Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

takes.jamesomalley.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 317 posts

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#31

Post by defrost »

GJim wrote: post #21
cuonic wrote: post #10

On the other side of the Channel, the French government has managed to create the "BAN" (Base Adresse Nationale - National Address Database), a database of detailed postal addresses in the country along with precise GPS coordinates: https://adresse.data.gouv.fr/base-adresse-nationale On top of the database they have provided an interface to view the data, interfaces for towns and cities to keep the data up-to-date, f…

> GPS coordinates *coordinates There are four GNSS constellations, of which GPS is only one...... a statement that negates the fact ones position on Earth may be calculated using a variety of other means. EDIT: In response to replies below; One isn't questioning the coordinate system (!), rather the assumption as to how they have been calculated.

There are many ways to calculate an earth position, sure - to name a few; triangulation from stations, LORAN, or a combination of the two with a frequency change and some moving stations such as one of the five GNSS constellations.

There are many coordinate systems; these days in 2024 it is almost universal to calculate from various stations to a WGS84 position, in that coordinate system and using that geodetic datum.

Back in the day, there were many datums in common use, based on a plurity of reference ellipsoids, with a multitude of pojections in common use.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_ellipsoid#Historical_Ear...

To this day there are several thousand indexed earth coordinate systems:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPSG_Geodetic_Parameter_Datase...

https://epsg.org/home.html

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#32

Post by [deleted] »

arnsholt wrote: post #28
GJim wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> GPS coordinates *coordinates There are four GNSS constellations, of which GPS is only one...... a statement that negates the fact ones position on Earth may be calculated using a variety of other means. EDIT: In response to replies below; One isn't questioning the coordinate system (!), rather the assumption as to how they have been calculated.

In this context, it's not terribly hard to divine that they probably mean EPSG:4326 coordinates. I was going to comment that one of the ETRS89 UTM zones might be easier to work with, but on second thought the data almost certainly includes the DOMs if not the TOMs, so a global coordinate system is probably best.

[deleted]

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#33

Post by lnxg33k1 »

xnorswap wrote: post #13
lnxg33k1 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering that in UK if you live in a building, the door next to you can have a different postcode, I wouldn't worry at all

If that weren't true, you'd have entire cities in the same postcode. There has to be a boundary somewhere.

Well, in Italy postcodes define city areas, and cities, for example for my city the main postcode is 80100, but my area is 80142, and it contains few buildings, so it's different from UK, UK was the first time I saw such specific postcodes, and I've lived also in Germany and Netherlands

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#34

Post by agolio »

I am a bit surprised by how hard this article makes out the problem to be.

Crowdsourcing should make short work of the problem, with the right incentives, which the government will be able to offer.

Additionally private map providers (e.g. Google, Apple) must surely have this data (since they are able to route navigation to private addresses). Why not just negotiate with them?

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#35

Post by mrweasel »

robin_reala wrote: post #20

For non-GB people, a postcode gets you to ~1-15 buildings, not (for example) a town or region.

The British mail addresses are pretty interesting. We quickly learned that, as you say some postcode have just one or two houses, which may not have numbers, but names.

I'm sure there is a "falsehoods programmers believe about addresses" somewhere.

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#37

Post by Muromec »

TechTechTech wrote: post #30

For comparison, in the Netherlands all postcode data is open data, including detailed building outlines as well as almost all other related information. See https://app.pdok.nl/viewer for most datasets.

This creates a very special Dutch thing —- my neighborhood had the roads on the map before the map itself was updated to show landmass instead of the body of water.

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#38

Post by pjc50 »

GJim wrote: post #21
cuonic wrote: post #10

On the other side of the Channel, the French government has managed to create the "BAN" (Base Adresse Nationale - National Address Database), a database of detailed postal addresses in the country along with precise GPS coordinates: https://adresse.data.gouv.fr/base-adresse-nationale On top of the database they have provided an interface to view the data, interfaces for towns and cities to keep the data up-to-date, f…

> GPS coordinates *coordinates There are four GNSS constellations, of which GPS is only one...... a statement that negates the fact ones position on Earth may be calculated using a variety of other means. EDIT: In response to replies below; One isn't questioning the coordinate system (!), rather the assumption as to how they have been calculated.

Like "Hoover", "GPS" is now a generic term for positioning systems.

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#39

Post by IshKebab »

Off topic but this is a bizarrely weird take:

> Sadly because of the NIMBYs, this map doesn’t include a London version of The Sphere.

"NIMBY" implies they're objecting to something useful and not actually that bad, like a solar farm or a mobile phone mast or a housing estate. Not a giant advertising billboard.

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#40

Post by pjc50 »

xnorswap wrote: post #3
jimbob45 wrote: post #2

I can respect the arguments for making it public but there are strong arguments also to raise a high barrier of entry to discourage abuse. Further, the fewer users of the list, they easier they are to police.

It's a lookup between postcode and address, what is the abuse cases you're worried about?

Crucially, it doesn't have people's names in it.
Post reply on HN