It is a large hive of 13,750m², where no one runs, except the long carpet 337 meters long (it moves at 1.8 meters per second). It is around this large sorter and its 562 trays that everything is organized; on one side the arrival of packages, on the other their shipping. If all goes well, there is no need for human handling, the packages pass by, are scanned, hoisted onto one of the platforms which will tilt automatically when it passes over the container of its destination. 10,000 packages can be processed per hour, or a little more, 22 hours a day in December.
But human manipulation remains essential in certain cases. The scanner can read the barcode on five sides but not the bottom side, so you must put the package in the right direction. There are also packages that are too large or too heavy, more than a meter long. They are entitled to separate sorting. There are still poorly glued labels and an illegible barcode, which need to be redone. There are 80 people working on the Colissimo platform in normal times, around a hundred people are recruited during the holiday season.
The packages are intended for the four Auvergne departments but also for the Loire, Lozère and Creuse. During this holiday period, the platform also recovers the Saône et Loire, to relieve the Lyon site. In December, 1,472,000 packages should be processed for the four Auvergne departments: 396,000 for Allier, 171,000 for Cantal, 294,000 for Haute-Loire and 611,000 for Puy-de'-Dôme. One in two packages is transported by Colissimo.
In the aisles of the platform, a memory of the past: platform trolleys, which the oldest remember seeing on the platforms of the main stations in France. It was still around thirty years ago, when postal sorting centers were in train stations and bags of mail were piled up in these trolleys. They are a little anachronistic in this atmosphere but still useful, La Poste has not found anything better for the largest parcels.
Emmanuel Moreau
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