[OSM-talk] Getting postal workers to do the leg (wheel) work

[Simon Hewison]

Nick Black wrote:

> A good idea though.  I bet the Post Office/Royal Mail are paying the
> OS big dollars for mapping data to plan their routes, but I doubt the
> likes of the Royal Mail in the UK would want to upset their
> QUANGO/Civil Service/Trading Fund buddies at the OS .  The executives
> probably play golf/roll around in their fat-cat executive bonuses
> together.

(This is UK specific)

Agreed. Royal Mail and Ordnance Survey seem to be very good buddies, as are 
local councils GIS and Building Control departments.

It seems that much of the donkey work in updating maps with OS mapping is 
actually done by local councils, who update their GIS with approved 
developments, and then notify Royal Mail, Ordnance Survey and others with 
the changes. In return for this, local councils probably get preferential 
licence fees for use of the Royal Mail and Ordnance Survey datasets.

New postcodes get invented / existing postcodes get used for new properties 
by Royal Mail on request of the local council.

Given that most of the UK is already perfectly well mapped by Ordnance 
Survey, and the PAF database is pretty much complete, the hard work is 
keeping their huge datasets up to date.

More reading on this can be found at:

http://www.richmond.gov.uk/home/environment/planning/street_numbering_and_naming.htm

I had previously posted Barnet Council's equivalent pages.

Thought 2 :
Forget Royal Mail workers, try other delivery drivers and suchlike:
Rubbish collection (quite often outsourced to a private company anyway)
Milkmen
Delivery Couriers

-- 
Simon Hewison