scope:

The European Commission emphasises the need to have common rules for the development of community postal services and the improvement of Quality-of-Service (QoS). The Commission has identified requirements for postal QoS-Measurement systems that include: - Independent end-to-end measurement capabilities; - A focus on national and cross-border distribution service performance; - A single, uniform and reliable system for monitoring distribution service performance within the Union. The Commission has acknowledged that the different postal traditions and cultures in Europe would not allow for the establishment of one common unified European measurement system and that national systems should have sufficient freedom to reflect national needs and peculiarities. On the other hand, they should fulfil a defined set of minimum requirements to satisfy the information interests of the Commission, the regulatory authority, postal customers and postal operators themselves. Any regulatory authority is free to adapt to national circumstances where the standard gives room to do so. The objective of the measurement is to estimate the end-to-end transit time QoS given to the customer domestically in each European country and cross-border between the European countries. This European Standard refers to a number of principles and minimum requirements to be applied for the measurement of the end-to-end transit time service level.