Patent ID: 7735631

Claim:
A mail processing system, comprising: a first casing tower and a second casing tower arranged in parallel, the first casing tower having a first group of levels and a first group of slots to receive articles, and the second casing tower having a second group of levels and a second group of slots to receive articles; a transport system associated with the casing towers and configured to guide at least one transport vehicle loaded with an article along a delivery path towards a delivery location; wherein the first and second casing towers are parts of the same loop, said loop further including a first divert elevator and a first merge elevator, said elevators being configured to receive the transport vehicle at a first level and to index the elevator device to move the transport vehicle from the first level to a second level, where the transport vehicle exits the elevator device to travel along the delivery path; wherein said first divert elevator is located at an entry side of the first casing tower and the first merge elevator is located at an exit side of the first casing tower; wherein transport vehicles delivering articles to slots within the first casing tower exit the first divert elevator at the appropriate level of the first casing tower and deliver these articles to slots of the first casing tower; and wherein the first casing tower further comprises at least one level for transferring transport vehicles from the first divert elevator to the first merge elevator if the destination of the transport vehicle is not within the first casing tower, the first merge elevator being connected to the second casing tower and adapted to transfer those transport vehicles to the second casing tower.