For the most part, these efforts represent an ongoing evolution to improve the management of the mail system through the use of modern information technology. To the average household customer, the Postal Service is represented by the individual clerk who sells them stamps or the neighborhood letter carrier that stops by their mailbox each day. In reality, the Postal Service is a complex, interdependent network that each day coordinates the movement of nearly 700 million pieces of mail, on more than 15,000 commercial air segments, between 38,000 post offices and 800,000 employees, who serve more than 134 million delivery points. Our success in managing this network is directly related to infrastructure improvements that allow us to rapidly transmit critical information to employees, customers, and suppliers across many platforms. Today, postal retail customers enjoy the convenience of credit and debit card purchases.
Major mailers schedule their shipments and make payments electronically.
Letter carriers track packages and important documents with computerized hand scanners that uplink into a national data network. And sophisticated logistical systems keep the mail flowing economically by ground, rail, and air between our plants and post offices. Over the past few years, as citizens and business have embraced the Internet, the Postal Service has migrated some of these information systems onto the Internet. We expect this trend to continue. Today, millions of household customers visit our web site every week.