1.
Post office
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A post office is a customer service facility forming part of a national postal system. Post offices offer mail-related services such as acceptance of letters and parcels, provision of post office boxes, and sale of stamps, packaging. In addition, many post offices offer services, providing and accepting government forms, processing government services and fees. The chief administrator of a post office is a postmaster, prior to the advent of postal and ZIP codes, postal systems would route items to a specific post office for receipt or delivery. The term post office or post-office has been in use since the 1650s, in early Modern England, post riders – mounted couriers – were placed every few hours along post roads at posting houses or post houses between major cities. These stables or inns permitted important correspondence to travel without delay, in early America, post offices were also known as stations. This term and post house fell from use as horse and coach service was replaced by railways, aircraft, today, post office usually refers to postal facilities providing customer service. The term General Post Office is sometimes used for the headquarters of a postal service. A postal facility that is used exclusively for processing mail is known as sorting office or delivery office. Integrated facilities combining mail processing with railway stations or airports are known as mail exchanges, there is evidence of corps of royal couriers disseminating the decrees of the Egyptian pharaohs as early as 2,400 BC and the service may greatly precede even that date. Similarly, organized systems of posthouses providing swift mounted courier service seems quite ancient, certainly, by the time of the Persian Empire, a system of Chapar-Khaneh existed along the Royal Road. The 2nd-Century BC Mauryan and Han dynasties established similar systems in India, suetonius credited Augustus with regularizing the Roman network, the cursus publicus. Local officials were obliged to provide couriers who would be responsible for their messages entire course, locally maintained post houses privately owned rest houses were obliged or honored to care for them along their way. Diocletian later established two parallel systems, one providing fresh horses or mules for urgent correspondence and another providing sturdy oxen for bulk shipments, procopius, though not unbiased, records that this system remained largely intact was dismantled in the surviving empire by Justinian in the 6th Century. The Princely House of Thurn and Taxis initiated regular mail service from Brussels in the 16th century, the British Postal Museum claims that the oldest functioning post office in the world is on High Street in Sanquhar, Scotland. This post office has functioned continuously since 1712, an era in which horses, in parts of Europe, special postal censorship offices existed to intercept and censor mail. In France, such offices were known as cabinets noirs, in many jurisdictions, mail boxes and post office boxes have long been in widespread use for dropoff and pickup of mail and small packages outside of post offices or when offices are closed. Deutsche Post introduced the Packstation for package delivery in 2001, in the 2000s, the United States Postal Service began to install Automated Postal Centers in many locations both in post offices and in retail locations
2.
Canada
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Canada is a country in the northern half of North America. Canadas border with the United States is the worlds longest binational land border, the majority of the country has a cold or severely cold winter climate, but southerly areas are warm in summer. Canada is sparsely populated, the majority of its territory being dominated by forest and tundra. It is highly urbanized with 82 per cent of the 35.15 million people concentrated in large and medium-sized cities, One third of the population lives in the three largest cities, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Its capital is Ottawa, and other urban areas include Calgary, Edmonton, Quebec City, Winnipeg. Various aboriginal peoples had inhabited what is now Canada for thousands of years prior to European colonization. Pursuant to the British North America Act, on July 1,1867, the colonies of Canada, New Brunswick and this began an accretion of provinces and territories to the mostly self-governing Dominion to the present ten provinces and three territories forming modern Canada. With the Constitution Act 1982, Canada took over authority, removing the last remaining ties of legal dependence on the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Canada is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy, with Queen Elizabeth II being the head of state. The country is officially bilingual at the federal level and it is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many other countries. Its advanced economy is the eleventh largest in the world, relying chiefly upon its abundant natural resources, Canadas long and complex relationship with the United States has had a significant impact on its economy and culture. Canada is a country and has the tenth highest nominal per capita income globally as well as the ninth highest ranking in the Human Development Index. It ranks among the highest in international measurements of government transparency, civil liberties, quality of life, economic freedom, Canada is an influential nation in the world, primarily due to its inclusive values, years of prosperity and stability, stable economy, and efficient military. While a variety of theories have been postulated for the origins of Canada. In 1535, indigenous inhabitants of the present-day Quebec City region used the word to direct French explorer Jacques Cartier to the village of Stadacona, from the 16th to the early 18th century Canada referred to the part of New France that lay along the St. Lawrence River. In 1791, the area became two British colonies called Upper Canada and Lower Canada collectively named The Canadas, until their union as the British Province of Canada in 1841. Upon Confederation in 1867, Canada was adopted as the name for the new country at the London Conference. The transition away from the use of Dominion was formally reflected in 1982 with the passage of the Canada Act, later that year, the name of national holiday was changed from Dominion Day to Canada Day
3.
Carriage
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A carriage is a wheeled vehicle for people, usually horse-drawn, litters and sedan chairs are excluded, since they are wheelless vehicles. The carriage is especially designed for passenger use and for comfort or elegance. It may be light, smart and fast or heavy, large, Carriages normally have suspension using leaf springs, elliptical springs or leather strapping. A public passenger vehicle would not usually be called a carriage – terms for such include stagecoach, charabanc, working vehicles such as the wagon and cart share important parts of the history of the carriage, as does too the fast chariot. The word carriage is from Old Northern French cariage, to carry in a vehicle, a carriage is sometimes called a team, as in horse and team. A carriage with its horse is a rig, an elegant horse-drawn carriage with its retinue of servants is an equipage. A carriage together with the horses, harness and attendants is a turnout or setout, a procession of carriages is a cavalcade. Some horsecarts found in Celtic graves show hints that their platforms were suspended elastically, four-wheeled wagons were used in prehistoric Europe, and their form known from excavations suggests that the basic construction techniques of wheel and undercarriage were established then. The earliest recorded sort of carriage was the chariot, reaching Mesopotamia as early as 1900 BC, used typically for warfare by Egyptians, the near Easterners and Europeans, it was essentially a two-wheeled light basin carrying one or two passengers, drawn by one to two horses. It is likely that Roman carriages employed some form of suspension on chains or leather straps, in the kingdom of the Zhou Dynasty the Warring States were also known to have used carriages as transportation. With the decline of these civilizations these techniques almost disappeared, the medieval carriage was typically a four-wheeled wagon type, with a rounded top similar in appearance to the Conestoga Wagon familiar from the USA. Sharing the traditional form of wheels and undercarriage known since the Bronze Age, suspension is recorded in visual images and written accounts from the 14th century, and was in widespread use by the 15th century. Carriages were largely used by royalty, aristocrats, and could be decorated and gilded. These carriages were on four wheels often and were pulled by two to four depending on how they were decorated. Wood and iron were the requirements needed to build a carriage. Another form of carriage was the pageant wagon of the 14th century, historians debate on the structure and size of pageant wagons, however, they are generally miniature house-like structures that rest on four to six wheels depending on the size of the wagon. Historians also debate whether or not pageant wagons were built with pivotal axle systems, whether it was a four- or six-wheel pageant wagon, most historians maintain that pivotal axle systems were implemented on pageant wagons because many roads were often winding with some sharp turns. Six wheel pageant wagons also represent another innovation in carriages, they were one of the first carriages to use multiple pivotal axles, pivotal axles were used on the front set of wheels and the middle set of wheels
4.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
5.
American Revolutionary War
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From about 1765 the American Revolution had led to increasing philosophical and political differences between Great Britain and its American colonies. The war represented a culmination of these differences in armed conflict between Patriots and the authority which they increasingly resisted. This resistance became particularly widespread in the New England Colonies, especially in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. On December 16,1773, Massachusetts members of the Patriot group Sons of Liberty destroyed a shipment of tea in Boston Harbor in an event that became known as the Boston Tea Party. Named the Coercive Acts by Parliament, these became known as the Intolerable Acts in America. The Massachusetts colonists responded with the Suffolk Resolves, establishing a government that removed control of the province from the Crown outside of Boston. Twelve colonies formed a Continental Congress to coordinate their resistance, and established committees, British attempts to seize the munitions of Massachusetts colonists in April 1775 led to the first open combat between Crown forces and Massachusetts militia, the Battles of Lexington and Concord. Militia forces proceeded to besiege the British forces in Boston, forcing them to evacuate the city in March 1776, the Continental Congress appointed George Washington to take command of the militia. Concurrent to the Boston campaign, an American attempt to invade Quebec, on July 2,1776, the Continental Congress formally voted for independence, issuing its Declaration on July 4. Sir William Howe began a British counterattack, focussing on recapturing New York City, Howe outmaneuvered and defeated Washington, leaving American confidence at a low ebb. Washington captured a Hessian force at Trenton and drove the British out of New Jersey, in 1777 the British sent a new army under John Burgoyne to move south from Canada and to isolate the New England colonies. However, instead of assisting Burgoyne, Howe took his army on a campaign against the revolutionary capital of Philadelphia. Burgoyne outran his supplies, was surrounded and surrendered at Saratoga in October 1777, the British defeat in the Saratoga Campaign had drastic consequences. Giving up on the North, the British decided to salvage their former colonies in the South, British forces under Lieutenant-General Charles Cornwallis seized Georgia and South Carolina, capturing an American army at Charleston, South Carolina. British strategy depended upon an uprising of large numbers of armed Loyalists, in 1779 Spain joined the war as an ally of France under the Pacte de Famille, intending to capture Gibraltar and British colonies in the Caribbean. Britain declared war on the Dutch Republic in December 1780, in 1781, after the British and their allies had suffered two decisive defeats at Kings Mountain and Cowpens, Cornwallis retreated to Virginia, intending on evacuation. A decisive French naval victory in September deprived the British of an escape route, a joint Franco-American army led by Count Rochambeau and Washington, laid siege to the British forces at Yorktown. With no sign of relief and the situation untenable, Cornwallis surrendered in October 1781, Whigs in Britain had long opposed the pro-war Tory majority in Parliament, but the defeat at Yorktown gave the Whigs the upper hand
6.
United States Postal Service
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The United States Postal Service, is an independent agency of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal service in the United States. It is one of the few government agencies explicitly authorized by the United States Constitution, Mail traces its roots to 1775 during the Second Continental Congress, where Benjamin Franklin was appointed the first postmaster general. The USPS as of February 2015 has 617,254 active employees, the USPS is the operator of the largest civilian vehicle fleet in the world. The USPS is legally obligated to serve all Americans, regardless of geography, at uniform price, the USPS has exclusive access to letter boxes marked U. S. The USPS lost $5.5 billion in fiscal year 2014 and $5.1 billion in 2015, in the early years of the North American colonies, many attempts were made to initiate a postal service. These early attempts were of small scale and usually involved a colony, Massachusetts Bay Colony for example, for example, informal independently-run postal routes operated in Boston as early as 1639, with a Boston to New York City service starting in 1672. A central postal organization came to the colonies in 1691, when Thomas Neale received a 21-year grant from the British Crown for a North American Postal Service, the patent included the exclusive right to establish and collect a formal postal tax on official documents of all kinds. The tax was repealed a year later, Neale appointed Andrew Hamilton, Governor of New Jersey, as his deputy postmaster. The first postal service in America commenced in February 1692, rates of postage were fixed and authorized, and measures were taken to establish a post office in each town in Virginia. Massachusetts and the other colonies soon passed laws, and a very imperfect post office system was established. Neales patent expired in 1710, when Parliament extended the English postal system to the colonies, the chief office was established in New York City, where letters were conveyed by regular packets across the Atlantic. Before the Revolution, there was only a trickle of business or governmental correspondence between the colonies, most of the mail went back and forth to counting houses and government offices in London. The Revolution made Philadelphia, the seat of the Continental Congress, News, new laws, political intelligence, and military orders circulated with a new urgency, and a postal system was necessary. Journalists took the lead, securing post office legislation that allowed them to reach their subscribers at very low cost, overthrowing the London-oriented imperial postal service in 1774-1775, printers enlisted merchants and the new political leadership, and created a new postal system. The United States Post Office was created on July 26,1775, the official post office was created in 1792 as the Post Office Department. It was based on the Constitutional authority empowering Congress To establish post offices, the 1792 law provided for a greatly expanded postal network, and served editors by charging newspapers an extremely low rate. The law guaranteed the sanctity of personal correspondence, and provided the country with low-cost access to information on public affairs. Rufus Easton was appointed by Thomas Jefferson first postmaster of St. Louis under the recommendation of Postmaster General Gideon Granger, Rufus Easton was the first postmaster and built the first post office west of the Mississippi
7.
Benjamin Franklin
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Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Franklin was a polymath and a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, freemason, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, statesman. As a scientist, he was a figure in the American Enlightenment. As an inventor, he is known for the rod, bifocals. He facilitated many civic organizations, including Philadelphias fire department and the University of Pennsylvania, Franklin earned the title of The First American for his early and indefatigable campaigning for colonial unity, initially as an author and spokesman in London for several colonies. As the first United States Ambassador to France, he exemplified the emerging American nation, in the words of historian Henry Steele Commager, In a Franklin could be merged the virtues of Puritanism without its defects, the illumination of the Enlightenment without its heat. To Walter Isaacson, this makes Franklin the most accomplished American of his age, Franklin became a successful newspaper editor and printer in Philadelphia, the leading city in the colonies, publishing the Pennsylvania Gazette at the age of 23. He became wealthy publishing this and Poor Richards Almanack, which he authored under the pseudonym Richard Saunders, after 1767, he was associated with the Pennsylvania Chronicle, a newspaper that was known for its revolutionary sentiments and criticisms of the British policies. He pioneered and was first president of The Academy and College of Philadelphia which opened in 1751 and he organized and was the first secretary of the American Philosophical Society and was elected president in 1769. Franklin became a hero in America as an agent for several colonies when he spearheaded an effort in London to have the Parliament of Great Britain repeal the unpopular Stamp Act. An accomplished diplomat, he was widely admired among the French as American minister to Paris and was a figure in the development of positive Franco-American relations. His efforts proved vital for the American Revolution in securing shipments of crucial munitions from France, during the Revolution, he became the first US Postmaster General. He was active in community affairs and colonial and state politics, from 1785 to 1788, he served as governor of Pennsylvania. He initially owned and dealt in slaves but, by the 1750s, he argued against slavery from an economic perspective, Franklins father, Josiah Franklin, was a tallow chandler, a soap-maker and a candle-maker. Josiah was born at Ecton, Northamptonshire, England on December 23,1657, the son of Thomas Franklin, a blacksmith-farmer, and Jane White. His mother, Abiah Folger, was born in Nantucket, Massachusetts, on August 15,1667, to Peter Folger, a miller and schoolteacher, and his wife, Mary Morrill, Josiah Franklin had seventeen children with his two wives. He married his first wife, Anne Child, in about 1677 in Ecton and emigrated with her to Boston in 1683, after her death, Josiah was married to Abiah Folger on July 9,1689 in the Old South Meeting House by Samuel Willard. Benjamin, their child, was Josiah Franklins fifteenth child and tenth
8.
Postmaster General of the United Kingdom
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The Postmaster General of the United Kingdom was a Cabinet-level ministerial position in HM Government. Aside from maintaining the system, the Telegraph Act of 1868 established the Postmaster Generals right to exclusively maintain electric telegraphs. This would subsequently extend to telecommunications and broadcasting, the office was abolished in 1969 by the Post Office Act 1969. A replacement public authority governed by a chairman was established under the name of the Post Office, in England, the monarchs letters to his subjects are known to have been carried by relays of couriers as long ago as the 15th century. The earliest mention of Master of the Posts is in the Kings Book of Payments where a payment of £100 was authorised for Tuke as master of the posts in February 1512. Belatedly, in 1517, he was appointed to the office of Governor of the Kings Posts. In 1609 it was decreed that letters could only be carried and delivered by persons authorised by the Postmaster General, in 1657 an Act entitled Postage of England, Scotland and Ireland Settled set up a system for the British Isles and enacted the position of Postmaster General. The Act also reasserted the postal monopoly for letter delivery and for post horses, after the Restoration in 1660, a further Act confirmed this and the post of Postmaster-General, the previous Cromwellian Act being void. 1660 saw the establishment of the General Letter Office, which would become the General Post Office. A similar position evolved in the Kingdom of Scotland prior to the 1707 Act of Union, the office was abolished in 1969 by the Post Office Act 1969. A new public authority governed by a chairman was established under the name of the Post Office, from 1691 to 1823 there were two Postmasters General, to divide the patronage between the Whigs and Tories. In 1823 the idea of a Whig and a Tory sharing the post was abolished
9.
Mail
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The mail or post is a system for physically transporting documents and other small packages, or, the postcards, letters, and parcels themselves. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems, since the mid-19th century national postal systems have generally been established as government monopolies with a fee on the article prepaid. Proof of payment is often in the form of adhesive postage stamps, modern private postal systems are typically distinguished from national postal agencies by the names courier or delivery service. Postal authorities often have other than transporting letters. In some countries, a postal, telegraph and telephone service oversees the system, in addition to telephone. Some countries postal systems allow for savings accounts and handle applications for passports, the Universal Postal Union, established in 1874, includes 192 member countries and sets the rules for international mail exchanges. The word mail comes from the Medieval English word male, referring to a bag or pack. It was spelled that way until the 17th century, and is distinct from the word male, the French have a similar word, malle for a trunk or large box, and mála is the Irish term for a bag. In the 17th century, the mail began to appear as a reference for a bag that contained letters. Over the next hundred years the word began to be applied strictly to the letters themselves. The U. S. Postal Service delivers the mail, the term email first appeared in the 1970s. The term snail-mail is a retronym to distinguish it from the quicker email, various dates have been given for its first use. Post is derived from Medieval French poste, which stems from the past participle of the Latin verb ponere. The practice of communication by written documents carried by an intermediary from one person or place to another almost certainly dates back nearly to the invention of writing, however, development of formal postal systems occurred much later. The earliest surviving piece of mail is also Egyptian, dating to 255 BC, the first credible claim for the development of a real postal system comes from Ancient Persia, but the point of invention remains in question. He also negotiated with neighbouring countries to do the same and had built from the city of Post in Western Iran all the way up to the city of Hakha in the East. Other writers credit his successor Darius I of Persia, other sources claim much earlier dates for an Assyrian postal system, with credit given to Hammurabi and Sargon II. Mail may not have been the mission of this postal service
10.
Envelope
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An envelope is a common packaging item, usually made of thin flat material. It is designed to contain an object, such as a letter or card. Traditional envelopes are made from sheets of cut to one of three shapes, a rhombus, a short-arm cross, or a kite. These shapes allow for the creation of the structure by folding the sheet sides around a central rectangular area. In this manner, an enclosure is formed with an arrangement of four flaps on the reverse side. Although in principle the flaps can be held in place by securing the topmost flap at a single point and they are most commonly used for enclosing and sending mail through a prepaid-postage postal system. Window envelopes have a cut in the front side that allows the paper within to be seen. They are generally arranged so that the address printed on the letter is visible. The window is covered with a transparent or translucent film to protect the letter inside, as was first designed by Americus F. Callahan in 1901. In some cases, shortages of materials or the need to economize resulted in envelopes that had no film covering the window, one innovative process, invented in Europe about 1905, involved using hot oil to saturate the area of the envelope where the address would appear. The treated area became sufficiently translucent for the address to be readable, as of 2009 there is no international standard for window envelopes, but some countries, including Germany and the United Kingdom, have national standards. An aerogram is related to a lettersheet, both being designed to have writing on the inside to minimize the weight, if desired, a separate letter could be enclosed with postage remaining at one penny provided the combined weight did not exceed half an ounce. This was a legacy of the system of calculating postage. During the U. S. Civil War those in the Confederate States Army occasionally used envelopes made from wallpaper, due to financial hardship. A return envelope is a pre-addressed, smaller envelope included as the contents of an envelope and can be used for courtesy reply mail, metered reply mail. Some envelopes are designed to be reused as the return envelope, the direct mail industry makes extensive use of return envelopes as a response mechanism. Up until 1840, all envelopes were handmade, each being individually cut to the appropriate shape out of a rectangular sheet. In 1845 Edwin Hill and Warren de la Rue obtained a patent for a machine that not only cut out the envelope shapes
11.
Letter box
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A letter box, letterbox, letter plate, letter hole, mail slot or mailbox is a receptacle for receiving incoming mail at a private residence or business. For the opposite purpose of collecting outgoing mail, a post box is used instead. This style is almost universal in British homes and offices, most are covered by a flap or seal on the outside for weatherproofing. The flap may be closed by gravity, or sprung to prevent it opening and closing noisily in the wind, some letterboxes also have a second flap on the inside to provide further protection from the elements. There may also be a cage or box mounted on the inside of the door to receive the delivered mail. Mail slots are limited to receiving incoming mail, as most have no provision for securing and protecting outgoing mail for pickup by the mail carrier, wall-mounted or attached mailboxes may also be used in place of mail slots, usually located close to the front door of the residence. They are known as full-service mailboxes when they have provisions for securing outgoing as well as incoming mail, attached wall-mounted mailboxes are still used in older urban and suburban neighbourhoods in North America. They are especially common in urban and suburban areas of Canada, attached mailboxes are less common in newer urban and suburban developments and in rural areas of the United States, where curbside delivery or delivery to a community mail station is generally used. Rural and some areas of North America may utilize curbside mailboxes. In the US and Canada, rural curbside mailboxes may be grouped together at property boundaries or road/driveway intersections. A number of designs of letterboxes and mailboxes have been patented, various privacy, theft-protection, vandalism resistance and corrosion-resistance test requirements This Standard is voluntary. Although the Standard was due for a review after 5 years in 2007, this did not happen. In April 2013 the amended Standard BS EN13724,2013 was finally published, however, the essential amendments were not included again and the interests of security, energy saving and wellbeing of the public were not addressed. Wall-mounted mailboxes equipped with a slot must have a slot opening measurement not less than 13.5 cm by 4 cm and the slot located on or near the top of the box. The signal device must rise above the mailbox and be visible at a distance, the US Post Office has established guidelines for mail recipients, including mail slot or mailbox size, location, and identification requirements. In 1978, seven years after the establishment of the restructured US Postal Service, currently, US curbside mailboxes are classified as Traditional, Contemporary, or Locking. Traditional or Contemporary non-locking curbside mailboxes are approved in three sizes - No,3, measured by minimum interior dimensions. The largest acceptable curbside mailbox is the No,3, which measures 22.81 inches long,11 inches wide, and 15 inches in height at the peak
12.
Packstation
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Packstation is a service run by DHL Parcel Germany, a business unit of Deutsche Posts Mail division, in Germany. It provides automated booths for self-service collection of parcels and oversize letters as well as self-service dispatch of parcels 24 hours a day, Packstation started as a pilot project in 2001 and was quickly expanded. There are 3,000 Packstation machines in Germany and 90 percent of the living in Germany were within ten minutes of a DHL Packstation. Only ordinary parcels and letters delivered by Deutsche Post can be delivered to Packstations, moreover, Deutsche Post allows its subsidiary DHL Express Germany to insert a limited number of express parcels. Packstations were originally manufacturerd by the Austrian company KEBA with newer stations developed by DHL Paket in conjunection with Polygon, as of September 2011 there were 2,000,000 registered Packstation customers in Germany according to Deutsche Post. Using Packstations is free of both for private and business customers, however prior registration through the web portal Paket. de is required for collection of parcels. Each customer obtains a magnetic card and PIN that can be used to identify the customer at Packstation machines. Previously, it was possible to use the Packstation by entering the customer number and this was changed in 2011 in order to increase security as said by DHL, usage of the Goldcard is mandatory now. On 29 October 2012, a mandatory mTAN was introduced, this is transmitted solely in the SMS notification, each mTAN is valid only for one opening procedure, hereby replacing the PIN. The addressing system used for Packstations is slightly different from standard mail, the customer number is permanently assigned to a recipient. Number and location of a Packstation can be looked up online prior to receiving a delivery, a customer is not tied to a particular Packstation, but is free to choose a different one for each delivery. If a parcel or letter is addressed to a Packstation, it is delivered directly to the specified booth, if the destination is full, the parcel is diverted to the nearest booth with free compartments or to the nearest post office. It is also diverted to the post office if it is too large to fit into the compartments, as soon as the parcel arrives at the Packstation, the customer is notified by SMS and email. He or she then has seven days to collect the package. The customer logs in with their Goldcard and mTAN, and retrieves the parcel, the Packstation also accepts Maestro debit cards for collect-on-delivery mail. Parcels addressed to a number are diverted to a Packstation if the recipient is not available to sign for the delivery. In those instances, the recipient receives a card with a bar code. The recipient then goes to the Packstation at his convenience, holds the bar code under the scanner, the locker with the parcel then opens automatically and the recipient retrieves the parcel
