It may not be something that Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe and his COO Megan Brennan are likely to take credit for in public, but the U.S. Postal Service has become very good at closing and consolidating postal facilities. So good, in fact, that when Donahoe announced in June that the Postal Service would begin implementation of Phase 2 of its Network Rationalization Plan, mailers reacted with a yawn. The Phase 1 shutdown of 141 mail processing facilities completed in 2013 barely caused a ripple in their on-time delivery rates, and they’re expecting more of the same this time around.

“Service levels actually improved in the year following the implementation of Phase 1,” says Hamilton Davison, president and executive director of the American Catalog Mailers Association (ACMA). Indeed, the Postal Regulatory Commission’s Annual Performance Report, released in July, put 2013 on-time rates for three ranges of Presort First Class at or above 2012 levels. Ninety-seven percent of overnight and two-day mail was on time, as was 95% of three- to five-day mail. (Standard Mail rates are not reviewed.)

Facilities to be closed include processing and distribution centers, network distribution centers, airmail centers, and logistics and distribution centers. As a result, the average time it takes First Class Mail to reach its destination will increase from an average of 2.14 days to 2.25 days. USPS claimed, however, that speed of package delivery will not be affected. It also noted that the load-leveling plan it initiated earlier this year for presort mailers would not in any way be affected by Phase 2 closures.

82 More Postal Facilities to Close; Mailers Expect Not to Notice – Direct Marketing News

USPS sets date for implementation of Network Rationalization, Phase II