Patent ID: 7777148

Claim:
A device for presorting separated thin postal items, of which distribution information has been successfully read, to sorting final position areas of a postal item sorting machine featuring consecutively arranged sorting final positions in accordance with the read distribution information and an assigned sorting final position area, comprising: a number of inputs for streams of postal items and a number of outputs each leading to a sorting final position area; connecting paths connecting the inputs to the outputs; the connecting paths having a defined topology made up of switches, junctions and intersections; at least two of the inputs being each connected by a direct connecting path to an output downstream from the respective input and an input being connected in each case via at least two further connecting paths to at least one output which is arranged downstream of another input; the further connecting paths each featuring a section which branches off from the direct connecting path assigned to the respective input to a switch and which joins the direct connecting path assigned to the respective output at a junction; each of these sections, which leads from the one direct connecting path to the other direct connecting path, featuring at least one intersection with at least one section leading from the other direct connecting path to the one direct connecting path, the intersecting sections intersecting one another in the same plane; and the postal items being distributed via the corresponding switches onto the intersecting sections of the further connecting paths so that at the intersections and in the junctions gaps are produced for avoiding collisions between postal items.