The United States Postal Service's plan to replace its entire fleet of more than 200,000 mail trucks at once doesn't make any sense, lawmakers said Thursday.
During a hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, representatives from the government and the private sector testified and said the vehicles do need to be replaced. But a smarter, more cost-effective solution would be to do so over time, according to
The Daily Caller.
The "Long Life Vehicles," or LLVs, currently in use have an operational lifespan of 24 years and are lasting an average of 23 years. The aging fleet is in dire need of replacing.
The USPS is seeking proposals from companies to build the next version of the LLVs, called "Next Generation Delivery Vehicles" (NGDVs), at a cost of between $25,000 and $35,000 each. The total cost would lie somewhere between $4.5 billion and $6.3 billion, reports The Daily Caller.
The problem, however, is there might not be enough money for the Postal Service to buy the vehicles. And even if the agency were to buy a new fleet, they would need replacing in another quarter century. With mail service becoming old-fashioned and outdated, some think the high cost of replacing the entire fleet would not be financially smart.
The USPS turned down an offer to refurbish its fleet in 2011 at a cost of $3.5 billion.
"We found in 2011 that the Postal Service elected to not replace its delivery fleet — about 175,000 vehicles at that time — largely because it would cost about $5 billion," said Lori Rectanus, the director of physical infrastructure for the GAO. The USPS "also chose to not refurbish the vehicles, which would have cost about $3.5 billion."
The latter option would have added as much as 15 years to the life of the vehicles.
The way mail is delivered now could become obsolete down the road, according to another report. The mail trucks of the future could come
equipped with drones that would deliver mail.
The USPS has been
losing money for some time as mail delivery is replaced by email and other electronic communications.
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