The postal service has always used cartage provided by third parties to haul the bulk of mail between distribution centers. It's quite uncommon to see a tractor-trailer with the USPS Eagle on it.
We used to have T.A. Ruck (they missed an opportunity there) and R.M. Neff as the haulers in central ohio. I think both of those have lost their contracts, however. I'm sure there are others, but I don't pay much attention to them anymore.
My real point is the money flow. Southern Mail Services has been a thing since since I asked Dad about it like 40 years ago. Fleet Size 473 Tractor(s) owned 450 Trailer(s) owned 490 Total drivers 550 Revenue Over $500 million, or $89.8 million or 9.4 million depending on what you find
I'd but that contract renewal is a rubber stamp....seems like it was back in the late 70s or early 80's when I aked dad, who is that, dosent the post office carry the mail...
Owning your own trucks can be expensive. While I never really checked, I always assumed the carriers were using the trucks for other things when not hauling mail. Mail is just a known payout for them.
Yeah, I did the analysis, way before AI for a trucking company I am invested in (never paid me a fucking dime in dividends). They were using kwhoppers and the maintanence cost was through the roof. I said, lets start conversations with Volvo, let them lease the units, no depreciation, full write off, and they take care of all maintanence. They ran with it and did it. About 2m a year saved. Then I was like, where do we buy fuel? Duh at the fucking gas station. Dipshits. So I hooked them up with a fleet fuel service (knew the CEO from another investment I was in - failed horriably fuck that shit). He signed the deal to get Fleet Fuel Prices with like the fuelman network. I wanted to spend the 30k to have 20,0000 gal on site at our depot.....that would pay for itself in 27 months....but no our CEO at the time didn't think it was a good idea, all nonsesne of the risks (fire, H&S, etc) but having it delivered by semi, to our own depot was the gold mine savings.....fucking retards. That was 10 years ago.....we'd have been profitable in just 4 years....still I aint seen a check.