We need to liberate the Postcode Address File • Hacker News Board

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#181

Post by heywoods » Fri, Aug 23, 2024, 1:11 PM UTC

coder543 wrote: post #170

NeoTar wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry - I was lazy and just asked ChatGPT for "how many German postal codes are there"!

FWIW, one of the only English-language sources I can find on Google claims around 8700 are in use: https://www.spotzi.com/en/data-catalog/categories/postal-cod... Don’t know where this discrepancy is coming from, but ~8k to ~30k is quite a jump.

This might help explain in-part the discrepancy. Perplexity.ai[1] also says 8,200 German postal codes. I set Claude 3.5 Sonnet in the LLM settings on Perplexity but it looks like it might use a ChatGPT model for the initial search of sources? At least we can see what it is sourcing to fetch the value of 8,200. Interestingly, asking Claude 3.5 Sonnet directly at claude.ai returned 16,000.[2]

1. https://www.perplexity.ai/search/how-many-german-postal-code... 2. "There are approximately 16,000 postal codes (Postleitzahlen) in Germany. These five-digit codes cover all areas of the country, including cities, towns, and rural regions.

To break it down a bit further:

1. The first digit represents one of 10 postal regions. 2. The second digit typically represents a sub-region within that area. 3. The last three digits identify specific delivery areas or post offices.

It's worth noting that the exact number can fluctuate slightly over time due to administrative changes, urban development, or postal service reorganization. However, 16,000 is a good approximation for the total number of German postal codes.

Would you like more information about how the German postal code system works or its history?"

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#182

Post by InsomniacL » Fri, Aug 23, 2024, 1:12 PM UTC

ascorbic wrote: post #60

As he points out, this was a profoundly stupid mistake made when privatising Royal Mail. It would have been trivially easy to do at that point, but now it's a lot harder. If the government decided that it does want to do this, it can't just pass a law that says "the PAF is now free" without paying hundreds of millions of pounds in compensation to Royal Mail. That's quite apart from the ongoing costs of maintaining th…

> profoundly stupid mistake

Surely the PAF formed part of the sale price when privatising Royal Mail?

So if you removed it before selling (at a lower price), or you buy it outright after, is there really that much difference making it a profoundly stupid mistake?

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#183

Post by devnullbrain » Fri, Aug 23, 2024, 1:18 PM UTC

beardyw wrote: post #77

simonbarker87 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

Why didn't they just use Advanced Mobile Location? I called in a fire for a fallen tree in the middle of the field and they just asked if it was next to where I'm standing.

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#184

Post by tacostakohashi » Fri, Aug 23, 2024, 1:20 PM UTC

gabesullice wrote: post #55

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…

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…

Frankly, that just sounds like a fire code / building code issue. Are these "apartment buildings" legal for habitation, with actual legal separate apartments, and not some weird subdivision/subletting situation?

In every place I have ever lived, having a clearly marked addresses and door numbers for apartments is required by the fire code. If there's an emergency that requires a fire or ambulance response, smoke in the air, etc, then "Nth floor, door on the right" is not a good thing to be explaining over the phone.

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#185

Post by aaronax » Fri, Aug 23, 2024, 1:22 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #176

dmurray wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

They are public, but the post office changes the last 4 digits every few months so there is no point in telling anyone what yours is. These days the post office can look up your street address and give you all the information they need - which is an 11 digit bar code good for the next week.

Based on my personal experience, I really doubt that the last 4 digits of the ZIP+4 are changing more often than once per decade or longer. I could see the delivery point of the 11-digit code changing every few months, but you are already aware of that code system so it is not simple confusion between the two on your part.

Could you provide more information or a source?

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#186

Post by devnullbrain » Fri, Aug 23, 2024, 1:25 PM UTC

n4r9 wrote: post #80

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…

The idea of the UK government attempting to do such a thing fills me with the utmost dread.

But they already have. The Post Office was still nationalised when post codes were distributed.

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#187

Post by willyt » Fri, Aug 23, 2024, 1:53 PM UTC

manarth wrote: post #72

arnsholt wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The BAN provide fields `long` and `lat` which are WGS84, and also `x` and `y` which are coordinates expressed in "the appropriate local CRS" (without much elaboration on what that would be).

That would be the French national grid system, no? The UK has the ordnance survey grid which is based on the OSGB36 datum. I'm pretty sure France will have a similar national datum to create their own local grid coordinates as planning and building works needs to be done in a more accurately aligned local datum than WGS84.

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#188

Post by petesergeant » Fri, Aug 23, 2024, 1:58 PM UTC

ascorbic wrote: post #60

As he points out, this was a profoundly stupid mistake made when privatising Royal Mail. It would have been trivially easy to do at that point, but now it's a lot harder. If the government decided that it does want to do this, it can't just pass a law that says "the PAF is now free" without paying hundreds of millions of pounds in compensation to Royal Mail. That's quite apart from the ongoing costs of maintaining th…

> it can't just pass a law that says "the PAF is now free" without paying hundreds of millions of pounds in compensation to Royal Mail

Parliament absolutely can, legally. The issue is that it’ll set a bad precedent that’ll get brought up by the buyer the next time the government want to privatise something.

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#189

Post by scott_w » Fri, Aug 23, 2024, 2:05 PM UTC

knallfrosch wrote: post #87

ascorbic wrote: post #60

As he points out, this was a profoundly stupid mistake made when privatising Royal Mail. It would have been trivially easy to do at that point, but now it's a lot harder. If the government decided that it does want to do this, it can't just pass a law that says "the PAF is now free" without paying hundreds of millions of pounds in compensation to Royal Mail. That's quite apart from the ongoing costs of maintaining th…

> If the government decided that it does want to do this, it can't just pass a law that says "the PAF is now free" without paying hundreds of millions of pounds in compensation to Royal Mail. You can pass the law, get sued and pay whatever the PAF is worth. But that's just.. fair? The govnerment spent 5 mio just for a survey concluding that it's impossible to recreate the PAF. So hundreds of millions sounds like a go…

Just to be clear: UK Parliament is sovereign. If it passes a law forcibly legalising it, the privatised Royal Mail can sue the government but would need to find an international treaty obligation to win. Even then, if Parliament flagged it and said "we're ignoring this treaty in this case" then the courts are bound to the law, not treaty obligations.

If it has knock-on impacts in other areas, it's hard to say, but that's separate to the law.

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#190

Post by willyt » Fri, Aug 23, 2024, 2:06 PM UTC

InsomniacL wrote: post #182

ascorbic wrote: post #60

As he points out, this was a profoundly stupid mistake made when privatising Royal Mail. It would have been trivially easy to do at that point, but now it's a lot harder. If the government decided that it does want to do this, it can't just pass a law that says "the PAF is now free" without paying hundreds of millions of pounds in compensation to Royal Mail. That's quite apart from the ongoing costs of maintaining th…

> profoundly stupid mistake Surely the PAF formed part of the sale price when privatising Royal Mail? So if you removed it before selling (at a lower price), or you buy it outright after, is there really that much difference making it a profoundly stupid mistake?

I doubt they thought about it at that level of detail. I think it was just sold off on the cheap through a share offering with an initial offering[0] of underpriced shares? There was some kind of scheme where a private individual could buy a small number of shares before they went on general sale. Could be wrong though.