Tag: Italy

Postal Operators – Fuel prices hitting profits

Posted by | Jul 24, 2008 | |

Higher fuel prices are having an impact on operating profit for all postal operators, and with many European countries already investing in alternative fuel sources, the U.S. Postal Service is now looking for ways to reduce it’s annual fuel bill, expected to increase by USD 600m this year.

The U.S. Postal Service has around 195,000 local delivery trucks and is already testing alternative transport powered by hydrogen, ethanol, lpg, and electricity.

French postal operator La Poste has a long-term plan to replace as much of its fleet as possible with electrically powered cars and is already using the battery-powered CleaNova, produced by Société de Véhicules Electriques (SVE), a joint venture between Dassault and Heuliez. Italian postal operator, Poste Italiane, has continued to replace many of its vehicles with gas-powered versions and has carried out several trials on alternative fuel vehicles, with special interest on serial-hybrid vans.

Royal mail aims to reduce its fleet fossil fuel usage by 14 pct by 2010 and has already bought Smith Edison and Newton higher function delivery vehicles which have a top speed of up to 50mph and can cover up to 150 miles on one battery charge. Royal Mail recently launched a company wide awareness programme to help its 180,000 people switch to greener driving, whether for social or work driving. And almost 1,000 Royal Mail drivers have received in-depth classroom training to help them adopt more environmentally-friendly motoring practices with plans to train a further 2,000 in the coming months.

With petrol and diesel prices expected to stay high this year, alternative fuels are likely to play a greater part in the selection of replacement vehicles for most postal operators.

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Commission declares aid to Poste Italiane unlawful and requires recovery

Posted by | Jul 17, 2008 | |

The European Commission has declared unlawful under EC Treaty state aid rules an aid granted to Poste Italiane in the form of excessive renumeration paid by the Italian Treasury for funds collected from Poste Italiane’s customers’ current accounts and deposited with the Treasury as of 2005. Italy did not notify the scheme to the Commission before its implementation so that the aid unlawfully granted must be recovered from Poste Italiane. The Commission’s in-depth investigation, opened in September 2006 (found that the interest rates from the Italian Treasury unduly favoured Poste Italiane. This unlawful aid is liable to give Poste Italiane an unfair advantage over its competitors on the liberalised postal and financial markets in Italy. The scheme which led to this benefit to Poste Italiane was repealed in the Italian budgetary law of 2007.

Poste Italiane was legally obliged to deposit the funds collected from customers’ current accounts with the Italian Treasury.

The Commission’s investigation revealed that the interest rates paid by the Treasury to Poste Italiane from 2005 onwards are:

– higher than what would have been obtained from a private borrower and
– higher than what Poste Italiane would have obtained if it had been free to invest the money on the market.

The Commission concluded that these higher interest rates, which do not conform to market conditions, provided an economic advantage in favour of Poste Italiane and distorted competition and trade within the Single Market.

The Italian budgetary law for 2007 abolished the legal obligation to deposit the funds collected on postal current accounts of private customers with the Treasury and provides that these funds are invested by Poste Italiane in euro area government bonds. The interest paid for these bonds do not contain any state aid as they do not entail any selective advantage.

The non-confidential version of the decision will be made available under the case number C 42/2006 in the State aid Register on the DG Competition website once any confidentiality issues have been resolved. New publications of state aid decisions on the internet and in the Official Journal are listed in the State aid Weekly e-News.

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Poste Italiane Interest Ruled Anti-Competitive

Posted by | Jul 17, 2008 | |

Under EU rules that prohibit state aid to postal operators that would give that operator an unfair commercial advantage, Poste Italiane has been ordered to repay an undisclosed sum.

The European Commission found that interest rates paid by the Italian Treasury to Poste Italiane from 2005 to 2007 on Poste Italiane current accounts, was higher than if they had been obtained commercially, giving Poste Italiane an unfair advantage over its competitors and that Italy did not notify the EC of its intentions.

Neelie Kroes, European Commissioner for Competition said that it was essential that there remained a level playing field among competitors and that the illegal aid given to Poste Italiane must be recovered under EC rules.

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FedEx trials diesel-electric hybrids in Italy

Posted by | Jul 16, 2008 | |

FedEx is trialling 10 Iveco diesel-electric hybrid Daily vans in its Italian operation. Iveco claims the vans offer a 30 pct cut in fuel use and CO2 emissions over a standard diesel model, through a number of systems such as Stop & Start and regenerative braking.

Paolo Monferino, Iveco’s CEO, says: “We are committed to the development of this technology and the next step is to make it affordable for our customers. In order to meet customer demand, Iveco will
will introduce hybrid power train technology in our vehicle production facilities by the end of 2009.” The vehicles will be used on routes between Milan and Turin, but FedEx will test more of the vehicles in its Paris operation.

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Poste Italiane: In Cairo, Sarmi gives go ahead for plans to develop Egypt’s Postal System

Posted by | Jul 2, 2008 | |

CEO of Poste Italiane, Massimo Sarmi, and President and CEO of Egypt Post, Alaa Fahmy, are scheduled to starts off a cooperative program for the development of Egypt’s national postal system as established by the agreement signed last March. This agreement between Poste Italiane and Egypt Post allows for the activation of joint projects aimed at improving the quality of Egypt’s postal system and heightening innovation through the introduction of new services. It also specifies that Finmeccanica will be acting as technological partner which will provide the technological platforms with which the Egyptian postal system will operate.

Experts involved in the project were divided into five comparable work groups in order to study the development of products and services (with particular focus on financial services), through the optimization of the logistics network (in reference to the monitoring and control over phases of collection, sorting, shipping, and delivery), the development of ICT services and their application in the logistics network, the expansion of real estate assets, and projects involving human resource training.

The work groups are overseen by a Steering Committee formed by Poste Italiane, Egypt Post and Finmeccanica. The CIO structures of Poste Italiane and Egypt Post are also working on a joint project in order to activate a secure connection (SVPN) that will allow the work groups to exchange data and information through secure and reliable lines of communication.

Poste Italiane and Finmeccanica know-how will allow them to provide Egypt Post with solutions for optimal organization in postal services, automation and distribution of mailing and delivery, security systems, hybrid mail, applications for the peripheral network of Egyptian post offices, innovation in the ICT sector, and human resource training.

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