“Rethink the USO (Universal Service Obligation)” This was the task set by the UPU at their Innovation Challenge 2025.

The challenge was accepted by Martin Borsc of The Information Factory together with an experienced group of professionals including; Urska Korosec (Ministry of Economy, Slovenia), Cosimo Birtolo (Poste Italiane), Carlo Nicora (Phlow), Aidan McGuinness (An Post, Ireland), Ihar Shchetko (International Telecommunication Union), Dame Damevski (e-Boks), Paul Schoorl (UPU) and Gustavo Damy (UPU).

The team explored dynamic tools using real data to simulate USO models that best respond to the current and future customers and policy needs. The goal was to calculate and compare the costs of servicing different locations, while maintaining consistently high quality service levels.

They used aggregated shipment (letters and parcels) data plus postal employee numbers per municipality to create a cost per employee based upon population density and age group, delivery frequency and a digitalisation factor (internet adoption). With digital adoption letter volumes are forecast to decline while parcel volumes are projected to grow.

After integrating the data sets they were loaded into a Graph Database upon which was built a front end application to calculate total cost per area and selected delivery frequency.

The team’s solution was presented to the UPU and other Innovation Challenge attendees. It was a very thought provoking event which The Information Factory was delighted to be part of. Thank you to the UPU for organising the event and the challenge team members for making it so enjoyable.