Universal Postal Service Research Articles

PUBLIC POLICIES TO REDUCE SWITCHING COSTS LINKED TO MANDATORY ACCESS TO CERTAIN ELEMENTS OF THE POSTAL NETWORK IN THE EU AND THE EFFECTS OF THE RETENTION COSTS

Purpose: Our objective is to examine the switching costs that exist in the European postal service, where an ambitious process of opening up to competition has been carried out since 1997, as well as the different types of retention costs. Theoretical Framework: The theoretical framework is determined by the sectoral regulatory framework regarding the liberalization of services of general economic interest in the EU, the experience of postal operators in recent decades and the changes experienced in the demand for postal services in the current context of profound technological change in the field of communication. Design/Methodology/Approach: This research work is carried out through a systematic review of the relevant specialized literature, the study of the policy decisions adopted in the EU, the changes in the strategies of postal operators and the rigorous analysis of the evolution of the demand of the postal services in a context of rapid and profound change. Finding: Inadequate regulation of the access to some elements of postal infrastructure or services within the scope of the universal postal service, such as the postcode system, address database, post office boxes, delivery boxes, re-direction and retour to sender service, can generate switching costs and thus limiting competition, with negative effects on the consumer surplus and social welfare. Standardization and access to these elements may be regulated separately Research, Practical & Social Implications: This article proposes solutions to the technical functions of coordination between operators. Our proposals are in line with sectoral directives aimed at strengthening competition in the long term in the postal market. Originality/Value: A correct classification of the change costs applied to the liberalized postal service is made. Likewise, a classification of retention costs. We must underline the progress that our proposals represent to reduce the costs of switching to elements of the postal network whose access is mandatory.

The future EU postal regulation. What can be learnt from the telecommunication regulations

Postal and telecommunication markets are part of the network industry, regulated by specific regimes. After a long period of legal monopoly, the telecommunication market was fully liberalized before the postal one. Thus, the telecommunication regulatory framework has always been a pattern for the postal market in the EU. These two markets constantly develop in the fast-changing technological environment and shifting customer demands. The paper deals with the regulatory challenges of the EU postal market in light of the recently adopted telecommunication regulation - the EU Directive 2018/1972 establishing the European Electronic Communications Code. The directive has set new regulatory goals changing them to focus on high-speed internet connectivity and a more consumer-oriented market. The current postal regulatory framework has achieved all its goals and needs new ones to adjust the market to contemporary challenges. First, the paper critically analyzes the current EU regulatory framework in the postal market. Then, it proposes a new regulatory model considering market needs like mail-oriented universal postal service, fast-growing e-commerce, and the competition from new entrants.

Legal and managerial aspects of ukraine’s state regulatory policy on universal postal services in the context of european integration

Legal and managerial aspects of ukraine’s state regulatory policy on universal postal services in the context of european integration

Urban sprawl and home-delivered services: An exploratory analysis of spatial variations of cost and quality in Flanders (Belgium)

The phenomenon of urban sprawl is assumed to entail inefficient and cost-ineffective provision of public services. In this study, we investigate the impact of urban sprawl in Flanders on the spatial variation of the quality and cost structure of various services that are provided at home or near homes. Based on a literature review and expert interviews, we collected data with the aim of modelling such cost structures, in particular of local and regional public transport, household waste collection, and postal and parcel services. The findings differ between the various services studied. For public transport, sprawl has hardly any impact on the operational expenses and on the price charged to the traveler, but it does have a direct impact on the quality of the service. In the case of waste collection, differences in operational expenses are consolidated at the level of the collection round or collector, and differences in price or quality are hardly or not at all noticeable by the consumer. Universal postal services are tightly regulated, and consolidate operational expenses at the national level, as a result of which customers do not experience price differences, although they do face differences of distance to access points. These findings indicate that the density of address points along road segments are key to cost effectiveness of home-delivered services. Two new sprawl indicators are proposed for mapping urban sprawl, allowing to model the impact on the provision of various services: the average number of address points per kilometer mapped per road segment, and the inversion, i.e. average road distance between address points mapped per address point of a road segment. The data and models are intended to nourish the debate of whether or how spatially varying costs should be passed on to customers, and allow working towards solutions that serve a more sustainable interaction between urbanization and supply of services.

ИЗАЗОВИ УПРАВЉАЊА ТРОШКОВИМА УНИВЕРЗАЛНЕ ПОШТАНСКЕ УСЛУГЕ

The provision of information with an accurate and timely description of all business processes holds a prominent position among various activities for enhancing the operations of network industries. Since price pressure is the primary consequence of competition in network industries, it is necessary to perform a cost analysis of the business processes of the industry’s monopolists. The realisation of all business activities that make up a production chain at as low a cost as possible, without affecting the quality of products and services, is the main issue of concern to network industry management. A key problem of cost management in network industries is their specific structure characterised, inter alia, by high participation, rapid growth and diversification of overhead costs.The research subject of this paper is the theoretical identification and understanding of the basis of a potential Universal Postal Service (UPS) cost accounting model of the Public Postal Operator (PPO) in Serbia. EU Directive 97/67 represents the starting point for providing the guidelines for the development of this model, such as separate internal accounting for several PPO service segments. The existing legislative framework which defines the relations on the national postal service market pays special attention to the cost of UPS, which provide the basis for service pricing. Тhe relevant result of this research, which has a significant practical application, is the basis of the model for calculating the cost of universal postal service, designed to provide informational support to management in the process of service pricing.

Pendampingan Kajian Revisi Peraturan Menteri Komunikasi Dan Informatika Nomor 22 Tahun 2013

The purpose of this community service activity is to assist in the study of the revision of the text of the Minister of Communication and Informatics Regulation regarding the implementation of Universal Postal Services in accordance with the Act. In addition to these objectives, it also includes a draft regulatory text that includes the following criteria: mechanism, program planning, monitoring, supervision, verification and evaluation so as to create an accountable LPU implementation. The method of community service activities is carried out descriptively with a survey approach to several locations for the Universal Postal Service, through several stages including: preparation, collection of related data and information, data processing and analysis, preparation of technical recommendations as well as discussions, socialization and recommendations. In the implementation process, activities are carried out starting from collecting field verification data and documents, data processing and analysis, as well as compiling PM LPU revisions. The PKM activities carried out provide benefits in the form of producing a text of the Minister of Communication and Informatics Regulation on the implementation of Universal Postal Services that is in line with the Law. Through the implementation of PKM, it is hoped that the postal administration is in accordance with the expectations and needs of the community, the Government needs to take concrete and quite populist steps to support the postal administration to be carried out properly, effectively, efficiently and accountably, including the need to provide guidance and protection for postal operators, determine requirements strict rules for the feasibility of postal operators, guarantees for the reliability of products and types of postal services, preventing monopolistic practices in postal administration and community participation in postal operations.

Legal and Administrative Time Limits in the Context of the Latest Amendments of the Act of 14 June 1960 – Administrative Procedure Code

On 3 July 2019 a rule that a deadline is deemed to have been met if, before its expiry, a letter was posted at a Polish post office facility of the designated operator in the meaning of the Postal Law Act or at a postal facility of the operator providing the universal postal services in another Member State of the European Union, the Swiss Confederation or a Member State of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) – a party to the European Economic Area Agreement, was introduced into the Polish administrative procedure. Prior to the date of the aforementioned amendment coming into force, it was necessary to post a letter at a Polish post office facility of the designated operator in the meaning of the Postal Law Act in order to be able to state that the deadline was met. The interim provisions introducing the above-mentioned changes stipulated that the regulation in the wording before the amendment applies to the factual circumstances that took place before the date of its coming into force. However, by virtue of the judgement of the Constitutional Tribunal of 30 October 2019 also the above-mentioned regulation expired to the extent in which it functioned under the interim provisions. The amendment of the administrative proceedings provisions and the aforementioned ruling of the Constitutional Tribunal made it possible to adjust the administrative procedure in this respect to the constitutional requirements as well as the provisions of the law of the European Union, and ensured the consistency of this regulation with analogous regulations in other proceedings in the Polish legal system.

Bieg terminów proceduralnych w kontekście najnowszych zmian ustawy z dnia 14 czerwca 1960 r. – Kodeks postępowania administracyjnego

On 3 July 2019 a rule that a deadline is deemed to have been met if, before its expiry, a letter was posted at a Polish post office facility of the designated operator in the meaning of the Postal Law Act or at a postal facility of the operator providing the universal postal services in another Member State of the European Union, the Swiss Confederation or a Member State of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) – a party to the European Economic Area Agreement, was introduced into the Polish administrative procedure. Prior to the date of the aforementioned amendment coming into force, it was necessary to post a letter at a Polish post office facility of the designated operator in the meaning of the Postal Law Act in order to be able to state that the deadline was met. The interim provisions introducing the above-mentioned changes stipulated that the regulation in the wording before the amendment applies to the factual circumstances that took place before the date of its coming into force. However, by virtue of the judgement of the Constitutional Tribunal of 30 October 2019 also the above-mentioned regulation expired to the extent in which it functioned under the interim provisions. The amendment of the administrative proceedings provisions and the aforementioned ruling of the Constitutional Tribunal made it possible to adjust the administrative procedure in this respect to the constitutional requirements as well as the provisions of the law of the European Union, and ensured the consistency of this regulation with analogous regulations in other proceedings in the Polish legal system.

Direct subsidies and compensation funds in financing of universal postal services

Member States of the European Union are obliged to ensure access to universal postal services for all citizens. The aim of the study is to assess the effectiveness of direct subsidies and compensation funds as basic methods of financing universal postal services in the scope of incurred net cost on the example of selected postal operators in Europe and to indicate the results of application of such solutions. The scope of the study includes an evaluation of the direct subsidy mechanism applicable in Europe on the example of Belgium. A characterization of the legal framework of operation of the compensation fund and an analysis of the impact of the adopted financing mechanisms on the achieved level of profitability of the entity obliged to provide universal postal services in Poland were made. The thesis of the current study is that the mechanism of compensation for provision of universal postal services by means of a compensation fund on the Polish example is defective and ineffective from the point of view of market regulation and the designated postal operator. The study concludes by stating that the preferred form of net cost financing should be a full budget subsidy and that it is unjustified to charge the full value of the net cost as additional commitment to the operator. The research methods used include analysis of scientific literature, collection, comparison, classification and generalization of data and expert evaluation.

Proposal for a change in the type of devices used for submitting of postal items by using the Saaty´s method, a case study for the postal sector

The first mile as a part of logistics of postal items is beginning to appear as another narrow place in the logistics process that needs to be improved. One of the categories, of this first mile, may also be the collection of items by authorized employees of postal companies from letter boxes. Because universal postal service requires that you choose to collect items from letter boxes every day, even though not every letter box is filled, this may seem like an outdated way. In addition, the number of letters sent has been declining overall in recent years. Therefore, it would be appropriate for postal operators, in such a case, to focus on the selection of both types of consignments through submission devices. The article is focused on defining the strengths and weaknesses of selected devices for the submission of consignments. Furthermore, criteria are set that influence both the customer and the postal company when choosing a mailbox. Subsequently, the criteria are evaluated by using the Saaty´s method and, at the end, the results of the whole analysis are summarized.

Measure of accessibility to postal services in France: A potential spatial accessibility approach applied in an urban region

AbstractIn a context where the demand and supply of mail and parcel delivery services are undergoing major changes due to the widespread use of the Internet and digital communications, this paper focuses on the accessibility of postal services through the physical retail network. The accessibility constraints applied to the outlets network of Le Groupe La Poste (the French postal operator responsible for the universal postal service and three other services of general economic interest) are based on a “simplified” approach that considers accessibility only in terms of time or distance‐time. This paper proposes to measure potential spatial accessibility by applying postal supply and potential demand dimensions using a two‐step floating catchment area (2SFCA) analysis. Based on an equilibrium between supply and demand through distance function, this method, which is often used in studies of the accessibility of health services, is transposed and adapted into the field of postal activities. It aims to measure accessibility by taking into account the population and population/provider ratio, considering standard postal services provided at service points. While until recently the 2SFCA methods were mostly applied in healthcare contexts, some applications have been developed in non‐health‐related services over the last decade. This paper proposes an original contribution to analysing variations in the accessibility of postal services. Referring to the “primary postal services” (sales of stamps, letters or parcels postage, remittance of postal items, and so on), it outlines the conditions that activities (or services) must satisfy in order to use the floating catchment area method.

Postal Services: Survey of Competition Law Developments: 2019

This article summarises the most significant competition law developments in the postal services sector in 2019, at EU level and at national level in France, Germany and the UK.1 2019 has seen an important judgment of the European General Court concerning the use by the Polish authorities of a compensation fund mechanism to fund the net costs of the universal postal service. In the State aid area, the European Commission has adopted decisions authorising State aid by France and by Italy to the incumbent operators La Poste and Poste Italiane, respectively, to compensate them for the costs of the public service of distributing the press. At national level, in France, the national competition authority obtained commitments from La Poste to settle competition law issues in the parcels delivery sector, and in Germany the administrative courts confirmed decisions of the Federal Network Agency prohibiting abuse of dominance, through discriminatory conduct, by Deutsche Post AG. In the UK, the Competition Appeal Tribunal dismissed Royal Mail’s appeal against Ofcom’s decision that it had abused its dominant position by discriminating against its only end-to-end competitor regarding proposed downstream network access prices.

APPLICATION OF CATCHMENT AREA METHOD FOR DETERMINING POST OFFICE ACCESSIBILITY: CASE STUDY BJELOVAR-BILOGORA COUNTY

Accessibility of postal access points is an important part that service providers, as
 well as regulatory bodies should consider when planning postal network capacities.
 This is important for the provision of the universal postal service. In this
 paper, accessibility of post offices is determined by the application of the Two
 Step Floating Catchment Area method (2SFCA). Geographic Information System
 (GIS) was used for spatial analysis of postal network, locations, calculation of
 distances, application of the method and presentation of the results. The current
 regulatory framework is validated by using catchment area derived from the regulatory
 criterion.

APPLICATION OF CATCHMENT AREA METHOD FOR DETERMINATION OF POST OFFICE ACCESSIBILITY USING GIS FOR SPATIAL ANALYSIS

Accessibility of postal access points is an important part that service providers, as well as regulatory bodies should take into account when planning post network capacities. This is important for the provision of the universal postal service. In this paper, accessibility of post offices is determined by application of Two Step Floating Catchment Area method (2SFCA). Geographic Information System (GIS) has been used for spatial analysis of post network, locations, calculation of distances, application of the method and presentation of the results. Current regulatory framework is validated by using catchment area derived from the regulatory criterion.

Accessibility of Universal Postal Service According to Access Points Density Criteria: Case Study of Bjelovar-Bilogora County, Croatia

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.

IDENTIFICATION OF THE REQUIREMENTS OF CUSTOMERS OF THE POSTAL COMPANY ON THE SPATIAL AVAILABILITY OF ACCESS AND CONTACT POINTS OF THE PUBLIC POSTAL NETWORK

In today's globalized world, in the light of evolving electronic communications and alternative delivery methods, there is a decline in submitted consignments. Despite this fact, postal communications still play a significant role in distribution services. In order try to solve this problem, it is essential to identify the causes and the factors of postal market that affect a decline in submitted consignments. The goal of the article is to identify factors that influence the selection of a particular post office based on the customer requirements. To identify these factors, we conducted primary marketing research. Space availability as a major criterion is used for evaluation of the impact of the development of postal infrastructure on the economic level. Determining the criteria of spatial availability preferred by customers and their subsequent alignment with the statutory requirements can not only lead to an increase in the quality of the universal postal service but also to an increase in demand for postal services at certain post offices.

The Poste Italiane Decision by the Italian Competition Authority: Sorting out Non-replicability

In December 2017 the Italian Competition Authority (the Authority) issued a decision (the Decision) against Poste Italiane (PI), the Italian incumbent postal operator and designated provider of the universal postal service.1 The Authority found that PI had abused its dominant position in the wholesale and retail markets for the provision of bulk mail services, by offering business customers (i) tracked bulk mail services that could not be replicated technically or economically by its competitors and (ii) exclusive/loyalty rebates. In February 2018, PI appealed the Decision to the Tribunale Amministrativo Regionale del Lazio and the judgment is pending at the time of writing. This article first summarises the Decision and then provides an economist’s perspective on some of its key aspects, before concluding.2 The case related to the provision of bulk mail services in Italy by postal operators to business customers, such as the mailing of utility bills and bank statements from utility companies and banks.

Oddanie pisma w placówce operatora pocztowego – uwagi de lege lata i de lege ferenda

The aim of this article is to discuss the problems of submitting process letters to courts and public administration bodies via a postal operator as well as to indicate essential problems caused by unjustified differentiation of standards concerning the compliance with time-limits when the subject has limited or excluded opportunity to lodge a pleading a letter in person. Only in criminal proceedings and proceedings in cases of offences the participants have full freedom to choose a postal operator and to benefit from the presumption of lodging of a submitting a letter in the date of sending. In administrative proceedings, administrative court proceedings and tax proceedings, to be sure that legal deadline will be met, one should submit a letter to a court or a public administration body via a postal operator providing universal postal services. The article drew attention to a lack of consistency and consequence of the legislator relating to the regulation of submitting letters depending on the nature of proceedings and place of residence.

Fundusz kompensacyjny jako metoda finansowania powszechnych usług pocztowych

The Member States of the European Union are obliged to provide all citizens with universal postal services. The aim of the article is to present the concept of compensation fund as a method of financing universal postal services provided by the postal operator and to indicate the implications arising from the solutions applied in the Polish legal system. The article’s thesis is to state that the current mechanism for universal postal service compensation is defective and ineffective from the point of view of the designated operator. The study concludes that the preferred form of financing the net cost should be the full subsidy from the budget, and the unjustified burden on the operator of the full net cost value as a real additional burden rather than the loss on universal service.

Postal network access and service quality: Expectation and experience in Serbia

In the Republic of Serbia, commercial postal services are provided by 49 postal operators. Universal postal service is provided only by the Post of Serbia. Collaboration between the Post of Serbia and private operators is exclusively in the area of commercial services and based on bilateral agreements. At the end of 2014, the National Regulatory Authority (NRA) adopted an Ordinance on the methods and conditions of access to the postal network of the Public Postal Operator (PPO). As the market is liberalized, postal operators are given the opportunity to provide the universal service function, with the exception of reserved services, without owning a network. In conjunction with the NRA and the postal operators, and with input from experts, we analyze current market conditions and the demand for access to Serbia's postal network, and evaluate the PPO from the stand point of expected and experienced postal service quality of access to postal network. The obtained results will be useful in developing the postal network.