Talk:Courier

Cleanup mostly done

A courier is a person or a company who delivers messages, packages, and mail. Couriers are distinguished from ordinary mail services by features such as speed, security, tracking, signature, specialization and individualization of express services, and swift delivery times, which are optional for most everyday mail services. As a premium service, couriers are usually more expensive than usual mail services, and their use is typically restricted to packages where one or more of these features are considered important enough to warrant the cost.

Different courier services operate on all scales, from within specific towns or cities, to regional, national and global services. The world's largest courier companies are DHL, FedEx, TNT, UPS, and Aramex. These offer services worldwide, typically via a hub and spoke model.

You have probably seen the very visible couriers around towns and cities these days, sometimes on motorbikes, but mainly in vans. Many people confuse sameday couriers with overnight couriers such as DHL and UPS, these are in fact completely different industries using completely different methods to deliver parcels around the country. An overnight company uses large fleets of vehicles delivering up to 70 packages each per day, combined with large warehouse facilities and large amounts of staff.

A same day courier is someone who will deliver a package immediately anywhere in the U.K. whatever the time of day. Most someday couriers work normal business hours and average no more than 350 miles a day.

Worked with the first few paragraphs, summarizing and removing redundancies. I outright removed the following as I'm unsure how notable it is:

• Professionalism

Industry surveys indicate that 99 percent of owner-operator drivers are professional drivers. These drivers are also vetted prior to being offered a position. Oftentimes this includes safety and TSA guideline knowledge, geography and even logistics questionnaires to ensure safe practices and compliance with TSA guidelines. Drivers must have a valid operator’s license in good standing with the state of issuance, and comprehensive insurance that is up-to-date. Also, most states require that couriers take training courses prior to becoming a commercial vehicle operator, which means only qualified, safe and committed professionals make the final cut to become contract couriers. The business model works as a self-policing mechanism, where only safe drivers become career employee drivers or contracted owner-operator drivers.

• Safety

While our industry is not regulated, per se, by the normal standards of government-instituted regulations, we do meet increasingly rigorous training and safety demands. This can be seen in our 100 percent safety record - to date, there has not been a single incident that compromises our homeland security. The industry primarily accepts billed payments and does 99 percent of their business with shippers that are “known” to them, both of which drastically reduce the ability for an individual to use a courier service to deliver explosives or biochemical agents, since there is a traceable record set by the transaction.

Our customers entrust us with the delivery of extremely fragile and sensitive items and as such, set the security level according to that particular package. A customer recently arranged for independent owner operators to undertake a week of specialized training to prepare for a delivery involving transgenic mice that have the potential to foster breakthroughs in cancer research, whereas a delivery of a simple letter does not demand the same level of commitment and background checks. The marketplace regulations, in addition to our high levels of professionalism, have served as a layered approach to security that has worked exceedingly well.

• Technology

Most packages are monitored and tracked via advanced electronic communication devices. Couriers are in communication with dispatchers via two-way electronic devices, such as Nextel phones or Blackberries, to verify locations and status of operations. This communication further ensures that packages and security guidelines are accounted for, reducing the opportunity for tampering or a gap in the security of the supply chain.

• Chain of custody

One of the features of the courier industry is that the delivery has a complete chain of custody, which prevents tampering or other malicious or dangerous activities. The employee drivers and contracted owner-operators obtain the package from the customer and typically retain sole control of that package throughout the delivery process, ensuring the package remains intact and unscathed until its arrival.

• Known Shippers

Couriers also provide a rush or direct from shipper to consigned service that is conducted on a business-to-business transaction model. As such, nearly 99 percent of businesses requesting deliveries are repeat customers, and “known” to the courier company, have a long-standing relationship with the courier firm and use the same physical locations for their transactions. This further reduces risk and adds a layer of security in the courier delivery supply chain.

Feel free to supplement parts of this into the article as need be. - RoyBoy ⁸⁰⁰ 05:54, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

1. Couriers started as messengers, to kings and within the military, as well as trade. Overview the historical origins of couriers and the nature of their roles, moving on to how the focus developed, and what pressures and needs drove these changes, leading into the point where the modern concept of courier as a custom delivery service branched away from both Kings Messengers and public mail services. (Ensure it tries to capture how these concepts spread worldwide, if you're able, or else maybe tag it as geographically limited for now.)
2. Then, how the modern concept of courier services evolved since that point, leading up to the huge infrastructure and stable range of couriers of today
3. Next, try to think through the main niches in courier business - global carriers, different kinds of specialist couriers (food, large objects and machinery, high security and sensitivity, motorcycle and motorbike, whatever there is out there). Try to bullet point a list of up to 6 major niches in this sort of style: "Motorbike and motorcycle couriers - deliver within one limited area, high speed, typically used for small packets and urgent business and legal documents."
4. You can leave courier in UK for now, unless you feel adventurous, the above matter more.

have a go at that, see how it gets on. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 02:28, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

UK Section

I've nearly entirely re-written the UK section, as it appeared to be written in a very 'American' style/or by someone who hadn't really had any involvement/knowledge with a UK courier, and it was very much talking about one or two things - and not giving a scope into the diverse courier industry in Britain. =] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dvmedis (talk • contribs) 15:47, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Nice edit, but for this section to be encyclopedic, it requires citations to show the sources for the information given. See WP:NOR and WP:V. Buffalo Bill talk to me 17:22, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

COURIER

company employed to deliver messages, packages and mail. Couriers are distinguished from ordinary mail services by features such as speed, security, tracking, signature, specialization and individualization of services, and committed delivery times, which are optional for most everyday mail services. As a premium service, couriers are usually more expensive than usual mail services, and their use is typically restricted to packages where one or more of these features are considered important enough to warrant the cost.

Different courier services operate on all scales, from within specific towns or cities, to regional, national and global services. The world's largest courier companies are Aramex, DHL, FedEx, TNT N.V. and UPS.[ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kierjay110287 (talk • contribs) 01:54, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

REDIRECT

This article (page) should redirect to the disambiguation page. The article on courier as an email "client" should be removed or replaced with an article that reflects standardized terms used in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Request for Comments (RFCs), that apply to email.

The open source product "Courier" is an MTA, not a "client". Any email service will be either an MTA or an MUA, as defined by IETF RFCs (Search IETF). For example, MS Outlook is a Windows mail reader. It is an MUA - or Mail User Agent. Courier is an MTA -- or Mail Transfer Agent. It acts as a server if it is receiving a message. If it is receiving the message so that the message can be forwarded then it is working as a relay. Otherwise it will save that message to a filesystem which is then accessed by other software, usually an MUA, (aka mail reader) like MS Outlook under Windows or like claws-mail under Gnu/Linux. Kernel.package (talk) 21:34, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Runner (soldier) merge to

How different is the job Runner (soldier) from Courier? Gunfire is the only answer. I propose merging the soldier version of this job into this version since they perform the same role - delivering messages verbally or written, perhaps a number of items. --Hutcher (talk) 05:06, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, I'm not the most experienced contributor to Wikipedia, but having written the "runner" article, I'd like to see some more opinions on this. ChrJahnsen (talk) 19:35, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Joan Akin: My grandfather was a first WW 'runner.' I think it should not be merged with courier for historical reasons. I actually looked it up to see what my Pepere did, and was grateful for a succinct explanation. (I doubt this is a designated role in modern warfare?) Joan Akin (talk) 17:37, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Errand Boy

When I clicked on Errand boy I got a redirect here. This seems totally irrelevcant to early 20th century deliveries of groceries - my understanding of an errand boy.

Can someone rewrite that section - remove the redirect or start a new article. If anyone is in any doubt what an errand boy did you can see the fictional portrayal by David Jason:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granville_%28Open_All_Hours%29

OK it is a comedy, but it is obvious it is different from a paper girl/boy or a courier for business packages or a postman that also does deliveries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_boy

I guess the article needs a big rewrite to bring these aspects into context. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.113.96.60 (talk) 11:22, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

courier

courier 2.101.109.234 (talk) 13:08, 16 November 2022 (UTC)