Reliability is becoming an increasingly important measure for the provision of postal services. It implies avoiding the loss or damage of postal items, as well as meeting a transit time that aligns with users’ needs. Another measure to ensure the reliability of postal deliveries is to offer a tracking possibility.

In all of the researched 17 European countries except two, tracking is offered without any additional cost on the standard domestic parcel service. In Luxembourg, tracking is available with the standard parcel service but only on payment of a supplement. In the UK, tracking is not available with the standard parcel service.

However, for standard letters services, tracking is normally not available or, for a few countries, is only available upon payment of a supplementary fee.

In general, many countries now impose quality of service measures on the universal service provider (USP), which could be considered as reliability measures.

These are the main findings of Cullen International’s new benchmark on reliability measures for postal services, which provides information on:

• whether postal USPs offer tracking for their main services, including universal services;
• if so, whether tracking is provided as part of the standard price for the service or whether it is only available at a premium price; and
• whether the national regulatory authorities have established any reliability targets or measures.

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