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The Global Postal Union (UPU), composed of 191 national postal agencies, launched a large-scale test project earlier this month involving EPC Gen 2 passive RFID tags and readers. Following the UPU test in the Middle East, the project will test the sending and receiving time of letters between 21 countries.
In the first phase of the project, postal service providers from 21 countries participated: Aruba, Chile, India, North Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Antilles, Norway, Peru, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia , Spain, Switzerland, Togo, Tunisia, Arab Emirates and Venezuela. UPU plans to expand the project-GMS (Global Monitoring System)-to 100 countries in 2012.
According to Akio Miyaji, head of service quality at UPU, the GMS project selects some of the 431 billion letters sent to all parts of the world each year to test their delivery time. In most countries, a single package is usually tracked using strip technology; so far, there is no effective way to measure the time to send and receive letters.
At present, industrialized countries use a formula (including a variable to measure the quality of delivery-the time of shipping and sending the letter) to allocate stamp costs. “We need to understand the quality of mail delivery because it is linked to payment,” Miyaji said.
RFID readers are installed at the main entry and exit points of 21 national postal agencies
During the 17-month test, a total of 600 participants-UPUs called panel members, put EPC Gen 2 tags into 80,000 test letters sent out by 38 countries. As the letters flow through the main entry and exit points of the postal system, the tags are read one by one until each test letter finally reaches the postal system exit of the destination country.
UPU will use RFID data to reconstruct the sending path of letters and measure the time they travel through important gateways. By analyzing a large amount of data, UPU quality managers in Switzerland can locate the bottleneck of the system.
“The GSM project allows us to understand the entire process of the letter from the sender to the receiver,” said Antonio Caeiro, UPU GMS project manager. The project was on track in the first few weeks of testing. He said that the system produced the initial data and the project manager can confirm that the system is operating normally.
Once the system is fully operational, users will be able to obtain relevant data through a web interface-Analysis and Reporting Data System (STAR).
UPU initially considered using a semi-active RFID system to track letters, but due to cost considerations, it was not adopted in the end. When UPU started planning the GSM project in 2005, Miyaji said that the price of a semi-active tag was about $50 at that time.
In addition, UPU’s tests in the Middle East used passive UHF RFID tags. After comparison, it was found that there is no difference in performance between semi-active tags and passive UHF RFID tags, according to Miyaji.
Before the start of the test, UPU held an open bid to select a technology provider. In the end, the Spanish system integrator Aida Centre won the project. The Tag Acquisition Processor (TAP) of Reva Systems is responsible for managing RFID readers and tag data collection. Motorola supplied 70 portal readers and 68 readers to 31 postal centers. The reader complies with different international standards around the world.
The German company Quotas hired a team of experts to manage the process of sending RFID letters. The label is supplied by Alien Technology. Each label is coded with a mixed ID code, part of the EPC code, and also includes a UPU number.
Caeiro hopes that the GMS project can encourage postal agencies in various countries to adopt relevant systems to monitor the quality of mail delivery in their country, and then implement labeling management for valuable postal assets.
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