Abstract
The postal sector has undergone dramatic changes over the recent years under the double effect of liberalization and increased competition from alternative communication channels (e-substitution). As a result, the mail volume handled by the historical operator has declined sharply (Nikali 2008; Fève et al. 2010; Meschi et al. 2010).
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
To maintain the sustainability of the universal service, Member States have on the one hand, safeguarded the USO financing by installing dedicated funding for the USO (compensation fund and/or state aid) and, on the other hand, reformed the USO itself. The USO reforms concern all the dimensions of the universal service: the product bundle included in the definition of the USO, the pricing constraints applied to the universal service providers (uniform pricing, special rates, commercial freedom) and the definition of the universal service itself (accessibility of contact points, doorstep delivery, delivery frequency).
- 3.
Precisely, C ij is the cost of the outdoor delivery work per delivery day, such that the weekly cost is C ij d, where d is the delivery frequency per week.
- 4.
In an attempt to estimate the willingness to pay for different service attributes, Rohr et al. (2013) found that, for business clients there is a substantial difference between the willingness to pay for a next-day delivery service compared to a delivery within 2 or 3 days.
- 5.
Notice that this does not preclude that there are cheapest way to satisfy the coverage constraint.
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Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to Michael Crew, Tim Brennan, Carla Pace, Axel Desmedt, Robert Campbell, Ian Streule, and participants at the 23rd CRII conference on postal and delivery economics.
Disclosure This work was funded by the University of Liege and the FNRS (Belgian National Scientific Research Fund).
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Appendix: Hypotheses
Appendix: Hypotheses
Parameter | Hypothesis | Reference |
|---|---|---|
Postman salary per hour (€) | w = 28.81 | Statbel |
Car cost per kilometer (€) | p car = 0.36 | Tera Consultants (2013) |
Length of the delivery round (km) | L i = 1.5l i | Jasinski and Steggles (1977) |
Speed (km/h) | \( spee{d}_{\mathrm{car}}=4\kern0.5em \mathrm{if}\kern0.5em \frac{L_i}{s_i}<0.02 \) | Roy (1999) |
\( spee{d}_{\mathrm{car}}=4+\frac{31}{0.298}\left(\ \frac{L_i}{s_i}-0.02\right)\kern0.5em \mathrm{if}\kern0.5em 0.02<\frac{L_i}{s_i}<0.3 \) | ||
\( spee{d}_{\mathrm{car}}=35\kern0.5em \mathrm{if}\kern0.5em \frac{L_i}{s_i}>0.3 \) | ||
\( spee{d}_{\mathrm{bike}}=4\kern0.5em \mathrm{if}\kern0.5em \frac{L_i}{s_i}<0.02 \) | ||
\( spee{d}_{\mathrm{bike}}=4+\frac{11}{0.098}\left(\ \frac{L_i}{s_i}-0.02\right)\kern0.5em \mathrm{if}\kern0.5em 0.02<\frac{L_i}{s_i}<0.1 \) | ||
\( spee{d}_{\mathrm{bike}}=15\kern0.5em \mathrm{if}\kern0.5em \frac{L_i}{s_i}>0.1 \) | ||
\( spee{d}_{\mathrm{foot}}=4 \) | ||
Stop time (s) | \( stop\kern0.5em tim{e}_{\mathrm{car}}=12+\left({g}_i-1\right)\frac{19}{9} \) | Roy (1999) |
\( stop\kern0.5em tim{e}_{\mathrm{bike}}=20+\left({g}_i-1\right)\frac{21}{9} \) | ||
\( stop\kern0.5em tim{e}_{\mathrm{foot}}=40+\left({g}_i-1\right)\frac{40}{9} \) | ||
Delivery time (s) | delivery time = 3 | Roy (1999) |
Maximum capacity | q max,foot = 400 | Roy (1999) |
q max,bike = 400 | ||
Loading time (s) | loading time = 600 | Tera Consultants (2013) |
Delivery frequency (days/week) | d = 5 | WIK (2013) |
Items delivered per capita par year | x = 233 | WIK (2013) |
Items delivered per capita par day | q = x/(52 * d) | |
Items delivered in the area par day | Q i = q pop i |
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Copée, P., Gautier, A., Lefèvre, M. (2016). Promoting Competition at the Digital Age with an Application to Belgium. In: Crew, M., Brennan, T. (eds) The Future of the Postal Sector in a Digital World. Topics in Regulatory Economics and Policy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24454-9_10
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