Dutch postal company PostNL delivered letters on time in 2014

In 2014, Dutch postal company PostNL met the statutory requirement of delivering at least 95 percent of letter-size mail the next delivery day. That is the conclusion the Netherlands Authority for Consumer and Markets (ACM) has drawn in its annual assessment of PostNL’s delivery performance and its policy on service locations.

On average, at least 95 percent of letter-size mail must be delivered the next delivery day. In 2014, PostNL delivered on time 96.7 percent of letter-size mail. With regard to the mourning cards and medical letters, PostNL delivered 97.6 percent on time in 2014. PostNL has thus met the statutory requirements regarding delivery. It has also met the statutory requirements regarding its policy on service locations, PostNL has 2,064 service locations, which are sufficiently spread out across the Netherlands.

Background

On January 1, 2014, new statutory requirements came into force for assessing whether PostNL delivered letter-size mail on time. Since that date, the number of mandatory delivery days for letter-size mail has been lowered from six to five. Monday is no longer considered a delivery day. However, the six-day delivery obligation still applies to mourning cards and medical letters. In addition, PostNL must have at least 2,000 service locations, where customers are able to send items by registered mail, or to mail packages. As fewer and fewer letters are mailed, a legislative amendment will be drafted in order to be able to reduce the number of service locations and mailboxes. The aim is to continue to keep mail delivery affordable in the future.