Nationally, the U.S. Postal Service handled 1.1 billion packages last Christmas holiday season, which included overflow shipments from Amazon that were sent to the Post Office, said Amy N. Gibbs, a U.S. Postal Service spokeswoman.
“We’re anticipating getting slammed this season,” she said.
How does the Postal Service expect to handle that tsunami of packages? With a new machine that’s designed to sort them faster.
It is one of 118 new Small Parcel Sorting Systems deployed throughout the country — and the only one in New Jersey — in preparation for an onslaught of packages expected during this year’s Christmas holiday shopping season. The busy hub in Bergen County, which is 333,000 square feet, employs 415 people and is the first stop for mail being sent from 182 zip codes in New Jersey.
What it means to customers waiting for those deliveries is faster processing. Between 5,250 to 6,500 packages, weighing from .1 oz. to 20 pounds can be sorted by the system an hour, said Steve Laird, acting Teterboro plant manager. The industrial standard for sorting machines is 5,000 packages an hour, he said
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