Abstract
Universal service providers have an obligation to provide a minimum required set of postal services – known as universal service obligation. To ensure universal service obligation, regulatory measures (criteria) which service providers must fulfil are often set up. In this paper, a geographical analysis of these criteria is conducted using current regulatory framework in the Republic of Croatia as an example. Based on the framework of the gravity model, accessibility of postal service is presented. The goal of the proposed research is to investigate the application of the gravity model for determining postal service accessibility, with special emphasis on rural areas. To our knowledge, this method has not been used in previous studies to determine accessibility of postal services. The results of the applied model could be used in future planning of access density criteria with various transportation modes.
Highlights
Accessibility of services in postal industry is viewed through users’ possibility to access elements of the postal network
The Directive defines the postal network as the system of organization and all types of resources used by the universal service provider(s) (USP) for the purposes, in particular, of:
The European Regulators Group for Postal Services identified the common criteria which define the density of access points [4]: –– number of postal establishments per locality, –– one postal establishment per number of inhabitants, which could depend on the size of a residential area, –– maximum distance that one must travel to get to the nearest postal establishment, –– maximum distance between neighboring postal establishments, –– minimum number of post offices, providing the universal service obligation (USO) or a full range of postal services, –– percentage of the population at a certain distance from the postal establishment
Summary
Accessibility of services in postal industry (sector) is viewed through users’ possibility to access elements of the postal network. According to the Postal Directive [1], the goal of the universal service obligation (USO) is to provide access to the postal network, where sufficient number of access points should be ensured, in rural and urban areas. The gravity model ( often referred to as the gravitation model, method or measures) for calculating service accessibility was first introduced by Hansen in 1959 [41] for the purpose of land use planning and was later expanded by Joseph and Bantock [42] for rural health care analysis. Since accessibility of postal access points is determined by regulatory criteria, accessibility indicators obtained from the gravity method provide finer insight into relationships between post offices and the population that they serve. –– a discussion on distance-decay parameters for determining postal services accessibility in rural area
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