Universal Alphanumeric Postal Code Proposed

Meshach writes "An article in the Globe and Mail is discussing a possible change to the way postal codes are assigned over the world. NAC Geographic Products will be using Microsoft's MapPoint to power their Mobile Location-Based Services Network, which could change all postal codes in the world to a simpler, more universal format."

Comments

GPS

[charlieo88]

Why new postal codes at all? With cheap GPS, why not just start using longitude and latitude?

Re:GPS

[ssdairy]

...why not just start using longitude and latitude?
Good idea. My GPS receiver has a display mode called MGRS (Military Grid Reference System), which maps (with some calculation) to latitude and longitude.
Example MGRS coordinates:

16 T CP 12345 67890
where:

• 16 = a 6-degree slice of longitude
• T = a 8-degree slice of latitude
• CP = letters indicating a 100 km x 100 km square inside the slices listed above
• 12345 = "easting" in meters from the west edge of the square
• 67890 = "northing" in meters from the south edge of the square

Actually kind of nice -- the military uses maps with the squares and easting/northing values pre-printed. Also really nice for quick rough calculations of distance and bearing. If someone wants to use an alphanumeric code representing geographic location, might as well use one that's (1) already standardized and (2) usable by a human.

Re:Call me a stick in the mud...

[Guppy06]

"But, the fact of the matter is that the U.S. Postal Service likes its system just fine and will not change it to someone elses liking. Kinda like the metric system."

Metric is a bad analogy. The USPS has no reason to change to suit somebody else because they are the 500 lb. gorilla that literally moves half the world's letter mail. When you're that big, everybody else conforms to you.

(IIRC, the USPS is already starting to implement ZIP+4 codes for outbound international mail to speed up sorting in-country.)

"Even if the new system is better."

How exactly would it be better? And would it be better enough to overhaul all those OCR and barcode readers the USPS uses to sort the mail already? They already seem pretty efficient when it comes to drawing zone maps, what good could possibly come from changing their names?

So far, the only reason I see to sign on to this is the Ferret Effect. "It's new and shiney!"

"The same is true for the Royal Mail."

Aren't they out of business yet, what with their deregulation efforts?