The mail must get through

The mail must go through a lot before it actually gets through – first the postal sorting system, then the postal route, and finally the letter box! Fortunately there are Standards to help all this happen without a hitch. John Gelder, NBS Content development manager, has a look at the application of Standards to an important aspect of daily life.

Address

On postal sorting, BS 7666-0:2006 Spatial datasets for geographical referencing. General model for gazetteers and spatial referencing, helps to get the mail to your door. It supersedes BS 7666-3:2000 Spatial data-sets for geographical referencing – Specification for addresses.

The new Standard is looser than its predecessor and doesn't really 'subsume' it as claimed in the Foreword – a good example of change of scope causing the updating of a specification to entail more than just changing the citation.

For example, in the previous Standard, addresses comprised addressable objects (secondary, e.g. flat number, then primary, e.g. premises street number), street (of main access point), locality, town, administrative area (e.g. county) and postcode (determined by the Royal Mail – a rare example of a proprietary citation in a BS), in that order. They were to be recorded with single spacing within fields, no abbreviations (unless in the official name), and no punctuation (unless in the official name). Official names were to be used where they exist, but 'aliases' were permitted, e.g. Welsh and English versions (hence Royal Mail's Alias Data, for 'postally not required' data).

All this has been dropped from the new Standard. There, the nearest we get is that location records in gazetteers¹ must include a unique identifier of the location, a record entry date, a record update date, a 'start date' for the location itself, a coordinate for the location, a spatial reference (e.g. a property address), and the name of the organization responsible for defining the characteristics of the location. On address, the best the Standard can offer is: 'At least one of the classes Administrative Area, Town, Locality and Street should be present to form a meaningful address'.

Royal Mail essentially uses the previous Standard to define 'address' more fully, with town and postcode in capitals, please. Interestingly, addressees aren't generally needed for delivery purposes, and county likewise, usually being redundant.

As an aside, the previous Standard was illustrated using the SSADM modeling language for entities and relationships (nothing to do with the former Iraqi leader). Its replacement uses UML (Unified Modeling Language). Neither are the modeling languages (EXPRESS-G and ifcXML) used by the BuildingSMART initiative. I wonder if any of these will become the equivalent of English? We seem to be destined for another babble.

BS 7666-0 is not derived from a Euronorm, and so, not surprisingly, address conventions around Europe are for the most part different to those in the UK. Typically, street name precedes 'addressable object', and postcode precedes town. Postwatch says: 'The European Commission has put forward a proposal to open EU postal markets fully to competition by 2009, in line with the agreed target date set out in the current Postal Directive.' If this happens, we can expect more standardization, and maybe even changes to UK address conventions.

Postmen

Unfortunately there isn't a Standard for 'delivery personnel'. For that we might do worse than the 1860 newspaper ad for Pony Express riders: 'WANTED: YOUNG SKINNY WIRY FELLOWS. Not over eighteen. Must be expert riders willing to risk death daily. Orphans preferred. WAGES $25 per week.' They also had to swear off profane language, intoxicating liquors, and quarrelling or fighting with employees of the firm (but not with anybody else) (Simone Payment, The Pony Express, Rosen Publishing Group, 2005).

Most of our postmen and women probably don't meet these exacting standards, though Royal Mail's job description for 'postpersons' has some parallels: 'You will work in all weathers delivering mail on foot or by bike. You will travel 6 to 8 miles each day carrying around 8 heavy mailbags a day (weighing up to 16 kg). As part of your duty you may be expected to ride a bicycle confidently in all weathers and in heavy traffic.' – a standard UK mix of imperial and metric!

Letter box

A key Standard, BS EN 13724:2002 Postal services – Apertures of private letter boxes and letter plates – requirements and test methods, helps to get the mail through your door.

Apertures are rated for type (4 types, e.g. outdoor boxes), size (2 sizes), corrosion resistance (3 grades) and security (2 grades). Gauge mail (ISO C4 envelope [324 x 229 mm], 24 mm thick, filled with flat A4 80 g/m– papers) must be able to go through the aperture and be removed from a private letter box without folding or damage. Envelope sizes themselves are defined in BS 4264:1987 Specification for envelopes for commercial, official and professional use, which is not equivalent to ISO 269:1985 Correspondence envelopes – Designation and sizes – so much for the ISO C4 designation!

How does this compare with the Royal Mail's three categories for mail – letter, large letter and packet? Maximum dimensions for letters are 240 x 165 x 5 mm x 100 g – no problem. Large letter maxima are 353 x 250 x 25 mm x 750 g – these are a little bigger than 'gauge mail' in the Standard, which is unfortunate as they may not get through the letter box! Packets certainly won't get through – they are items where one of these maxima is exceeded, with a maximum weight (second class) of 1 kg, and maximum sizes for rectangular items of 610 x 460 x 460 mm and for cylindrical items of 900 mm long x (L+2D = 1040 mm). See Royal Mail ('Letter, large letter or packet?').

Installation heights are specified with ergonomics in mind. Sharp edges are not permitted, the flap must be easily opened and self-closing (mine fails here), and sight windows are generally not permitted (for confidentiality).

To satisfy water penetration criteria, a note suggests that delivery personnel insert all items completely through the aperture – someone should tell them!

Security criteria are extensive, comprising prevention of theft of mail via letter boxes and letterplates, the strength of private letter boxes, the number of key differs for letter box door locks and, for letterplates, minimum distances from door or window locks and use of secure fixings.

The Standard includes relevant test methods – those for security are quite elaborate. Compliance marking and labelling is specified, but it is noted that the Standard does not fall under any EC directives, and so is voluntary. If you want it to apply, it must be specified (for both products and execution).

So, in spite of the best efforts of BSI (and Royal Mail), the mail might not get through after all. In which case you could complain using BS EN 13850:2002 Postal services. Quality of service. Measurement of the transit time of end-to-end services for single piece priority mail and first class mail (or via www.postwatch.co.uk)!

As you can see, there's a Standard for (almost) everything.

¹ An example of such a gazetteer is the Royal Mail's UK Addresses, which drives the Postal Address File database, both available commercially.

First published January 2003 at www.ihsti.com/PreCIS/articles/archive/MailMustGetThrough.asp
Revised and expanded September 2008

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