Restructuring of Swiss parcel delivery services

Recently, the Swiss postal services have been confronted with some drastic changes. First, the areas of telecommunication and postal services were divided into two independent enterprises, and secondly, the market for postal services in Switzerland was deregulated to a large extent. These developments forced the public PTT not only to change its organisational structure but also its logistics system. In the new system the customers will be mainly served by transshipment points. A main problem was to decide on the number, the locations, the sizes, and service areas of these transshipment points. The decision was supported by means of a discrete facility location model. This paper discusses the location problem and the used solution approach. An emphasis is given on the determination of the cost parameters.