TRANSPORT ISSN 1648-4142 / eISSN 1648-3480 2020 Volume 35 Issue 4: 401–418 https://doi.org/10.3846/transport.2020.13741 A MODEL FOR PUBLIC POSTAL NETWORK REORGANIZATION BASED ON DEA AND FUZZY APPROACH Jelena MILUTINOVIĆ1, Dejan MARKOVIĆ2, Bojan STANIVUKOVIĆ3, Libor ŠVADLENKA4, Momčilo DOBRODOLAC5* 1ICT College of Vocational Studies, Belgrade, Serbia 2, 3, 5Faculty of Transport and Traffic Engineering, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia 4Faculty of Transport Engineering, University of Pardubice, Pardubice, Czech Republic Received 15 September 2018; revised 25 April 2019; accepted 29 April 2019 Abstract. One of the most important segments in management of Universal Service Providers (USPs) is reaching the deci- sions concerning changes in the postal network infrastructure. USPs decide on such matters based on an analysis of finan- cial indicators and defined qualitative parameters in accordance with the international regulations and obligations imposed by a competent regulatory agency. In this paper, the previously known method to analyse the existing postal network and define the minimal number of Postal Network Units (PNU) is implemented and upgraded by a new approach based on Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and fuzzy logic. The final aim of the proposed new approach is to determine which of the considered PNU should be closed or reorganized having in mind the minimization of negative effects, both financial and social. The proposed model gives the indices for all considered postal branches, which allows the decision-maker to rank the importance of each unit. The proposed model is a business intelligence tool, which replaces a multidisciplinary team composed from managers of the company and policymakers from both the postal sector as well as a sustainable rural development sector in reaching an important decision on changing the postal network. This decision may be considered as extremely complex since it should sublimate the opposed criteria that relate to the business success of the company, state regulations and sustainability of the local community. The indices obtained in the proposed method exactly include the mentioned three categories. The authors demonstrate the applicability of the suggested methodology based on the real data acquired in a district of the Serbia, i.e. in a regional organizational entity of the USP and provide the analysis of the results reached for the rural delivery post offices. Keywords: postal services, postal network units, social criteria, fuzzy logic, DEA, rural area. Introduction The Universal Postal Service (UPS) comprises of the post- ples are defined in the European Commission Directives al services that are constantly offered to all customers by (EU 1997, 2002, 2008). Besides, the USPs have a significant the same conditions, fulfilling the principles of predefined social and economic function, especially in the underde- quality and affordable prices. The Universal Service Pro- veloped regions. This is the reason why postal services are vider (USP) should provide a set of postal services at the considered as services of general economic interest in the whole state territory (EU 2008). most countries. Accordingly, having in mind that two op- The globalization and liberalization of the postal mar- posed aims should be achieved, efficiency and availability, ket have caused the transition from the traditional mo- a redefining or reorganization of the post office network nopolized manner of business to a profitable one. An in- is a very complex and sensitive task. tegral part of the transformation process of USPs in the The availability of the UPS is reflected in, among other liberalized market is determining the efficiency of busi- things, the territorial availability of the postal network. ness processes, as well as points with the highest expenses. The rationalization of expenses and financial profitabil- In this process, the USPs should include the indicators of ity indicators and changes in the number and structure quality determined by the regulatory agencies and fulfil of population induced by demographical factors, have a the imposed targets. In the European Union, such princi- significant influence on the process of restructuring of a *Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected] Copyright © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Vilnius Gediminas Technical University Press This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unre- stricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. 402 J. Milutinović et al. A model for public postal network reorganization based on DEA and fuzzy approach postal network – shutting down a Postal Network Unit reorganized. The main aim of the previous studies was just (PNU), changing the operating form, implementation of to propose the minimum number of PNU to achieve the more economically organized plans that have a shorter imposed regulations; however, a decision-maker responsi- working time or a narrower service portfolio. According ble for the postal infrastructure needs more information. to the Universal Postal Union (UPU) statistics, the num- This was exactly a motive for the authors to propose a ber of total PNUs has been unsteady. There has been an model, which would upgrade the existing knowledge in obvious trend in developed countries in the last 30 years – the field. In this paper, the authors calculate the minimum national operators have been taking over the franchising number of PNUs in a county using the existing knowledge model, so that the number of permanent PNUs went from in the field, and then, applying the original model based 205000 to 160000 (UPU 2014). When it comes to the Eu- on the fuzzy logic uniquely determine which PNU should ropean Union member states, Okholm et al. (2018) define be closed or restructured to minimize the overall nega- potential scenarios for the future provision of the UPS: tive effects. The various aspects of importance have been – status quo; considered, both on the part of the service provider and – reduce delivery frequency; users – legal entities and population. – reduce speed of delivery; This paper introduces a fuzzy logic system, which the – allow different forms of delivery; authors have developed as a business intelligence tool for – remove uniform prices requirement; deciding which PNUs in rural areas should be shut down – relax ubiquity (accessibility) requirement: or reorganized while taking into consideration not only - reduce the required number of post offices in rural the financial, but the social criterion. Aside from the social areas by 25…50%; factor, other input variables are considered: the efficiency - reduce the required number of post offices in urban measured by Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), postal areas by 25…50%; service availability and economic activity of the micro lo- - allow alternative models, e.g. mobile post offices, cation. As a result of the proposed model, there is a set franchise model, etc. of indices allocated to each considered PNU, which rep- In the same study, it is estimated how different scenar- resents a preference for shutting down or restructuring. ios impact the users, employees and other stakeholders. The applicability of the proposed model is demonstrated The USP from Serbia continuously carries out the in the case of Zlatiborski District, one of the 29 districts in analysis of productivity for each PNU, and even though the Serbia. The results have proved the expectations of the some of them achieve negative results, no post offices have authors that this model could be a useful tool for making been closed in the recent years due to the corresponding decisions on reconfiguring the postal network in various state policy in the postal sector. Nevertheless, the new of- territories and administrational units. fices were opened. However, to improve the financial re- The paper is organized in the following way. The first sults, it is necessary to reduce the number of permanent section offers a literature review on different approaches PNUs for the provision of UPS (Unterberger et al. 2018). in optimization of the postal network and its impact on Since the policy of postal network expanding in the the local community. In the second section, the current rural areas is unsustainable from the standpoint of profit, methods that are theoretically and practically used in de- the model proposed in this paper offers a solution for fining the minimal number of permanent PNUs are in- downsizing or restructuring the post office network, hav- troduces. In the third section, we propose a fuzzy logic ing in mind both profitability and social factor in the deci- based model. This part also provides an overview of the sion-making process. It takes into consideration the most bibliography and characteristics of input and output vari- sensitive groups that would be affected by such decisions. ables. Further, the Wang–Mendel method for generating From the operators’ point of view, such activities lead to fuzzy rules based on empirical data is implemented. The the optimization of expenses – reduction in the numbers fourth part depicts the application of the proposed model of employees and delivery vehicles; however, this affects on the real data, offering a detailed analysis of the results. customers in various ways. Final comments are given in the conclusions section. There are several papers dealing with the phenom- enon of the postal network reorganization in rural areas 1. The different approaches in optimization by determining the number or set of unprofitable post of- of the postal network and its impact fices that should be closed or restructured. These studies on the local community propose the minimum number of PNUs within the postal network, which is sufficient to provide the UPS according The existing methodologies are based on spatial indicators to the framework prescribed by the national quality stand- and provide criteria for minimal number of PNUs based ards. According to the authors knowledge, by analysing on the number of residents in an area.