<html theme="default-light"><head>
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</head><body text="#000000">I had long discussions with Canada Post
about postcodes years ago. I was working with Treasury Board standards
group at the time looking at addressing standards and I'm very aware of
the limitations.<br>
<br>
Rural post codes are very definitely an issue and not all postcodes used
by Stats Canada and other government departments for example are
physical locations.<br>
<br>
Open Data would be nice but realistically it isn't going to happen in
the short term.<br>
<br>
Having said that what is doable is spotting postcodes that do exist but
are not in OpenStreetMap then tagging a building with an address that
includes a postcode in that postcode.<br>
<br>
For example if K4A 1M7 exists in the map then it would be reasonable to
assume that K4A 1M6 - 1M1 should also exist so could be looked for.<br>
<br>
Cobourg is an example where there are far fewer postcodes than one might
like to see.<br>
<br>
Cheerio John<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<span>Kevin Farrugia wrote on 2019-10-02 8:53 PM:</span><br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAMJVdaV2ksqFkOGT93EErg32-e4yiOjh1HU4S+2E5k27w74A-w@mail.gmail.com">
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<div dir="ltr"><div>I don't want to rain on the postal code party, and
maybe I'm a little jaded from using the data, but I use the Postal Code
Conversion File (PCCF) from Statistics Canada (who get it from Canada
Post) at work. In general I would say that the postal code points are
in mediocre shape.</div><div><br></div><div>Some things I've noticed
about the data and postal codes in general:</div><div>* There is usually
one postal code point per postal code, although there are cases where
there can be several points for a postal code. For example, with some
postal codes, if you were to make them polygons, would generate multiple
polygons that are intersected by other postal codes.</div><div>* Postal
codes, especially rural ones, pop in and out of existence and so are a
little harder to track and are less permanent than addresses.</div><div>*
Postal codes will sometimes jump from one side of a road (even
municipality) between years as they try to improve accuracy.</div><div>I
would check out the Limitations section if you'd like to see more: <a
href="https://www.canadapost.ca/cpc/assets/cpc/uploads/files/marketing/2017-postal-code-conversion-file-reference-guide-en.pdf"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.canadapost.ca/cpc/assets/cpc/uploads/files/marketing/2017-postal-code-conversion-file-reference-guide-en.pdf</a></div><div><br></div><div>Forward
Sortation Areas do exist as open data through Statistics Canada -
StatsCan generates these FSA polygons based on respondents of the
Census. There are two limitations to this dataset on which I would
advise against importing it into OSM:</div><div>1) Since businesses do
not respond to the Census, they generally do not have FSAs for large
industrial areas. These areas are covered by the nearest FSA that they
know about/can define, but this can also cause some movements of
boundaries from Census to Census.</div><div>2) Because postal codes are
created for the purpose of mail sortation and delivery, the FSA
boundaries StatsCan is able to create are not exact.</div><div>Here's
the reference document if you're interested: <a
href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/92-179-g/92-179-g2016001-eng.htm"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/92-179-g/92-179-g2016001-eng.htm</a></div><div><br></div><div>If
at some point they did release it as open data, it might be decent
enough for the purposes of general geocoding in OSM, I just don't want
people to think it's as well maintained and reliable as some other types
of government data.<br><div><br><div><div><div dir="ltr"
class="gmail_signature">-Kevin (Kevo)</div></div></div></div></div><br></div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Wed, 2
Oct 2019 at 20:39, James <<a href="mailto:james2432@gmail.com"
moz-do-not-send="true">james2432@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote
class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px
solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="auto">funny you
should mention <a href="http://geocoder.ca" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">geocoder.ca</a> <div dir="auto"><br></div><div
dir="auto">The owner of that website was sued by Canada Post because he
was crowd sourcing postal codes. Just recently (2 ish years ago?) they
dropped the lawsuit because they knew they didnt have a case(He came to
the Ottawa meetups a couple of times)</div></div><br><div
class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Wed., Oct. 2,
2019, 8:08 p.m. Jarek Piórkowski, <<a
href="mailto:jarek@piorkowski.ca" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">jarek@piorkowski.ca</a>>
wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px
0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">Yeah,
Canada Post currently considers postal codes their commercial<br>
data. Crowd-sourcing all or a substantial amount of full codes seems<br>
infeasible. Crowd-sourcing the forward sortation areas (the first A1A)<br>
seems difficult since verifiability is going to be a problem<br>
especially around the edges of the areas.<br>
<br>
The website OpenStreetMap.org returns results for some postal codes<br>
from a third-party database <a href="https://geocoder.ca/?terms=1"
rel="noreferrer noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">https://geocoder.ca/?terms=1</a>
which is not<br>
ODbL-compatible either.<br>
<br>
Partial mapping is causing some problems with tools like Nominatim<br>
that attach the nearest tagged postcode to search results, often<br>
resulting in improper postal codes for reverse address lookups,<br>
however that is arguably a tooling problem and not an OSM problem per<br>
se.<br>
<br>
This isn't going to be pretty until Canada Post is persuaded to free<br>
the data. Call your MP, everybody.<br>
<br>
--Jarek<br>
<br>
On Wed, 2 Oct 2019 at 17:38, john whelan <<a
href="mailto:jwhelan0112@gmail.com" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">jwhelan0112@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
><br>
> " The number one request on <a href="http://open.canada.ca"
rel="noreferrer noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">open.canada.ca</a>
is to open the postal code database. Feel free to add your vote. <a
href="https://open.canada.ca/en/suggested-datasets" rel="noreferrer
noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">https://open.canada.ca/en/suggested-datasets</a>"<br>
><br>
> Cheerio John<br>
><br>
> On Wed, 2 Oct 2019 at 13:32, john whelan <<a
href="mailto:jwhelan0112@gmail.com" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">jwhelan0112@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
>><br>
>> On the import mailing list there is a proposal to import
postcodes in the UK one of the reasons given was that many like to input
a postcode to get directions on smartphones using things like OSMand.<br>
>><br>
>> I don't think an Open Data source with the correct licensing is
available in Canada but OSMand appears to be able to use the postcode
if it is entered in the map as part of the address. Is there any Open
Data that might be useful?<br>
>><br>
>> I don't know if it is possible but could something be used to
extract postcodes in the current map and from there perhaps we could
come up with a list of missing postcodes that need one address with it
in mapped?<br>
>><br>
>> As a minimum if you could add a few in you know from local
knowledge that might help fill in some gaps.<br>
>><br>
>> Thoughts<br>
>><br>
>> Thanks John<br>
><br>
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