The Drop-Off and Collection
Your letter's journey begins the moment it hits the bottom of the blue collection box. At scheduled times, postal workers collect these letters and transport them to a local sorting facility. Here, the mail is dumped onto massive conveyor belts, where machines quickly separate letters from packages and face them all in the same direction.
The Magic of OCR and Barcodes
The letters zip through an Optical Character Reader (OCR) machine at blinding speeds. The machine scans the address, looking specifically for the postal code. Once read, it prints a fluorescent barcode along the bottom edge of the envelope. If the handwriting is too messy, an image is instantly beamed to a remote worker who types the code manually.
Final Sorting and Delivery
Guided entirely by that fluorescent barcode (which represents the postal code), the letter is routed into specific bins destined for different regions. It travels by truck or plane to a destination facility, where Delivery Barcode Sorters arrange the mail in the exact sequence of the local letter carrier's daily route. The postal code is the invisible conductor orchestrating this entire symphony.