Why are postal items grouped together by destination during sorting?

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postal system A United States Postal Service worker retrieving mail from a mailbox in Manheim, Pennsylvania.

Postal items are grouped together by destination to ensure that postal services remain efficient and economical. While every piece of mail is an individual object requiring specific delivery, the sheer volume of items necessitates mass-processing to manage operations effectively.

By concentrating items that are traveling to the same place or in the same direction, postal organizations can convert individual pieces into bulk shipments. This systematic sorting allows for the most economic method of transport, as mail can be combined with items from other sources to be moved efficiently between intermediate sorting offices and final destinations. Ultimately, this process enables the postal system to handle millions of items daily while ensuring that each piece eventually regains its individual status for final delivery to its specific address.1