New Addressing Standards for Presorted, Carrier Route and Automation Flats Coming in March 2009

March 29, 2009, Addressing Standards will change for Presorted, Carrier Route and Automation Flats, read on to discover what the changes will be.

What?

The Postal Service has adopted new address placement and formatting requirements for Periodicals, Standard Mail®, Bound Printed Matter, Media Mail®, and Library Mail flat-size pieces sent at automation, presorted, or carrier route prices. The USPS also adopted related revisions for automation and presorted First-Class Mail® flats.

When?

The effective date is March 29, 2009.

Why?

Unlike letter mail, which is fairly uniform in size and address location, flat mail covers a broad range of sizes and has highly variable address placement. We need new mailing standards for this diverse mail stream to promote consistent addressing for all flat-size pieces and increase efficiency in flats processing and delivery operations.

Currently, flat-size mail is sorted mechanically only to the 9-digit ZIP Code™ or carrier level, and then manually sorted into delivery order by carriers.

The Postal Service is implementing a new technology, the Flats Sequencing System (FSS), to automate delivery sequencing for flat-size mail. FSS can sort flat-size mailpieces into delivery sequence, increasing efficiency by reducing carriers’ time sorting mail, and allowing carriers to begin delivering mail earlier in the day.

Similar technology boosted postal efficiencies in processing and delivering letter mail in the 1990s. We can significantly increase efficiency and reduce delivery costs for flat-size mail with FSS technology. FSS can sequence flat mail at a rate of approximately 16,500 pieces per hour. Scheduled to operate 17 hours per day, each machine will be capable of sequencing 280,500 mailpieces daily to more than 125,000 delivery addresses.

What?

New standards will require the delivery address in the upper portion of all Periodicals, Standard Mail, Bound Printed Matter, Media Mail, and Library Mail flat-size pieces mailed at automation, presorted, or carrier route prices. Mailers may place the address parallel or perpendicular to the top edge, but not upside down as read in relation to the top edge. The new standards define “upper portion” as the top half of a mailpiece, but the USPS encourages mailers to place the address as close to the top edge as possible (while still maintaining a 1/8-inch clearance from the edge).

Mailers must also address all presorted, carrier route and automation flat-size mailpieces using a minimum of 8-point type or, if the mailpiece bears a POSTNET™ or Intelligent Mail® barcode with a delivery point routing code, a minimum of 6-point type in all capital letters. In addition, for all automation price pieces, the characters in the address must not overlap, the address lines must not touch or overlap, and each address element may be separated by no more than five blank character spaces.

The new standards will enable FSS to process flat-size pieces in delivery sequence at high speeds and output the pieces in vertical bundles that are optimized for carrier delivery. The new placement criteria will take advantage of the vertical bundle output and significantly reduce the time carriers spend reorienting pieces to read the address — whether the mail is held, pulled from a mailbag, or removed from a tray. The new standards for type size and line spacing will ensure carriers can read the addresses and delineate delivery stops. With over a quarter million carriers delivering mail six days a week, there are substantial opportunities to gain efficiency.

As we transition to the new addressing standards, mailers can take advantage of the Intelligent Mail barcode to save space within the address block. For example, the Intelligent Mail barcode can include tracking and routing information that currently requires human-readable ACS™ codes and keylines. We also reduced the amount of clear space required under the Intelligent Mail barcode to 0.028 inch (mailers can access the full technical specification for the Intelligent Mail barcode at ribbs.usps.gov/onecodesolution).

The Intelligent Mail barcode will be required on all pieces claiming automation prices in the future. Mailers can find more information in the Federal Register notice, “Implementation of Intelligent Mail Barcodes,” published on January 7, 2008 (available on Postal Explorer® at pe.usps.com; click “Federal Register Notices” in the left frame).

(SDP Home)