| T.R | Title | User | Personal
Name | Date | Lines |
|---|
| 54.1 | | CADSE::WONG | Let's cut them off at the pass... | Tue Mar 08 1988 08:42 | 4 |
| I always wondered about that...
There's a little town called Durham out in the middle of nowhere
(in Ontario) with the postal code N0G 1R0...what does that mean?
|
| 54.2 | IN A NUT SHELL | POLAR::GOSLING | KANATA MFG I.S. | Tue Mar 08 1988 16:07 | 77 |
|
The Postal Code system in Canada is the method used by Canada Post
to ensure, that by employing state-of-the-art equipment and
systems, and over paid "people" (don't want to offend anyone),
that the mail makes its' way to its' intended recipient by the
most INEFFICIENT route possible :-)
Actually it is simply an addressing method, used by Canada Post,
to "home" in on the geographic/postal location of a residence or
business.
Without going into a lot of detail - and I'm not an expert, I will
give explaining the system a try through the following.
The easiest part to explain is the significance of the 1st letter
of the '3 space 3' series of letters and numbers, which specifies
the major geographic area.
A = Newfoundland
B = Nova Scotia
C = Prince Edward Island
E = New Brunswick
G = Eastern Quebec
H = Montreal
J = Western Quebec
K = Eastern Ontario
L = Central Ontario
M = Toronto
N = South Western Ontario
P = Northern Ontario
R = Manitoba
S = Saskatchewan
T = Alberta
V = British Columbia
X = North West Territories
Y = Yukon
The rest of the series of characters is not as scientific , so
bear with me while I take you through a couple of examples and I
think you will see how it works.
o Eastern Ontario is "K" (as per above).
o Ottawa and Kanata are both in Eastern Ontario, so their codes
start with "K".
o If you live on Oriole Avenue in Kanata (I used to), the 1st 3
letters of your code are "K2L". If your place of business is on
Herzberg Road in Kanata (where the Kanata DEC plant is), the 1st
3 letters are "K2K". So, from this you can probably surmise
that "K2" are the Kanata designators and the the 3rd character
indicates an area within Kanata.
o If you live on Oriole Avenue, and your street number is an odd
number between 101 and 121 inclusive, the last 3 characters of
the code are "1E6". If your number is an even number between
102 and 114 inclusive, the last 3 characters are "1E7". And as
you go back and forth across the street, the last 3 characters
will change.
That's it - piece of cake!
The real advantage to this system, is that the Post Office uses
the Postal Codes to direct mail through an automated sorting
process at its' main postal terminals (Toronto, Montreal, etc.).
The hand written postal code on a piece of mail is converted to a
form of barcode (imprinted on the letter) by a key punch type
operator and from then on, as the letter moves through an
automated conveyer system, it is continually scanned and
redirected until it reaches the mail bag destined for your local
or area Post Office.
Hope that helps explain the system.
Art
|
| 54.3 | Nifty! | INFACT::SCHWARTZ | This is the Edge ==> | Wed Mar 09 1988 08:35 | 4 |
| Amazing! You guys did it in 6 characters and it took us 9 to do it!
Then again, our government is a lot bulkier, too! :-)
Russ Schwartz.
|
| 54.4 | Pony express | XCELR8::KING | MRO2-LA/M54 DTN 297-6026 | Thu Mar 10 1988 03:21 | 9 |
| reply to 54.3
Remember that there are more addresses in the U.S. than in Canada.
And the zip + 4 system is supposed to narrow routing down to the
city block or section of town. But it hasn't really caught on too
well. Its sort of an option for people to use and a discount is
given to business that use 9 digits.
Bryan
|
| 54.5 | Forward Sortation Areas | KAOFS::LOCKYER | Garry | Mon Mar 14 1988 21:31 | 17 |
| The first three characters of a postal code identifies the "forward
sortation area" which is the geographic area that the piece of mail is
headed for and usually contain a small post office. The size of each
forward sortation area was originally determined by how much mail the average
letter carier could deliver in a day. It seems to me that each FSA could be
handled by 100 letter carriers.
In larger cities, there are several FSAs. You can get Postal Code books from
the post office that have maps for the major cities in them showing the FSAs.
I have used these maps and customer postal codes to segment cities into areas
for high volume Field Service units. The Postal Code books also tell you how
postal codes work and also have a section on exactly how to address a piece
of mail so that postal codes can be used efficiently (is that possible? :^) ).
Regards, Garry (who has never worked for the Post Office, but has played with
postal codes!)
|
| 54.6 | ANA NAN | TRCA03::TIPPER | Kenneth (Sandy) Tipper, Toronto | Tue Apr 05 1988 13:44 | 12 |
| Remember when the Postal Code was first introduced, and they had
pictures of two "Postal Code girls", ANA and NAN?
(Alpha-Numeric-Alpha Numeric-Alpha-Numeric)
Depending on where you are, the code can represent a different
granularity of mail delivery (but about the same number of persons
per code). For example, in Toronto, the postal code M8X 2W3 applies
only to my apartment building. In the village in which I grew up
(Mindemoya, Ontario; one rural route, about 400 people in town),
there is also a single postal code, P0P 1S0.
Sandy
|
| 54.7 | Interesting Trivia | OTOO01::JAMES | Al James @OTO | Tue Aug 09 1988 15:22 | 6 |
| I always thought the most forward-thinking feature of the postal
code was how they planned the North Pole (Santa's Workshop) as
postal code H0H-0H0 (or H0-H0-H0).
Seems the mail even gets there (and gets a reply) round Christmas
time.
|
| 54.8 | More combinations! | CGOA01::HARROP | are ya sure this'll work? | Sun Dec 18 1988 22:45 | 14 |
| Regarding the number of digits and the comments that the US is
far more populus. Your old 5 digit system only yields 10 to the
5th power or 100,000 combinations. Our six digit code would, if
it only had numerics, yield 10 to the 6th or 1,000,000 combinations.
But as it also contains alphas it yields 26x10x26x10x26x10 combinations
or 17,576,000 possibilities. That means that it will allow for
more than 175 times as many combinations than your 5 digit code.
Certainly your 9 digit code has our code beat, but perhaps one of
the reasons that very few people use it, is that I recall seeing
that short term memory is only good for 7 digits in most people.
Ian Harrop
|
| 54.9 | Zippidy do do | KAOO01::ADLER | Non Urinatus Contra Westrum | Fri Dec 14 1990 16:13 | 22 |
| Better late than never!
On of the risks of our Postal Code is when it being used outside of
Canada. A friend of mine was posted in Primrose, Alberta (CFB Cold
Lake) and I believe their Postal Code was T0K 0Y0. Most of her mail was
winding up in Japan.
On of the nicer attributes is that you can make up little ditties to
remember your code. The Canadian Broadcasting Corp's main mailing
address is "P.O. Box 500, Station A, Toronto, Ont. M5W 1E6". Hence;
M ake
5
W einers
1 'll
E at
6
Regards,
Stephen
|
| 54.10 | Here's the male | VOGON::REEVE | Life is like a mountain railway | Mon Dec 17 1990 05:37 | 12 |
| >================================================================================
>Note 54.9 Just curious 9 of 9
>KAOO01::ADLER "Non Urinatus Contra Westrum" 22 lines 14-DEC-1990 16:13
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Canada. A friend of mine was posted in Primrose, Alberta (CFB Cold
> Lake) and I believe their Postal Code was T0K 0Y0. Most of her mail was
> winding up in Japan.
Surely it would be faster to walk from one side of Primrose to the other?
Anyway, I thought it was illegal to mail live people.
Tim
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