Meter reading

When the mail carrier reads the electricity meter

Equipped with an app on their scanner, delivery staff will in future read meters on behalf of regional electricity, water and gas suppliers. Swiss Post is offering this new service in cooperation with IT service provider Avectris, who developed the app and process the data collected.

The power company EKS (Elektrizitätswerk des Kantons Schaffhausen AG) is the first client for Avectris and Swiss Post: delivery staff have been reading the electricity meters of EKS customers in specific regions since autumn 2016, and since the beginning of 2017 in the entire supply area.

Pilot projects for the reading of electricity meters were undertaken in 2015 with several energy suppliers, although at the time using the suppliers’ own reading devices and not an app on the Swiss Post scanners. Nevertheless, the results were already promising: the procedures worked well, and letter deliveries remained at their usual high level. This is a key finding for Swiss Post, because the new services over the last mile are designed not to jeopardize the core business, but rather to complement it sensibly.