The document discusses standards for measuring transit times of postal services. It describes EN 13850:2012, which provides a standard for measuring single piece priority mail, and EN 14534:2003, which does the same for bulk mail. The standards were created by CEN TC 331 to ensure quality standards are set and published for postal services as required by EU directive 97/67/EC. The document outlines key aspects of the two standards such as their scope, measurement methods, and characteristics considered in sampling.

1. we monitor it.
„You can‘t manage, what you can‘t measure.“
Peter F. Drucker, Economist
CEN Standards for Postal Services
Dresden, 02/04/2014
Sabine Frahm, Spectos GmbH
Measurement of the transit times of end-to-end
services for single piece mail and bulk mail

2. © Spectos 2014 Page 2
Contents
1  CEN TC 331 „Postal Services“ 3
2  EN 13850:2012 (Single Piece Priority Mail) 5
3  EN 14534:2003 (Bulk Mail) 8

3. © Spectos 2014 Page 3
1  CEN TC 331 „Postal Services“ & Standards
97/67/EC Art. 16
„ Member States shall
ensure that quality-of-
service standards are set
and published in relation to
universal service¹ in order
to guarantee a postal
service of good quality.
Quality standards shall
focus, in particular, on
routing times and on the
regularity and reliability of
services.
¹PUDLV/ PostG: inter alia addressed mail up to 2000g

4. © Spectos 2014 Page 4
Contents
1  CEN TC 331 „ Postal Services“ 3
2  EN 13850:2012 (Single Piece Priority Mail) 5
3  EN 14534:2003 (Bulk Mail) 8

5. © Spectos 2014 Page 5
Effective version - Ref. Nr. EN 13850:2012
Postal Services – Quality of Services – Measurement of the transit times of end-to-
end services for single piece priority mail and first class mail
EN 13850 is mandatory for measuring the performance levels of single piece priority or
first class mail which falls under the universal service.
Scope:
 Methods for measuring the end-to-end transit time of domestic and cross-border
Single Piece Priority Mail (SPPM)
 Mail items which are individually collected1 and distributed
 Transit times end-to-end: number of days elapsed between date of induction and date
of delivery of a mail item, from the access point to the network up to the point of
delivery to the addressee
Service quality and standards
¹PUDLV/: Collection quantity < 50 mail items

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A representative sample design, dependent on the field of study, must respect mail
characteristics found discriminant, when the transit time differs significantly according to
the different modes of the characteristic. For each discriminant characteristic at least the
two main modes shall be represented.
Characteristics commonly proved discriminant:
 Geographical areas of induction and delivery point
 Type of payment: stamped/ metered/ postage paid
 Type of induction: e.g. mail street box/ post office/ collection from senders premises,/
induction in sorting centres
 Time of posting - in case of more than one collection per day
 Type of delivery: street address/ P.O. Box/ delivery to receivers‘ premises
 Mail formats and weight steps
 Addressing method: hand written/ typed
 Induction weekday: Monday - Sunday
Service quality and standards

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The effective version Ref. Nr. EN 13850:2012
has been replacing EN 13850:2002+A1:2007 since January 2013
Important changes from EN 13850:2002
 Generalization of the field of study: domestic fields of study can be determined simply
by their points of induction; as a country or induction operator/ group of induction
operators (Formerly: Country = Operator)
 Simplified determination of the minimum sample size via tables based on
performance levels for both domestic and cross border measurement systems,
assuming a simple random sample
 Limitation of the minimum sample size in domestic measurement systems for very low
mail volumes (1) 200-500 Mio items respectively (2) 1.5-200 Mio items p.a.. Test
volumes may be bounded in case the predefined minimum performance levels (1)
85% and (2) 90% are not reached
 Audit: Measurements shall be audited every three years, except for situations where
the supplier changes or there are major changes to the methodology (in the previous
version, annual re-audits where mandatory)
Service quality and standards

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Contents
1  CEN TC 331 „ Postal Services“ 3
2  EN 13850:2012 (Single Piece Priority Mail) 5
3  EN 14534:2003 (Bulk Mail) 8

9. © Spectos 2014 Page 9
Effective version EN 14534:2003+A1:2007
Postal Services – Quality of Services –
Measurement of the transit times of end-to-end services for bulk mail
The bulk mail standard has been developed from the requirements of EN 13850.
Scope:
 Methods for measuring the end-to-end transit time of the domestic and crossborder,
priority and non-priority bulk mail
 Methods using a representative end-to-end sample of addressed bulk mail
 Applicable to assess the performance of postal operators for specific products or
services at a national level or for an individual or a group of customers
3  Measurement of transit times for bulk mail services

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Some peculiarities of bulk mailings and their measurement
 Senders : members of the public posting single items are replaced by companies,
small in number, posting large volumes of mail; third party agents may also act on
behalf of posting customers
 Volumes of mailings: bulk mailings may contain thousands or millions of items.
 Dates of deposit: the rules and requirements for bulk mailings are more complex
and may be specific to the contract between customer and postal operator
 Test items: have to match the characteristics of customer mailings and, where
database seeding methods are used, ‘live’ items of mail may be used in the survey
3  Measurement of transit times for bulk mail services

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Revision prEN 14534:2013 (E) – Working draft of TC331/WG1/PTB+C, Version 2.2
Planned innovations in the context of the revision of EN 14534
 Bulk mail is usually not part of the universal service - the new contents of the standard
are more focused on the needs of actual users - Postal services and senders
 Modular structure: the smallest unit to evaluate the performance level of a service is a
single bulk mailing. The field of study of a bulk mail measurement system is basically
composed by aggregating a set of individual mailings
 Examples for aggregated fields of study: Bulk mailings of an individual customers
postal operator or a group of customers/ postal operators, all bulk mailings on
national level (applicable if bulk mail is to be measured as part of the universal service
of a country)
 The standard provides minimum requirements for a comparability of results of end-to-
end transit time measurements of bulk mail services. These requirements are
basically applicable to one-off measurements as well as to periodical and continual
ones
3  Measurement of transit times for bulk mail services

12. Contact
Niels Delater e-mail: niels.delater@spectos.com
Geschäftsführer, Spectos GmbH Mobile: +49 163 4441785
Sven Szarka e-mail: sven.szarka@spectos.com
Partner, Spectos GmbH Mobile: +49 173 5757051
Sabine Frahm e-mail: sabine.frahm@spectos.com
Senior Consultant, Spectos GmbH mobile: +49 178 4441733