An expert system for international mail loss investigation

Postal services around the world experience the loss of international mail due to pilferage which occurs during the mail’s routing. The routing of international mail is complex with the mail being handled by at least two postal administrations and usually at least one commercial airline contracted to transport mail across international borders. With all this handling it is often difficult to locate the source(s) of pilferage along the mail’s route.

In this thesis we describe the development of, and present, one possible approach that can assist postal inspectors to locate the segment(s) in the routing of international mail where the pilferage may be occurring. Our approach uses simple statistical methods to systematically analyze the routing of international mail. The analysis begins at the location where the loss was detected and traces back along the mail’s route until a likely source is detected or the dispatch location is reached.