Highway Contract Route Trips Not Performed

The U.S. Postal Service’s surface network uses highway contract routes, which are routes of travel served by contracted suppliers to transport mail between plants and other designated stops. The suppliers are expected to operate according to scheduled arrival and departure times defined in the contract. From fiscal years (FY) 2020 to 2022, the Postal Service reported that 679,407 scheduled highway contract route trips were omitted, meaning the supplier failed to run a scheduled trip. Omitted trips increased by about 129 percent from 132,158 in FY 2020 to 302,096 in FY 2022.