Courier

Encyclopedia : C : CO : COU : Courier

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For other uses, see Courier (disambiguation)}}}.

A courier is a person or company that delivers packages and mail, often between offices and generally in a shorter timescale than surface mail. In cities, some couriers will ride bicycles or motorbikes but most today use trucks and aircraft.

The number of jobs for couriers is projected to decrease over the next 5 to 10 years. The number of packages being delivered is increasing, but technology is creating efficiencies for the delivery companies that are reducing the number of employees required to deliver each package.

The term courier can also be used for a certain kind of robots, courier robots, that transport objects in a building (home, industry, and others).

There are many courier enterprises. The world's largest courier company is UPS followed by FedEx and DHL. eCourier, which uses cutting edge GPS, mobile computing and automated fleet management is considered a next-generation courier company. Another sort of courier is a "cash-courier". This is someone who carries large amounts of cash money from one place to another (from one country to another) to avoid the normal financial circuit (where they risk being reported to an anti-moneylaundering authority) and thus launder money from an illegal origin.

History

Couriers of some kind have likely existed before first regular postal system has been invented. The first documented use of an organized courier service for the diffusion of written documents is in Egypt, where Pharaohs used couriers for the diffusion of their decrees in the territory of the State (2400 BC). This practice almost certainly has roots in the much older practice of oral messaging and may have been built on a pre-existing infrastructure.

See also

• Bicycle messenger
• Casual Courier
• post rider
• Express mail
• Mail
• Mule (smuggling)

External links

• [Couriers on Demand, The Nationwide - Women Owned Courier (877) 333-2869]
• [The Casual Courier] corporate site
• [JetStar Courier] corporate site
• [eCourier] corporate site
• [FedEX] corporate site
• [EagleOne Logistics] corporate site
• [Courier Job Outlook]

 

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