PS Form 1564-A, titled “Delivery Instructions,” is the route summary every city letter carrier fills out so any substitute can walk the same path, hit the same collection boxes, and take breaks at the same approved spots. Handbook M-41, Section 251, sets out seven categories the form must cover: collection points, relay or park-and-loop locations, the route schedule, transportation, lines of travel, lunch information, and break information.1National Association of Letter Carriers. Handbook M-41 – City Delivery Carriers Duties and Responsibilities Once completed and signed by a supervisor, the form lives in the Route Book at the carrier’s case, alongside PS Form 1564-B (Special Orders) and the Edit Book or PS Form 1621.
Filling In the Header
The top of the form captures the route number, post office or station name, ZIP code, route type (foot, mounted, or park and loop), and delivery method. A separate block near the top asks for the name of the regularly assigned replacement carrier, their appointment date, and the number of trips they make, plus fields for the replacement carrier’s authorized lunch and break locations.2NALC Branch 38. PS Form 1564-A Those replacement-carrier fields exist because the regular carrier’s lunch and break spots often differ from the substitute’s.
Collection Points
List every street letter box and mail chute in the order you actually reach them on the route. Not alphabetically. Not by street name. Section 251.1 of M-41 requires the sequence to match the collection order on the ground.1National Association of Letter Carriers. Handbook M-41 – City Delivery Carriers Duties and Responsibilities The columns on the form record each box’s street location, cross street or corner, and scheduled arrival times for both daily and Saturday schedules.2NALC Branch 38. PS Form 1564-A
Relay Points or Park-and-Loop Locations
On a relay route, list the relay boxes in the order they appear on the carrier case labels. On a park-and-loop route, record the parking stops instead. This is where carriers most often go wrong: M-39 flags it as a common error to show relay boxes on a park-and-loop route rather than the actual parking locations.3National Association of Letter Carriers. Handbook M-39 – Management of Delivery Services Match the entry type to the route type.
Route Schedule
Enter the scheduled reporting time, the time you leave the office for the street, the time you return, and the ending time. Those are the clock-ring times management uses to gauge whether the route is running on standard, and they tell a substitute when each phase of the day should begin and end.1National Association of Letter Carriers. Handbook M-41 – City Delivery Carriers Duties and Responsibilities
Transportation
If the carrier takes public transit or a shuttle to reach the route, record the departure and return times for each trip and where the carrier boards. For routes served entirely by a postal vehicle, this section still documents how mail moves from the station to the start of the delivery line.1National Association of Letter Carriers. Handbook M-41 – City Delivery Carriers Duties and Responsibilities
Lines of Travel
This section traces the carrier’s path during non-delivery segments of the day, in four specific fields:2NALC Branch 38. PS Form 1564-A
- Office to Route: the streets or path from the station to the first delivery point.
- Route to Lunch: from the last delivery before lunch to the lunch location.
- Lunch to Route: the return path from lunch to the next delivery point.
- Route to Office: from the final delivery back to the station.
Fill in every one of these. M-39 Section 126.5 has supervisors verify that carriers have completed each travel path, and leaving any blank is treated as an incomplete form during a Route Book review.3National Association of Letter Carriers. Handbook M-39 – Management of Delivery Services
Lunch and Break Information
Record the time of your authorized lunch, up to three approved lunch stops, and the point where you leave the route to travel to lunch. The form has separate fields for the regular carrier’s lunch location and the replacement carrier’s lunch location.2NALC Branch 38. PS Form 1564-A If reaching a suitable lunch spot requires extra travel, the form asks you to indicate whether you are reimbursed for driving your own vehicle, furnished bus fare or its equivalent, provided transportation in a postal vehicle, or assigned a postal or contract vehicle.
Break locations follow the same pattern. Section 251.7 of M-41 requires you to show the approximate street location of each authorized break stop, and M-39 adds that those locations should also appear on the route map.1National Association of Letter Carriers. Handbook M-41 – City Delivery Carriers Duties and Responsibilities A carrier technician (T-6) covering multiple routes writes any deviation from the regular carrier’s lunch or break spots directly on the 1564-A for each route in the string.4National Association of Letter Carriers. CCA Resource Guide – Lunch and Breaks
Remarks on the Reverse
The back of the form has space for additional remarks. Use it for anything that doesn’t fit the standard fields: safety concerns at specific addresses, gated communities that need access codes, or authorized dismount points on a mounted route where you leave the vehicle to reach a cluster box.
Submitting the Form
Once every section is filled in, the form goes to your station manager or supervisor for review. The supervisor checks your entries against the official route map and current station records, then signs the form to confirm the instructions are accurate. The signed form is then placed in the Route Book (also called the case book) at your workstation.
M-41 Section 252.1 lists what belongs in that binder:1National Association of Letter Carriers. Handbook M-41 – City Delivery Carriers Duties and Responsibilities
- Item 391-M binder (the physical book).
- PS Form 1564-A, Delivery Instructions.
- PS Form 1564-B, Special Orders.
- Edit Book and/or PS Form 1621, Delivery Management Report showing current delivery counts.
- Handbook M-41.
The Route Book stays at the carrier case, not in a file cabinet, so anyone casing mail for that route can open it and read the instructions before heading out.
Keeping the Form Current
A 1564-A that was accurate six months ago can be wrong today. New construction, a closed road, a relocated collection box, or a changed lunch agreement all call for an update. M-39 Section 127 has supervisors monitor whether carriers are maintaining their 1564-A and 1564-B each day when they return from the street, and Section 214’s “Review of Operating Procedures” includes a separate check confirming that every item on Form 1564-A is completed.3National Association of Letter Carriers. Handbook M-39 – Management of Delivery Services Practically, that means updating the form whenever something on the route changes, not waiting for a formal inspection.
How Form 1564-B Differs
Form 1564-A captures the permanent structure of the route. Form 1564-B, “Special Orders,” records temporary or customer-specific instructions: firm callers who pick up their own mail at the office, standing orders not to deliver on certain days, temporary hardship delivery exceptions. If your instruction applies to one customer or one address rather than the whole route, it belongs on the 1564-B, not the 1564-A. Each 1564-B entry records the customer’s name, address, the instruction, the effective date, and the cancellation date; when an order ends, the carrier lines through the entry rather than erasing it.5Branch 38 NALC. PS Form 1564-B Both forms sit in the same Route Book binder, so a replacement carrier sees the route structure and any active special orders in one place.