The blue mailbox — a lockable cabinet for the storage of second pouches — is a new facility introduced by the Hong Kong Post Office to safeguard mail delivery.

The Post Office used to deliver pouches of mail to entrances of some buildings or stores so that these letters would not be left behind before they were distributed.

The old practice led to the concern that mail may be easily stolen by someone. Besides, security guards of the buildings and the owners of the stores do not have any obligation to ensure the safety of mail.

According to Mrs. Ellen Siu, the management controller of the Post Office, nine pouches of mail were stolen in 1995.

The Post Office is now running a pilot scheme on the new blue cabinets.

Since September 1995, the Post Office has been placing blue cabinets on the streets in which mail is locked. Postmen can unlock the cabinets and distribute the mail.

Most of the locations of cabinets are on main streets in the Territory such as Gloucester Road, Java Road, A Kung Ngam Road, and Dorset Crescent.

According to Mrs. Siu, 15 cabinets will be placed in the Territory in the initial stage. Totally 200 blue cabinets will be placed during the full trial stage. The Post Office will probably finish the placement in 1996.

For implementing a cabinet, each will cost about $4,000. Mrs. Siu does not regard this as expensive.

“We have our operation funds to cover part of the cost,” she said.

Said Mrs. Siu: “Indeed, our main aim is to prevent the shifting responsibility of looking after mail before delivery.

“The most effective means to prevent the loss of mail is to ensure that all the procedures along the distribution process of mail are done by hand-to-hand transfer of our staff. The implementation of the blue cabinets ensures the hand-to-hand transfer indirectly.

Ensuring the safety of mail storage is not the only responsibility of the Post Office.

To guarantee the mail being delivered to the right place, some special arrangements are made.

All postmen are responsible for holding particular beats permanently, so that they become familiar with the addresses along their beats.

“If the address is badly or wrongly written, the postmen can immediately identify it and distribute the mail correctly,” said Mrs. Siu.

Even if the postmen cannot find the right recipient, the mail will be sent to a special section called the Undeliverable Letter Office. The staff concerned will try to identify the addresses with maps as precisely as possible.

If this does not help, they open the letters and see if there are any clues that can help searching the right addresses. Eventually, if the Post Office cannot find the right addresses, the mail will be burnt if there is nothing valuable inside them.

“Nowadays, nearly 3.1 million pieces of mail have to be dealt with each day, and there are only about 1,600 postmen in Hong Kong,” said Mrs. Siu.

Mrs. Siu said that manpower is indeed insufficient. During some peak seasons such as Christmas, New Year and the election period, the amount of mail is four times more than usual.

She admitted that feedback from postmen has shown that with the implementation of the storage cabinets, the workload is definitely increased. Many postmen are not familiar with those locations. Nevertheless, Mrs. Siu highlighted the overriding importance of serving the public.

Despite the rapid development of communication technology such as facsimile, pagers, e-mail and the Internet, postal services still play an important role.

Said Mrs. Siu: “It’s because the mail brings warm and special feelings that are absent in other means of communication.

“In fact, the amount of mail constantly increases by 6 to 7 percent every year. Postal service is still important in the Territory,” said Mrs. Sui.

February 1996