Mail delivery in Finland

[tuulen]

How is mail delivered in Finland, not e-mail but snail-mail, letters, packages and such?

Yes, there are post offices, but do people go to their local post office to collect their mail?

Or, could mail be delivered to one's door in the cities, but not delivered to one's door in the rural areas?

[Janat]

Those who live in apartment buildings get their mail delivered to the door, usually through a "mail hole" if you get what I mean Others have a mail box close to their house where their mail goes. Bigger packages are collected from post office, or delivered to the door (it costs more).

[Pursuivant]

Depends on how you send it. http://www.posti.fi theres next day delivery and such (for parcels). But that requires the delivery guy finding someone at home at the time, and as people usually work during the day these couriers are a pain in the butt. I don't know what the logic is but sometimes the postman takes the big package with and rings the doorbell or then I just get these cards with "you got oversized letter". Then theres these kind of "conseccionary" post offices so you can ask your stuff be delivered to say your local R-kioski if say your post office is across the village. Then the foreign mail gets a bit funky as some of that isn't delivered by mail but by courier, and we have the bus parcel services here too, so usually then you pick up your stuff from the bus depot or your local Siwa(grocery chain) even.

[ajl]

We just pay an extra fee for the daily mail to come to the door of the house.
No delivery on Saturdays, unlike the US, although maybe USPS will get rid of
the Sat delivery soon enough.

[tuulen]

...No delivery on Saturdays, unlike the US, although maybe USPS will get rid of
the Sat delivery soon enough.

Yes, I am in the US, and recently heard that USPS could soon end Saturday mail delivery, but that makes sense, in these days of e-mail.

However, my question about mail delivery in Finland had to do with the idea that Finland is a big country, yet most of the residents live in the southern regions, and so it apparently wouldn't make financial sense to deliver mail door-to-door in rural regions, such as in Lapland, etc. And, that caused me to wonder how those in such rural areas got their mail.

[interleukin]

In Finland we have this thing called taxes. It means people can get service from the government even if they don't live in Töölö.

[Pursuivant]

Its not really nothing to do with "financial sense". In olden days you would have a postbus operate connecting small villages, so there was "public transport". Actually you still get that in remoter parts of Europe, like Swiss mountain villages. Doesn't the USPS do rural routes as well?

[tuulen]

...But that requires the delivery guy finding someone at home at the time, and as people usually work during the day these couriers are a pain in the butt. I don't know what the logic is but sometimes the postman takes the big package with and rings the doorbell or then I just get these cards with "you got oversized letter". Then theres these kind of "conseccionary" post offices so you can ask your stuff be delivered to say your local R-kioski if say your post office is across the village. Then the foreign mail gets a bit funky as some of that isn't delivered by mail but by courier, and we have the bus parcel services here too, so usually then you pick up your stuff from the bus depot or your local Siwa(grocery chain) even.

In the US, if USPS can get a letter or package in a mailbox, then it gets delivered, but if the letter or package does not fit into a mailbox, then it is not delivered, and a note is left saying to collect the letter or package at the local post office.

In case of private, commercial delivery, such as by UPS, FedEx, etc., in cities they leave a note saying to come to their local office and collect a package if recipient is not at home, but in rural areas it is common for them to simply leave a package outside one's door if the recipient is not at home, and wrapped in a plastic bag if raining.

[tuulen]

In Finland we have this thing called taxes. It means people can get service from the government even if they don't live in Töölö.

Aha! So, mail delivery is fairly uniform everywhere in Finland, no matter where.

I was looking at mail delivery with a view toward efficiency, that those who live in more populated areas could have their mail delivered to their door, while those in more rural areas could have to collect it themselves from their local post office. However, I now understand what you have said about taxes.

[Pursuivant]

Well no, its somewhat subsidised but these days unless its blocks of flats and in some of those too you get a bunch of mailboxes your mail gets delivered to. They're now more and more demanding the boxes to be "van deliverable" so in some places you can have the box quite a distance from the house in a batch with all the other neighbors. But I lived "in the city" and I had a box some 50m where the trashbins were at so I had to go for a morning walk to get the paper... But we don't have "pigeonholes" except in some rare apartment blocks. But they're moving towards "not delivering" as its now privatized instead of a government operation.

[tuulen]

Its not really nothing to do with "financial sense". In olden days you would have a postbus operate connecting small villages, so there was "public transport". Actually you still get that in remoter parts of Europe, like Swiss mountain villages. Doesn't the USPS do rural routes as well?

Yes, USPS does deliver rural mail, all over the US.

However, in these days of e-mail, perhaps it could make some sense if USPS delivered mail only once a week, instead of six days a week. Think of how much delivery vehicle fuel could be saved!

[tuulen]

...But I lived "in the city" and I had a box some 50m where the trashbins were at so I had to go for a morning walk to get the paper...

Yes, but could there soon come a time when daily newspapers become obsolete?

[Rip]

In Finland we have this thing called taxes. It means people can get service from the government even if they don't live in Töölö.

Actually, the postal service (Itella oy) nowadays is paying taxes (both VAT and from the profit they make), not spending tax money (and the net profit goes to state of course as well). As the postage within Helsinki is the same as one to remote part of Lapland, it is obvious that those paying the former are subsidizing the latter.

As such, if you are living in less populated areas, I think the postal service may require you to put your mail box up to one kilometer away from your house (closer to their route), unless you either pay for extra service or get an exemption based on ill health or advanced age.

[Pursuivant]

Its also you can't "pick raisins from the bun" as like with bus routes you need to provide service also on not-so-lucrative routes.

[Rip]

Its also you can't "pick raisins from the bun" as like with bus routes you need to provide service also on not-so-lucrative routes.

This will change because of some EU regulation that will allow soon more competition in the urban areas. The postal service is still legally bound to give service in the sparsely populated areas, but that will in the future either mean reduced service levels, government subsidies or possibly higher prices for the remote areas.