In order to be able to guarantee postal service coverage throughout Austria, OesterreichischePost AG announced, on 30 November 2004, its concrete plans for the streamlining of its post office
network. In view of insufficient customer demand, alternatives had to be found for a total of 357post offices. It is above all small post offices with low customer frequency rates that had runinto profitability problems.Beginning in December 2004, Oesterreichische Post AG talked with the representatives of thelocal authorities in question. All in all, the representatives of Oesterreichische Post AG had 998meetings with mayors or other local government agents, with 95 percent of these entailing a secondmeeting, and 86% even a third one.
In addition, six meetings were held with a working group installed specifically for thispurpose, headed by State Secretary Eduard Mainoni in the Federal Ministry for Transport, Innovationand Technology.
The Control Board proposed by Vice-Chancellor and Federal Minister Hubert Gorbach andOesterreichische Post AG met 19 times, for the last time on 10 May.
“The negotiations were not always plain sailing, but we have managed to arrive at a goodsolution for the Austrian population. Retaining rural structures is a major concern for theAustrian government”, says State Secretary Mainoni.
The following solutions will be implemented now as a result of this negotiation process:
– 76 new Post.Partners: Private retailers and business enterprises as well as local authoritiesand tourist associations partnering with Oesterreichische Post AG to offer postal products.
– 120 new Post.Servicestellen: These are facilities that do not offer the full scope ofservices of post offices or Post.Partners, but accept letters and parcels and offer a placefor collecting postal items. They are run by privateentrepreneurs, but in part also by local authorities or tourist associations.
– Rural delivery service in 92 communities: In sparsely populated areas, rural deliverystaff take offer key functions offered elsewhere by post offices – major services include acceptingletters and domestic parcels as well as payment slips and deposits on postal saving accounts. In 29cases, the rural delivery service is supplemented by a Post.Abholstelle. These are mail collectionpoints run by local authorities as a service for local citizens. Letters and free parcels withoutany extra services (such as C.O.D., etc.) can be deposited there.
– At 17 locations, another post office located within the same local authority precinct takesover postal services.
– 47 post offices will remain open for the time being, with their operations subject tomonitoring, in most cases up to mid-2006. Given an optimal economic development, these post officeshave a chance of making it out of the red.
In the Salzburg communities of St. Veit, Goldegg and Lend, as well as Hollersbach and Krimml,the first Post.Mobiles in Austria will take up operations beginning in the summer of 2005. Theseare vehicles equipped as post offices, which do a defined round every day and stop at defined spotsat the same time every day (for about half an hour) to offer postal services.
“As we promised last year, no post office will be closed down without an adequate replacement.The alternatives we have come up with now guarantee adequate solutions for all the locationsaffected and thus Austrian-wide postal service coverage”, says Dr. Herbert Goetz, member of theboard of Oesterreichische Post AG.
In spite of the monitoring phase decreed for 47 out of the 357 locations, Oesterreichische PostAG will reach its goal of saving € 22.7 million in costs until 2007. Herbert Goetz: “As we assumethat these post offices will make it out of the red, we will be able to reach our savings goal at a100%.”
