equipment supporting the mail preparation function), to detect bar code-type marks enabling those machines to face and cancel items carrying the FIM. Through the incorporation of a coded value, called the FIM-code, this Technical Specification also supports segregation of FIM-marked items into up to 18 separate streams. This capability can be used to facilitate revenue control by allowing items to be segregated according the type of revenue control procedure required. For example, Business Reply items could be separated and allow accounting and cancellation to take place before, rather than after, the items are transported to their delivery office. This would simplify controls designed to prevent the sending of business reply items to addresses in other countries. However, it should be recognized that FIMs have no in-built security and an item may carry an inappropriate FIM code, resulting in it being placed in the wrong processing stream. Hence, in particular, the FIM alone cannot be relied upon as providing evidence of payment.

This document provides guidelines for printing addresses on mail items. These guidelines apply to addresses printed on mail items whose size is up to and including C5. It may also be applied to oversize items, commonly referred to as C5+. The address blocks covered are the addressee address block and the sender address block if they are both on the same side of the item. Otherwise, only the addressee address block is covered. Guidelines related to address lines are relevant for all lines in an address block.

This document covers physical properties and manufacturing requirements for envelopes having an address window and the flap on the front side once the flap has been sealed, hereafter the flap side. It covers the main design features of the reverse envelope, notably of the flap and address window, and the materials used for the manufacturing thereof. It applies to reverse envelopes with advertising or communication printed on the plain side, eventually on its entire surface.
This document covers empty envelopes, but also finished mailpieces that have been properly inserted, addressed and franked (reverse mailpieces) and are submitted to Postal Operators. In particular, reverse mailpieces will be compliant with relevant Postal standards applicable in the member states.
By extension, these requirements also apply to non-window envelopes used for reverse mailpieces and having the address printed on the flap side.
This document does not apply to:
-   envelopes with a large window on the plain side (opposite to the flap) as these are already common and widely accepted,
-   paper requirements to ensure print quality (except for the postage mark and address) and notably colour rendering.

The scope of this document is the forward flow of E-Commerce items. Starting point is arrival at a lo-gistic service provider, end point is the final delivery, or at least the attempt to final delivery.
The returns flows, either caused by unsuccessful delivery, "return to sender" or as a service for recipi-ents to send a received shipment back, are not covered by the forward events. To keep this document unambiguous and easy to understand, these return flows are excluded. Return flows may be covered in a separate technical specification.
Not in scope are the logistical flows within the facilities of the producers and sellers of the items. These fall outside the responsibility of the CEN/TC 331 domain.
Excluded as well, are all events necessary for an LSP to track items within its own facilities. It is up to the LSP how to run its business, and internal standards are in place for the management of internal process-es. Internal events are considered to be of no interest to a recipient, with the exception of some of the last mile events which are mentioned later in this document.