Daily or Alternate-Day Delivery? The Letter Volume at Which Running the Round Every Day Stops Paying
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Halving delivery frequency is the first economy every struggling postal operator considers, and it is usually debated as ideology — service versus savings. This paper prices it. A round costs a stated USD 64 each day it runs; a letter-day of delay is priced at USD 0.05. Under daily delivery a letter waits half a day on average; under alternate-day delivery, a full day, while the round's fixed cost halves. The two patterns cost the same at 1280 letters per day. Below that volume alternate-day wins — at 500 letters a day it saves USD 19.5 daily — and above it daily delivery is the cheaper pattern in total cost (at 4000 letters a day, USD 164.0 against USD 232.0), because the delay bill, which grows with volume, overtakes the round saving, which does not. Frequency cuts are therefore a small-volume economy, and imposing them on busy rounds destroys more value than it saves. SIMULATED, NOT MEASURED.
Author: Aldred, William Alexander
Language: English
Subfield: Transportation
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7225707743
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