San Francisco, CA, City Carrier Assistant Tin San, left, helps load a postal vehicle for early morning deliveries. photo credit USPS

Update 10/30/14 – Pursuant to Commission Order No. 2224 (issued October 23, 2014), the United States Postal Service hereby provides notice of the effective date of the Customized Delivery market test. The effective date for the Customized Delivery market test will be November 1, 2014.

(October 23, 2014) On September 23, 2014, the Postal Service filed a notice with the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) announcing its intent to conduct a market test of an experimental product called Customized Delivery. Customized Delivery is a package delivery service offering that will provide customers with delivery of groceries and other prepackaged goods, primarily during a 3 a.m. to 7 a.m. delivery window. The Postal Service also requested an exemption from the $10 Million Adjusted Limitation.

The Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) finds that the Customized Delivery market test meets the requirements of 39 U.S.C. § 3641(b) and therefore authorizes the market test to proceed. However, the Commission denies the request for an exemption from the $10 Million Adjusted Limitation as premature due to the lack of financial data to estimate revenues for Customized Delivery. The Postal Service may resubmit its request for an exemption from the $10 Million Adjusted Limitation once it collects and reports to the Commission sufficient data to calculate the total revenue received and estimate the additional revenue anticipated for each fiscal year of the market test.

On August 18, 2014, the Postal Service began conducting operational testing for early morning grocery delivery in 38 ZIP Codes. The operational test involves the retailer dropping groceries packed into branded totes, some of which are chilled or include freezer packs, between 1:30 a.m. and 2:30 a.m. directly into Postal Service destination delivery units (DDU).  The totes, which have a Quick Response (QR) code on the outside, are all the same size and color.  The retailer provides a manifest file to the Postal Service, which contains the address and QR code for each tote. The Postal Service uses this file to dynamically route totes and create a line of travel for each route. City Carrier Assistants (CCAs) use smart phones to scan the totes, which are sorted by route and delivery order and back-loaded onto a truck for delivery. Deliveries occur from 3 a.m. to 7 a.m. and are left in a customer-designated location for delivery. Totes are scanned to provide tracking and visibility from drop-off through delivery. The public can easily recognize CCAs, who wear postal uniforms and lighted caps as safety measures. Id.

During the operational test, the Postal Service delivered an average of 160 totes per day (1 to 4 per applicable address) for the 38 ZIP Codes included in the testing. Through the market test, the Postal Service seeks to test and develop a long-term scalable solution to expand the operational test of Customized Delivery to additional major metropolitan markets nationwide and test other possible delivery windows throughout the day.

The market test is scheduled to begin on or shortly after October 24, 2014 and last for two years.

See full order from Postal Regulatory Commission