OTR Mailman

Carrier LVL pays attention to costs and precise timing to turn a profit delivering for the U.S. Postal Service

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays LVL Inc. from its appointed routes as a contracted mail carrier for the U.S. Postal Service. Their contracts — some of which cover 365 days a year — say they will deliver on time.

In its mail delivery operation, LVL runs mostly daycabs, both leased and owned.

North Little Rock, Ark.-based LVL has hauled mail as its primary business on routes primarily in the Midwest and Southeast since 1947, says President Rick Vassar, whose grandfather started the business. “Mail is a different animal from freight. Everything that we run is a set schedule. Drivers can set their watch by it. They know where they’re driving and where their layover points are going to be. You don’t have the day-to-day dispatch and management of drivers [like you do with general freight].”

In this tightly controlled environment, carriers are under the gun to watch their outlays. In the last several years, the USPS has been running a deficit and trying to cut costs where it can. Vassar says the USPS has focused on reducing transportation expenses when renewing contracts, which come up every two or four years. “You have to run lean and mean,” he says. “You really have to watch your tire and battery costs and equipment — and operate with as few people as you can.”

Vassar notes that his contract to deliver and pick up at bulk mail centers used to require 15 trailers. LVL would drop a trailer and pick up another trailer and go. To reduce costs, USPS negotiated contracts that call for LVL to deliver a trailer, wait for it to be unloaded and then reloaded. Most contracts allow for turnarounds of 15 to 30 minutes, Vassar says.

One major expense area for carriers is maintenance. Vassar says costs were increasing at the same time the USPS was reducing payments. About a year ago, LVL contracted with Penske for a full-maintenance lease for about half of its fleet. Routine maintenance is at a fixed cost, and Penske takes care of preventive maintenance and servicing items such as tires, batteries and lights on LVL tractors.