Conformance test report: Granular postcodes – case study from Egypt

1    Background

1.1    General

Addresses are an essential public good which facilitate the provision of services, increase efficiency for aid and emergency services, and contribute to the enhancement of social and economic development at the broader scale. While an address is structure information that allows the unambiguous determination of an object for purposes of identification and location (ISO 19160 1:2015), a postal address is defined as an address, possibly inclusive of the explicit identity of an addressee, where the addressable object is an actual or potential delivery point for a postal item. A postal delivery point is a physical location recognized by a postal operator as a valid location at which delivery may occur (ISO 19160-4:2017). 

Despite the important role played by addresses in daily life, many countries still lack a standardized, countrywide address infrastructure. Postal operators have been highly flexible with regard to the manner in which postal items can be addressed: any form and content was acceptable for an address as long as it permitted sufficiently unambiguous determination of the delivery point. Automated electronic and computerized systems, such as those that facilitate e-commerce, require formal and rigidly standardized address data and rendition structures. In order to facilitate the identification of the delivery points, postal operators have developed postcodes. 

A postcode is an element designating the code used for the sorting of mail (ISO 19160-4:2017). In other words, a postcode is an identifier for a given postal delivery point or group of postal delivery points within an area, normally comprising a string of numeric or alphanumeric characters. In practice, postcode could be the most compact data element capable of specifying with precision the location of a delivery point. A postcode may be considered an abbreviated form of an address or part of an address. In the absence of sufficiently complete sets of address elements, a granular postcode may serve the same purpose. 
Postcodes are widely used by postal authorities in many countries of the world. Originally conceived as a means of improving the routing and delivery exclusively of mail, they are now very often used for the more efficient routing and delivery of other, often commercial, services. Postcodes are frequently being used as a means of georeferencing locations, for example by satellite navigation systems fitted to vehicles. They have also emerged as a means of georeferencing areas at various levels of granularity for statistical purposes, either independently of the administrative geography or in association with it. The coarser the granularity, the more delivery points served within that postcode; the finer the granularity, the smaller the area or number of delivery points covered by a single postcode. With full granularity, a postcode can be used to identify a single delivery point. In such cases, the postcode itself is sufficient information to enable complete delivery. With less than total granularity, delivery will depend on a postcode together with additional information contained in the address elements.

Greatest benefit from postcode systems is derived where there is a postcode national system which is standardised, consistently and comprehensively applied, comprehensible by users and well maintained.

1.2    Granular Postcodes

Postcodes have been developed under the responsibility of Posts. Traditional postcodes often reached the individual post office level. The development of postcodes in the 1950s and 1960s was driven by the need for a more efficient means of processing mail. Automated processing equipment led to the development of coded forms of addresses to facilitate mail handling and distribution. 

The rapid development of technology in recent years has led to a significant increase in the use and effectiveness of geographic information systems (GIS), which in turn has led to the appearance of new postcodes that integrates GIS for a more granular approach, providing added-value in terms of address verification, particularly in countries with poor addressing. 

During the last 20 years, many countries have adopted GIS functionalities in their postcode structure. This is mainly due to the fact that there is more and more open-source geographic information available through official data bases and that satellite images are more accessible than ever. A number of countries, including Germany, Japan and the United States, have extended their existing postcodes. Other countries, like Malta and New Zealand, have revised the assignation of postcode digits, but the number of digits has remained the same. Some countries have created new postcodes with a finer granularity, to the delivery point level, with a view of leapfrogging the lack of sound addressing systems through the entire country. Some examples are as follows:

• South Africa designed and developed the eLAND system, a new hierarchical alphanumeric postcode system in three levels of functional hierarchy. This was to replace the four-digit postcode, which was no longer able to satisfactorily represent sorting and delivery services in the country. It had resolution to individual delivery point and allowed the appending of even finer-grained detail, to smaller subdivisions of any delivery point, such as an office door, desk or individual pigeonhole, as required. 
• Peru developed a postcode using geographic information that allows identification of the different localities around the country for the purpose of an optimal performance of the postal service. The postcode is composed of five digits that combine digital information about localities, neighbourhoods and buildings, thoroughfares and population census to unambiguously identify any delivery point within the whole territory, including those without a complete address. This specific development allows the Peruvian Post to generate a national delivery points’ database of multiple applications, for postal and non-postal purposes.
• Iran has developed a two-part 10-digit postcode to enable individual buildings to be located with the aid of GIS. The first part of the code is a traditional postcode and the second part is determined using circulating block system methodology. This methodology gives each building a code according to its location within the block. The code starts at the southwest corner of the block and moves in a clockwise direction. 
• Trinidad and Tobago has developed a postcode system gathering geographic layers of information in GIS. A polygon layer was created to represent the districts, another to divide each district into communities and a third to divide each community into zones, with each zone delineated by individual streets and assigned a two-digit identifier. The system not only deciphers the postcodes of all addresses, but also creates a point layer so that every single address is mapped and its exact location determined. 

1.3    The New Egypt Postcode – case study

The National Postal Authority (Egypt Post) was first established in 1865. Egypt Post in addition to be one of the oldest institutions, is consider as one of the pillars of the national economy which handle the financial, including public pensions payment, and postal services to all the Egyptian citizens. 

Egypt Post has witnessed a remarkable success in digital transformation progress in the last few years, adding a new list of innovative solutions and services to its traditional services and products portfolio. One of these digital transformations concerned the creation of a new postcode that allow tapping into e-commerce opportunities while leapfrogging the current physical addressing gaps. Thanks to this development, Egypt Post will become a unique provider for a wide range of services to Egyptian citizens.

The traditional five digit postcode down to the delivery office, has become now, a granular postcode down to postal delivery point. The new seven digits postcode identifies, throughout different layers of information, such as governorate, regions, districts, sectors, zones and areas, a range of 20 to 60 buildings inside of the postal area. There is no gaps or overlapping between the postcode areas allowing the identification of a small group of buildings unambiguously within the postal area which falls under a unique postcode. Furthermore, in addition to rails and rivers, major thoroughfares have been identified. Finally, this new granular postcode not only help identifying the larger land development patterns but also facilitate wayfinding in places like the City of Cairo, the largest city in the Arab world, with a population of more than 21 million. 

In conclusion, although the main objective of a postcode is to facilitate the routing and sorting of letters and parcels, and accordingly, to improve mail delivery, the new postcode developed by Egypt go beyond its initial aim. As soon as the postcode will become a common reference used by everyone, it will help with the identification of buildings and roads, improving common everyday activities, from the delivery of perishables to the swifter dispatch of emergency services to the correct location.

2    Conformance test class: Granular postcodes – case study from Egypt

2.1    Conformance test subclass: General

Figure — The Egypt Post conceptual model for postcode

A conceptual data model for delineation, numbering and signing has been drafted/approved within the scope of the Egypt Postcode Modernization Project.

The Egypt Post Framework Data Sharing License Agreement provides the contractual framework for the protection and exploitation of the EP’s data and services when it is provided to third party.

The creation, adaptation, maintenance and licensing of the EP’s products and services are part of the Governments initiative to provide access to Postal Data. They support the National vision of achieving ‘interoperability’ of the Governments’ national land and geographic information assets to provide Egypt with an information asset that will support its goal to become a competitive and sustainable economy.

• District sign
• Neighbourhood sign
• Postcode sign
• Postcode mounted on street name sign
• Postcode sign mounted on building
• Postcode QR-code
• Postcode directional sign
• Postcode orientation map

Egypt Post National Postcode Standard – Organization, outlines workflow processes to ensure synchronization of postcode data through maintenance of postcode areas, postcode numbers, and signage location and messaging.

2.2    Conformance test subclass: Addressing principles

• Postcode numbering by geography - Area based
• Postcode numbering by location - Point based
• Postcode maintenance

• Community
• Neighbourhood
• District
• Sector
• Special locations
• Buildings
• Delivery point
• Postal address

The Egypt postcode system is GIS based and all postcodes and signage are defined and maintained in the Egypt Post spatial database system. However, the digital record does not identify an addressable object but a group of addressable objects.

The Egypt Post postcode spatial database system contains the official authoritative postcode information as per /conf/objective/general/conceptualModel (2.1).

2.3    Conformance test subclass: Address data principles

• Postcode modifications
• Postcode deletions

3    Conformance test class: Governance framework for assigning and maintaining addresses

3.1    Conformance test subclass: General

3.2    Conformance test subclass: Addressing stakeholders

3.3    Conformance test subclass: Processes

3.4    Conformance test subclass: Addressing processes

3.5    Conformance test subclass: Address data processes