Systems at work

USPS
Systems

At Work

The daily operations performed by the Postal Service depend on an astonishing network of people and technologies that collect, transport, process and deliver the nation’s mail.

* | Tags: Innovation USPS Fact #396 | July 1, 2025

Systems at Work

The daily operations performed by the Postal Service depend on an astonishing network of people and technologies that collect, transport, process and deliver the nation’s mail. The Postal Service operates hundreds of mail processing and distribution centers across the country. The employees in these facilities accept, sort and dispatch the nation’s mail.

  • Postal Vehicle Service (PVS) operations include more than 12,000 uniformed motor vehicle and tractor-trailer operators. The PVS fleet includes 98 sprinter
    vans, 2,202 cargo vans, 2,364 tractors and
    7,351 trailers. Commuting within a 170-mile
    radius of their facility, PVS drivers travel more than
    184 million miles each year.
  • To move mail using surface transportation, the Postal
    Service drove more than 1.9 billion miles in 2024 —
    more than 22.6 million trips in more than 2,202 box trucks and tractor-trailers daily.
  • To move mail through the air, the Postal Service flew 3.7 million pounds of mail per day, using more than 150 domestic airports.
  • The Los Angeles Processing and Distribution Center is the largest processing facility at 725 million square feet.
  • The Postal Service is the world leader in optical character recognition (OCR) technology, with machines reading nearly 98 percent of all hand-addressed letters and 99.5 percent of machine-printed mail.

 

  • The Postal Service:
  • Deployed more than 560 new package processing systems in 2024, which increased package processing by 8.5 million pieces daily. The new machines enable the fleet of parcel sorters to now process 85 million packages daily.
  • Has 365 automated guided vehicles (AGVs) in 25 facilities. AGVs use sensors and navigation technology to move around processing facilities without human involvement.
  • Has one of the largest material-handling systems in the world for moving mail. There are more than 200 miles of conveyors within postal facilities.
  • Has the largest gantry robotic fleet in the world with 165 robotics systems moving 300,000 mail trays per day.

The Postal Service operates more than 9,000 pieces of automated equipment that process and sort U.S. Mail.

  • The largest piece of automated equipment, the Matrix
    Regional Sorter, sorts 52,600 packages an hour.
  • The Flex Rover Sorter is a wheeled robot that sorts
    large and nonmachinable packages into containers.
    There are more than 600 rovers deployed at
    35 sites across the country.
  • The Small Delivery Unit Sorter/Single Induction
    Package Sorter sorts packages and bundles of mail
    at a rate of 4,400 pieces an hour with 99.95 percent
    accuracy.
  • The High Output Package Sorter can sort packages
    at a rate of 8,500 pieces an hour.
  • The Automated Delivery Unit Sorter sorts packages
    and bundles of mail at a rate of 3,400 pieces per
    hour with a sort accuracy of 99.95 percent.
  • The Robotic Containerization System sorts trays and
    automatically loads rolling containers or pallets.
  • The Advanced Facer Canceller System positions
    letter mail and postmarks stamps at a rate of
    36,000 pieces an hour.
  • The Delivery Barcode Sorter reads barcodes and can
    sort 36,000 letters an hour.
  • The Automated Flat Sorting Machine can sort
    17,000 flat mailpieces an hour.
  • The Automated Package Processing System sorts
    packages and bundles of mail at a rate of
    9,500 pieces an hour.
  • The High Throughput Parcel Sorter sorts packages
    and bundles at a rate of 15,000 pieces an hour.
  • The Automated Parcel and Bundle Sorter sorts
    packages and bundles of mail at a rate of
    6,500 pieces an hour.
  • Tray sorting machines sort more than 10 million
    trays a day through conveyor systems.
  • Mobile Delivery Devices provide real-time scanning
    for daily delivery operations. There are more than
    285,000 of these devices in use nationwide.
  • The “Systems at Work” video has more information and
    can be seen on the USPS YouTube channel at
    youtube.com/watch?v=WX16-52bHvg.