USPS Fascinating Facts

Occasionally we like to lighten things up a bit by providing you with some fun, little-known facts about the United States Postal Service® (USPS®).

Enjoy!

Post Office Facts

• The largest post office: James A. Farley Post Office, New York NY - 393,000 square feet
• The smallest post office: Ochopee, FL - 61.3 square feet
• Oldest post office in the same building: Hinsdale NH, since 1816
• Second oldest post office: Castine ME, since 1833
• The coldest post office is in the North Slope area of Alaska, including Barrow and Wainright
• The hottest post office is in Death Valley, CA 
• The Peach Springs, AZ post office has walk-in freezers for food destined for delivery to the bottom of the Grand Canyon...the mail there is delivered by mule train!
• The Anaktuvuk, AK post office is the most isolated - it is the only link to the outside world for the 300 residents, and everything must be flown in; there are no roads there.
• One post office sits on the border between VA and TN, and serves the cities of Bristol TN and Bristol, VA. Of course, this one post office has two ZIP codes, one for each city!
• Most Unusual Delivery Method - mule trains in Arizona. Each mule carries about 130 pounds of mail, food, supplies and furniture down the 8-mile trail to the Havasupai Indians, averaging 41,000 pounds per week.
• Another Unusual Delivery Method - dock-to-dock delivery on the Magnolia river in AL. Delivery is performed by a 17-foot mail boat, which delivers to 180 dock-side mailboxes along a 29 mile stretch of the river.

Facts and Figures on USPS Mail

Here are some fascinating USPS figures, on a per day basis:

• $216.9 million - average revenue received
• 554 million - average number of mail pieces processed and delivered
• 242.6 million - pieces of First Class Mail processed and delivered
• 279.5 million - pieces of Advertising Mail processed and delivered
• $159 million - amount paid to postal employees in salaries and benefits
• 4 million - number of miles driven by letter carriers and truck drivers
• 402,640 - number of gallons of fuel used 
• 8,250 - number of letter carriers who deliver mail entirely on foot
• 136,964 - number of address changes processed 
• 2,100 - number of addresses added to the delivery network
• 6.17 million - customers served at more than 36,000 retail locations
• 0 - tax dollars received for operating the Postal Service

Techno Trivia for Mailers

• The Postal Service has the largest gantryrobotic fleet in the world using 174 robotics systems to move 314,000 mail trays per day.
• The Postal Service is the world leader in optical character recognition technology with machines reading 93 percent of all hand-addressed letter mail.
• The Postal Service uses more than 8,500 pieces of automated processing equipment to sort nearly half the world's mail.
• The Postal Service has one of the largest material-handling systems in the world for moving mail. There are over 200 miles of conveyors within postal processing facilities.
• The Flats Sequencing System (FSS) sorts "flat mail" (large envelopes, magazines, etc.) in carrier walk sequence at 16,500 pieces per hour.
• In 2011, the Postal Automated Redirection System (PARS) automatically intercepted and forwarded more than 2 billion pieces of mail for the nearly 40 million address changes submitted.
• The Advanced Facer Canceller System (AFCS) positions letter mail and cancels stamps at 36,000 pieces per hour.
• The Delivery Barcode Sorter (DBCS) reads the barcode on letters and sorts them at 36,000 pieces per hour. 
• The Automated Flat Sorting Machine (AFSM) sorts flat mail at 17,000 pieces per hour.
• The Automated Package Processing System (APPS) processes packages and bundles of mail at over 9,500 pieces per hour. 
• The Automated Parcel and Bundle Sorter (APBS) processes packages and bundles of mail at over 6,000 pieces per hour.

For more postal trivia, check out Postal Facts 2012.

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