Question to Royal Mail workers or any Couriers about how some things work

[Aspwlf]

How do couriers plan routes? For example do they have to manually input my address into a gps or when they scan the barcode does that route them to my address? Also do they sort by city or postcode? And how do they know how many parcels for each house?

I basically asked my questions in the title lol but I’m strange and I’m fascinated by stuff that most people wouldn’t be lol
Or I’m just stupid too




How do they get to addresses? For example, do they actually need to look on the package address to where it needs to be delivered and enter the postcode or does it automatically gps route when they scan the package which means you don’t actually really need to put address on the actual package?


So what I mean is do they scan my package and then it routes them to my area via postcode then look on the actual package to see the house number? Or do they scan it and it tells them the whole address, or do they literally not even have an automated system and look at the package and manually enter the address?











How do they know how many packages per house? Like do they sort them in a van per box per house ? I’ve ordered like tuns of stuff before and idk how they managed to know how many boxes were mine in that van lol





And lastly how do they route efficiently? Does the computer make a planned routine by city or by postcode or something?

[fb1969]

As a regular postie always doing the same round/area I know where places are and I know the order that I deliver to them in. The route for mail is pre-planned by computer and should be fixed, but you sometimes have to vary it depending on the load etc. I always go by the physical address on the item and I load the van in the order that I will deliver them. The last items to deliver go in the van first so they are furthest from the door, then loading the van backwards so that the last thing I put in is the first one I need and is closest to the door. Personally I always write a list of all the large parcels, and a note of the quantity if there is more than one. The bags of letters etc are loaded the same way - I usually load the mail from the side door and the parcels from the back door.

With Royal Mail the 2D/QR type barcode on items includes the address (the name/number and postcode) and that can be read by the PDA we are issued with. There is an App on the PDA that allows you to scan in the 2D/QR code and it will process the most efficient route - our office has agency/temporary staff and they use the App most of the time as they don't know the areas well and are sent to different areas every day. I have never used the App myself so don't know how good it is, or what happens with items that don't have the 2D/QR code.

Local Facebook groups often have posts where someone was expecting a parcel that hasn't arrived, but the courier says it has and sends a photo of the front door it was delivered to. There was one recently where a courier had delivered a parcel to "8 High Road" but the people there hadn't got it. "High Road" is joined to "High Street" and the parcel had been delivered to the correct number but in the wrong road - it was less than 100 yards from the correct place and you can see one house from the other. The two addresses are on my round and I immediately recognised what had happened. Reading the physical address and street signs would have stopped that happening but with the pressure of the workload it is an easy mistake to make.

[2yearpostie]

Posties dont have any computerised route as such, Our mail is sorted in order at the mail centre and we 'tag' the parcels onto that separately by hand in the delivery office. Its bundled by hand into 'loop' where you start at address 'A' go in a loop to address 'J' and then back to address 'A' on the opposite side of the road.
The small parcels are all in the postie bags with notifications written on the letter for that address.
The larger parcels are all in the posties head and we have to remember which addresses we have a large parcel for or have it written down on a scrap of paper in the cab and work out the most efficient way of delivering them in our head.

Some postie have to remember upto 20 different routes as we dont always know which route we will be on until 30mins before we go out.

[fb1969]

To add to 2yearpostie's comment about not knowing where you are going until 30 minutes beforehand, local knowledge makes a massive difference.

If you know that number 2 is opposite number 131, as that is how the road is numbered, you can get two things done at the same time. Assuming 131 is half a mile away and then finding it it was back where you started is a killer!

[Dorset Plodder]

Some postie have to remember upto 20 different routes as we dont always know which route we will be on until 30mins before we go out.

That's Crap Management Mate!

Fair enough if someone's gone sick but your Manager should have next weeks duties up so you know what your "Meant" to be doing. Otherwise it's just CRAP Management FFS!

[Dorset Plodder]

How do couriers plan routes?

I've always thought members of the public would be amazed at how the mail actually gets to their front door. I'm sure most of them think it's "The Mail Fairies"

To see truck loads of letters and parcels arrive at a Delivery Office and get sorted to the right area (Duty) and be sorted into the correct order for each, and every street, is just something we as Posties take for granted (and we know how it's done) .

Royal Mail try and automate as much as possible and try to introduce more, and more, Tech to the job. Our Managers are obssessed with ticking boxes and pump out loads of Spread Sheets, Pie Charts and Venn Diagrams covering everything from how many parcels you've scanned/delivered to how long you leave a vehicle idling! However, as previously mentioned, it boils down to a "Human's Local Knowledge" of his Area (Duty).

Royal Mail will tell you anyone can do this job, but as shown during the Lock Down, when we used hundreds of Agency staff ... they cant! It takes a long time for a Posties to build up that knowledge, especially if he's a Reserve that has to move around and deliver different Duties (They should be paid a Higher Pay Rate in my Opinion). We used to get Training for a couple of days about how to do the job but nowadays Newbies just get thrown in the Deep End and have to pick up the knowledge as they go along. That's why you can always tell when your Regular Postie has his day off, or is on Holiday.

You say you've been ordering loads during the Lock Down. So has everyone else. We've all be working extra hard during Covid but it did have the Bonus of RM making millions of pounds profit, so they could hardly plead poverty during our recent pay negotiations, and they couldn't use "Lack of Business" as an excuse to lay people off. Nice that you care to take an interest in how all those parcels actually make it to your doorstep.

[Aspwlf]

As a regular postie always doing the same round/area I know where places are and I know the order that I deliver to them in. The route for mail is pre-planned by computer and should be fixed, but you sometimes have to vary it depending on the load etc. I always go by the physical address on the item and I load the van in the order that I will deliver them. The last items to deliver go in the van first so they are furthest from the door, then loading the van backwards so that the last thing I put in is the first one I need and is closest to the door. Personally I always write a list of all the large parcels, and a note of the quantity if there is more than one. The bags of letters etc are loaded the same way - I usually load the mail from the side door and the parcels from the back door.

With Royal Mail the 2D/QR type barcode on items includes the address (the name/number and postcode) and that can be read by the PDA we are issued with. There is an App on the PDA that allows you to scan in the 2D/QR code and it will process the most efficient route - our office has agency/temporary staff and they use the App most of the time as they don't know the areas well and are sent to different areas every day. I have never used the App myself so don't know how good it is, or what happens with items that don't have the 2D/QR code.

Local Facebook groups often have posts where someone was expecting a parcel that hasn't arrived, but the courier says it has and sends a photo of the front door it was delivered to. There was one recently where a courier had delivered a parcel to "8 High Road" but the people there hadn't got it. "High Road" is joined to "High Street" and the parcel had been delivered to the correct number but in the wrong road - it was less than 100 yards from the correct place and you can see one house from the other. The two addresses are on my round and I immediately recognised what had happened. Reading the physical address and street signs would have stopped that happening but with the pressure of the workload it is an easy mistake to make.

I’m into technology and stuff and that’s one thing that I don’t get about the delivering. I mean I guess the computer could go wrong and end up telling you to deliver to a wrong address but basically what I don’t understand is

If you are able to scan it, how come mail as in boxes that have the normal or big labels with the barcode and square code still needs the address written on it?
I always thought that you basically just scan it and then it will for example automatically enter my postcode into a gps and then you just look at the house number.

But you actually have to still read the written on address?

I get it for letters but how come the labels?


I’ll actually give an example of why I am asking this

I am a part time almost full time eBay seller, and this is regarding mainly people sending me stuff back.
It don’t help that eBay don’t bother to use common sense however what happens is people print the label as normal, but they actually manipulate the address written on the label.
So for example it could be delivered to the same postcode and just a few doors down. OR not the same postcode but literally down the road for example. However from reading everyone’s comment regarding this question, it looks like you mainly just use that postcode for a route not an exact address? So for example my postcode will be a route maybe passing my house. Not specifically aimed at me exact house number? And so when you arrive at that area you then look at the address on the actual package rather than computer?

So what I’m trying to do is find out if I could stop it.

As you see what I may be saying, obviously if it was delivered to the address it says on the system it would be the original one. However it seems even though you stated new workers tend to use them, it gets delivered to the address on package.

I mean I suppose it’s more trustworthy since a computer could tell you a wrong place.


As for all this sorting, I don’t think I could do that lol.
I just had an imagery thing that you had like a box or something that has a qr code and then you just take out how ever many items there are or it tells you where they are

Like when I see them huge Amazon prime vans I just don’t understand how they manage to know how many boxes per house and stuff
I’ve had 6 boxes just for me once and somehow they know that I have 6 boxes

[SpacePhoenix]

You might find this video of interest:

[2yearpostie]

To the postie on the street, the qr code/tracking number means nothing at all to us, thats purely to tell the big bosses back in London that this is when and where the postie delivered that parcel as it sends a gps signal back to them.Although as we are slowly getting more tech it can be used to prompt us to 'put behind bin' or 'take to no 26'.

The postie on the street looks at two things, The house number written on the label and the street name written on the label. Even the postcode is mostly for the mail centre to send it to the correct delivery office, most posties dont even read that.

[fb1969]

There will be many postcodes on one delivery round/duty. A postcode covers say 20-30 addresses, and an average route could be 500+ addresses. The first part of the postcode on a duty is usually the same (eg AA1) although we have rounds across two areas (eg AA1 and AA2).

So you could be delivering to AA1 1AA and AA1 1AB, AA1 1AC, AA1 1AD etc etc. On delivery the postcode means nothing to the postie, the postie delivers to 1 High Street, 2 High Street etc etc.

Even when scanning the barcode/QR on a parcel, the address is not shown on the PDA, only the item number. So in terms of delivery. like with the post the barcode and scan is pretty meaningless on delivery. We use the address to deliver the item, the postcode may help if something is incorrectly addressed and on the whole the barcode is not used when it comes to the actual delivery to the actual house (it is just scanned to confirm delivery).

Amazon probably order their delivery route in a different way as they only really deal with packets/parcels, and also how they know you have more than one item could be flagged up differently. In my case when I write out the list I note x2, x3 etc if there is more than one item.