An Post improves next-day deliveries but remains below target
An Post delivered 90% of mail items on the next working day last year which was an improvement on 2018 but still 4% below the regulatory standard.
Delivery of mail within three working days stands at 99.1% for 2019, this measure is marginally below the target of 99.5%.
Regulator ComReg has published two reports on the quality of the postal deliveries. Ipsos MRBI was commissioned by the regulator to monitor the service and reported improvements in most areas.
Collection from business, post box performance, delivery of large envelopes and packets all improved last year compared to 2018. Post Office performance also improved from 89% to 91%, the highest performance level recorded.
ComReg first introduced monitoring of the quality of the universal postal service in 2003. At that time just 71% of single piece priority mail was being delivered on the next working day.
In 2015 and 2016 the rate of next–day delivery climbed to 91%, the highest annual performance to date. Following two consecutive declines of 1% in each of the years 2017 and 2018, in 2019 the rate of next-day delivery improved to 90%.
"However, this is still below the rate of 91% achieved in 2015 and 2016, and is 4% below the 94% regulatory standard," the report notes.
Improvements were recorded across almost all regional mail flows during 2019 when compared to 2018. The most significant changes in performance versus 2018, were recorded for mail delivery to Dublin; with the performance for Anywhere to Dublin County and Outside Dublin County to Dublin County both improving by two percentage points since 2018, reaching 90% and 89% respectively.
The performance of mail originating from Dublin has also significantly improved versus 2018, with the Dublin County to Anywhere and Dublin County to Dublin County (Local) flows demonstrating an increase of two percentage points, both standing at 90% for 2019.
