Background
Each year, increased mail volume during the U.S. Postal Service’s peak season —Thanksgiving through New Year’s Eve — significantly strains its processing and distribution network. In our prior reports, we discussed how Postal Service management developed a preparedness plan to address the strain with the right amount of personnel, resources, and capacity throughout its network.
What We Did
Our objective was to evaluate the U.S. Postal Service’s performance during the fiscal year (FY) 2025 peak and post-peak seasons, the implementation of its peak season preparedness plan, and operational changes to the network potentially impacting performance.
What We Found
The Postal Service lowered the performance targets for FY 2025, and it adjusted the data used to measure service performance during peak season. Even with those adjustments, the Postal Service did not meet five of the six service targets during peak season, and delays continued after peak season—a time during which the Postal Service experiences a high volume of returns—as well. Similarly, the Postal Service was not successful in meeting some of its retail and delivery goals during peak season.
Opportunities exist for the Postal Service to improve its peak season initiatives to better forecast for transportation needs in certain markets, strategically offload mail between processing facilities, and plan for the impact of increased package volume post peak season. In addition, we found that the Postal Service canceled 13,875 requested or scheduled transportation trips during the FY 2025 peak and post-peak seasons, resulting in costs of $8.8 million for the period of November 9, 2024, through January 31, 2025.
Recommendations and Management’s Comments
We made 10 recommendations to address the issues identified in the report. Postal Service management agreed with the monetary impact and five recommendations and disagreed with five recommendations. Management’s comments and our evaluation are at the end of each finding and recommendation. We consider management’s comments responsive to the five agreed to recommendations as corrective actions should resolve the issues identified. We will work with management through the audit resolution process on the remaining five recommendations.
