Postal Service’s Good Deed

The U.S. Postal Service, which has seen the volume of mail it handles double in the last 20 years to 167 billion pieces annually, says the time has come when it must once again have rate increases. Almost certainly postage costs will rise next year, probably to 25 cents for first-class mail. At the same time the service continues its efforts to economize and hold down even higher user costs. Most notably, it expects to be able to save about $6 billion over the next 24 years in operating costs for its delivery vans.

These savings should result as the service carries out a six-year-long changeover from the familiar Jeep delivery vehicles it has been using for nearly two decades to specially designed, aluminum-bodied vans built by Grumman and equipped with a General Motors engine. Already about 3,500 of the new vans have been delivered. Eventually more than 99,000 of them will be in the Postal Service’s fleet. Each is expected to last 24 years--three times the life span of the service’s Jeep--though over that time the engine and chassis will have to be replaced once.

The new vans cost $11,000 each, $3,000 to $5,000 more than the Jeeps they replace. But they can carry more mail and, most importantly in terms of savings, the new vehicle will get about 23 miles to the gallon, nearly three times what the Jeep now averages. This much lower level of fuel consumption, together with the longer life of the van, is expected to produce the $6-billion savings. Significant economies in government are not everyday occurrences. The Postal Service is performing a good deed for the people whose money its spends.