[OSM-talk] post boxes and collection times

Sven Grüner sven at schunterscouts.de
Tue Nov 20 17:11:44 GMT 2007


Thom Shannon schrieb:
> I had an idea yesterday while trying to post something at about 7 in the 
> evening. When I've been mapping I've marked on post boxes, but I think 
> it could be really useful to label them with collection times.

This is excellent! I had these thoughts as well a few weeks ago but
totally forgot them after I reached the only post_box which is emptied
at 11pm - 10miles from the city-centre.

> Obviously I don't want to come up with my own labels in isolation so I'm 
> looking for some ideas and input. The boxes I've seen around the centre 
> of Liverpool all have a single collection time in the evening. What 
> about post boxes near you? Do they have different collection times for 
> different days? Does anywhere still have more than one collection a day 
> or has that been scrapped? How does the system vary internationally?

Here in my city (Germany) this could prove to be difficult to capture.
Many boxes are emptied twice a day mon-fri but there are also some whith
three times and I know at least of one with four. AFAIR none are emptied
on sat. And on Sundays all are emptied in the late afternoon, and
special ones additionally in the evening.
But the mail which is emptied at 22:00 is only delievered the next day
if the recipient lies within the same distribution area.

> What sort of examples are there of this kind of information in OSM, what 
> namespaces should we consider?

I had a quick look in ISO8601 but didn't become any smarter. Probably we
will end up with something like:
emptied:weekdays=12:00,16:00,20:00
emptied:sunday=16:00,22:00
Times are, of course, local time.

Greetings, Sven





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