Mail carriers' toll exemption irks truckers
The transport industry has raised a ruckus over the toll exemption for postal service vehicles delivering mail to a small island on the Tokyo Bay Aqualine highway, irked that the preferential treatment puts trucking companies at a disadvantage.
Several deliveries a day are made to shops and restaurants as well a mailbox on Umi-hotaru, a small artificial island that serves as a rest area connecting the highway’s bridge section from Kisarazu in Chiba Prefecture to its underwater tunnel section to Kawasaki. Vehicles carrying postal items to the island, however, are exempt under a special regulation from the toll.
With a set of bills to allow private companies to participate in the mail-delivery business becoming a focal point of Diet debate, the issue of whether postal services will continue to enjoy such preferential treatment for postal services even after the establishment of a public corporation is expected to draw attention.
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