The Post Office Inspector General finds that significant savings can be achieved by using railroads once again.
Key findings include the following:http://www.uspsoig.gov/foia_files/RARC-WP-12-013.pdf
Intermodal rail has become an industry standard for efficient long-distance freight
transportation and is a best practice that could cut postal transportation costs
dramatically.
The OIG estimates that in the short term, shifting a portion of mail volume to
intermodal rail could yield cost savings of about $100 million per year without
changes to the Postal Service’s network.
By realigning its processing and transportation network and strategically
recommitting to the use of intermodal rail, the Postal Service could save
significantly more in the long run.
Because railroad-owned logistics companies now work to facilitate the use of
intermodal rail for its customers, moving to intermodal rail would be easier for
postal management than in the past.
Competitors such as UPS and FedEx have become major users of freight rail
over the last decade just as the Postal Service has moved away from it. In fact,
UPS is now the single largest user of intermodal rail service in the United States.
J.B. Hunt, one of the Postal Service’s largest highway trucking contractors, now
earns about 60 percent of its revenues from intermodal rail operations.