The U.S. Postal Service in Hawai'i has undertaken a study to determine whether to close any of its 104 post offices, stations and branches as part of a national effort to stanch billion-dollar losses stemming from the rise of text messaging, e-mail and other forms of electronic communication.

The result has been a dramatic decline in mail volume, demand for USPS retail service and revenue that drove the Postal Service to a $2.8 billion loss last year.

And that amount was nearly matched in the first half of this year.

To cut spending, the Postal Service announced this month that it will consider closing or reducing service at 3,200 of the nation's 27,200 postal stations and branches and will evaluate another 1,600 offices for possible action depending on the outcome of the initial closures.

The Postal Service does not receive a taxpayer subsidy.

In Hawai'i, spokesman Duke Gonzales said the Postal Service does not release budget or revenue figures, but he did say that mail volume passing through the Honolulu district is down more than 12 percent over the same period last year.

To mitigate the "severe effects of lower mail volume and revenue," he said, the Postal Service here has already implemented changes, such as realigning mail carrier routes, shifting employees or rescheduling their hours and reducing energy use.

So far, no Postal Service employee here has been laid off to make up for the revenue drop, he said. There are nearly 2,600 postal employees in Hawai'i.

Officials here have yet to decide which, if any, branches may be closed, Gonzales said.

"We're still studying it," Gonzales said. "We're at the point where we're still narrowing down which ones we want to study. We're looking at all options, but one thing that I can say is the preliminary list is pretty small to begin with."

He said once that list is completed, further studies will be made to decide what action will be taken. Gonzales declined to reveal the branches that are being considered, but said the list could be out by early August.

"I wouldn't want to say at this point because if you start talking numbers and you start identifying places, you get a lot of people talking," he said. "We don't want to really prompt unnecessary anxiety by our customers or by our employees either."

CONSOLIDATION REVIEW

As part of the consolidation review process, Gonzales said, officials will consider the impact a closure will have on employees, service standards, cost savings, customer access, environmental impact, real estate values and long-term postal needs.

He said the review criteria also will include examining larger leased and owned stations and branches in urban areas that are close to other postal facilities. Any changes, he said, will not be implemented before Oct. 2.

The USPS system consists of 80 districts nationally, and Gonzales said each district will determine the number of offices to consolidate. The Honolulu district includes Hawai'i, plus Pacific Island areas, such as Samoa and Guam.

"It's really a localized decision," Gonzales said. "It's not like headquarters has given us a number and said, 'Everyone must cut this amount of money or this amount of offices' or something like that."

The consolidation plan will not affect contract stations, such as the one at Manoa Marketplace, which are operated by private vendors, he said.

Nationally, the Postal Service has submitted a branch optimization and consolidation plan to the Postal Regulatory Commission for review. The commission, which also determines postal rates, will decide whether the changes are consistent with the Postal Service's obligation to provide prompt, reliable and efficient services to customers in all areas.

But in its submittal to the commission, the Postal Service acknowledged that it cannot maintain a "business as usual" attitude.

"Postal retail stations and branches are not intended to operate as monuments to a bygone era of postal customer interaction," the Postal Service wrote in its request.

EFFECT OF INTERNET

The Postal Service said it plans to "realign the postal retail network with current and future postal customer service needs to reduce inefficiency and redundancy and to capture the resulting cost savings." The commission has scheduled a prehearing conference for July 30 in Washington, D.C.

The USPS also acknowledged that its use of the Internet and other technologies to serve customers has hurt the once-popular post offices. These alternatives, the Postal Service said, account for more than 30 percent of its retail revenue and this figure continues to rise.

"Their convenience, combined with increased use of electronic media for messages and commerce, have contributed to the decline in customer visits to postal retail locations and to mail volume declines," the Postal Service said.

In an attempt to cut costs, the USPS nationally has proposed reducing mail delivery from six to five days a week, offered early retirement to workers, realigned carrier routes, halted construction of new facilities and froze executive salaries at 2008 levels. The Postal Service also has been removing underused blue mail collection boxes from public places to save on costs.

In Hawai'i, "we're looking at everything," Gonzales said. "It's a constant effort and it's an ongoing, simultaneous project to identify areas that we can possibly minimize work hours."