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We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

takes.jamesomalley.co.uk

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Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#101

Post by robinhouston »

michaelt wrote: post #79
robinhouston wrote: post #45

This is a long-running battle. Those with long memories may remember the skirmish 15 years ago, when a small group of developer-activists set up a website that allowed free access to postcode data (ernestmarples.com, named after the inventor of the modern British postcode system). Needless to say, it was rapidly shut down following threats of legal action by Royal Mail. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2009/oct…

The postcode-to-coordinate data is now freely available as "CodePoint Open" So there's already data for people who want to know postcode AB10 1JL corresponds to the area around 57.14677,-2.09873 The PAF is a more detailed data source, as seen in https://www.royalmail.com/find-a-postcode which can tell you that AB10 1JL specifically covers the addresses 102-104, Union Street, Aberdeen 82, Union Street, Aberdeen Timpso…

Thanks for the clarification. I’d forgotten that ernestmarples only offered postcode-to-location lookup: it was a long time ago.

I suppose this is encouraging! It shows that the forces of openness are gaining ground in this battle.

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#102

Post by lnxg33k1 »

Muromec wrote: post #41
lnxg33k1 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Netherlands had a postcode per street

Oh yeah, I remember being able to insert just postcode and street number in forms, but it's not as specific as UK, I think

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#103

Post by normangray »

ascorbic wrote: post #50
agolio wrote: post #34

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?

> 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? They licence it from Royal Mail

Probably, but not necessarily.

The article points out that the PAF is kept up to date by virtue of thousands of postmen and postwomen physically visiting the rows in the database on a daily basis, as part of normal business, and logging updates. That level of routine maintenance is what any non-PostOffice PAF alternative would have to also do.

Amazon, and probably Google Maps, are two of the very small number of organisations which _might_ have the resources to build this postcode->GPS mapping, as a sideline to their current business.

They probably do license the PAF, of course, but they illustrate the sort of scale required to assemble that data independently.

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#104

Post by left-struck »

londons_explore wrote: post #71

The simple solution here is a threat from the government to Royal Mail. Give us your postcode file for free, or we will simply make up a new numbering scheme, send an address card to every house telling them of their new number with their next council tax bill, and postcodes will become a thing of the past. The new numbering scheme will be unique to each house too, and have a check digit so the number alone is suffic…

To have a unique id for each house is neat but I think there are loads of situations you’d have to account for so that there isn’t any ambiguity in the assignment of unique ids. If any ambiguities exist inevitably you will have exceptions in the system which defeats the point. For example -Subdivision of a lot. -Joining of lots. -You said every house… what about two houses on the same lot? -What about apartments buildings? -What happens when one or more houses are demolished and an apartment building goes up? Etc etc

I work in manufacturing and this sounds a lot like the problem of part numbering, and let me tell you, it’s not a trivial problem and the company I work for thought it was and got it wrong.

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#105

Post by Ekaros »

tomsmeding wrote: post #66
gabesullice wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A cautionary example of how data meets reality… My address in France is listed in the BAN… but only to the granularity of my street number (e.g., 123 Main St.). Unfortunately, that number corresponds to at least 7 different structures, 5 of which are apartment buildings. Of those 5 buildings, each has multiple stairwells with their own door and no line of communication between them—they might as well be separate buil…

That sounds like chaos. Who thought constructing multiple apartment buildings without any kind of sensible post code or address was a good idea? Sure, this being reality BAN does not apparently meet reality, but it does sound like someone had the opportunity to keep reality sane here, and they didn't.

In Finland in similar case, each stair well has own letter and each apartment has different number. So those are used always with the street house number.

Though the later case is bit messy with cross roads. As building can have two different addresses. Or same complex of multiple building have two different addresses for each building. With in my case one having A-C and other D-F stairwells... Oh, and numbers also are not restarted at least sometimes.

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#106

Post by dmurray »

crote wrote: post #84
nottorp wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even in the far right US postcodes are public info :)

The big difference is that US postcodes describe very large areas. A 5-digit US ZIP code describes a town or neighborhood, with on average 8200 people living in each ZIP code. Most European postcodes are far more precise, often describing a single street, part of a street, or even part of a building. Postcode + house number is usually enough to uniquely identify a mailbox. For example, in The Netherlands on average o…

The US also has 9-digit postcodes which usually map to a single building or smaller: aren't they public too?

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#107

Post by neo1908 »

londons_explore wrote: post #71

The simple solution here is a threat from the government to Royal Mail. Give us your postcode file for free, or we will simply make up a new numbering scheme, send an address card to every house telling them of their new number with their next council tax bill, and postcodes will become a thing of the past. The new numbering scheme will be unique to each house too, and have a check digit so the number alone is suffic…

I know the UK gov has enjoyed causing a lot of chaos over the past few years but my god that would be on a whole other level...

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#108

Post by beardyw »

sideshowb wrote: post #81
beardyw wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We needed an ambulance off road in the middle of Richmond Park where a postcode would also not help. We didn't have WTW either, which they asked for and would have helped immensely.

If only we had a system of national grid references since, say, 1936

They were only interested in What Three Words. Didn't want anything else, sadly.

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#109

Post by incompatible »

londons_explore wrote: post #71

The simple solution here is a threat from the government to Royal Mail. Give us your postcode file for free, or we will simply make up a new numbering scheme, send an address card to every house telling them of their new number with their next council tax bill, and postcodes will become a thing of the past. The new numbering scheme will be unique to each house too, and have a check digit so the number alone is suffic…

Just modify the law so that databases of postal addresses are not copyrightable.

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#110

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

simonbarker87 wrote: post #74
NeoTar wrote: post #48

Some context, for people not located in the UK - A full British postcode typically aims to cover around 15 buildings (sometime a single building, sometimes a street of 50 houses). This is in contrast to many other postal code systems which cover relatively broad areas). Or to put it another way - UK - 2,643,732 codes, 1 code per 25 people, USA - 41,700 codes, 1 code per 8000 people, Germany - 8,200 codes, 1 code per…

Hence why a house number and postcode constitutes a complete address in the UK, we’ve sort of already got What Three Words with “a number and 5-7 characters” - not quite as catchy though

> What Three Words

W3W's closed, proprietary scheme is arguably worse than the PAF - as seen on HN previously:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20183533

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27058271

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19511917

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