by Pierre Rossouw, South African Post Office
The South African Post Office is now one of 16 countries to be officially listed as compliant with the international addressing standard UPU-S42. This enables unique identification of a specific location according to a commonly written address. This is in preparation for further standardisation for the development of the new postcode system, unique delivery point identification for national service delivery.
Every country has its own way of structuring addresses, and within countries there are a number of ways of doing this. These variations make it difficult to have one specific, universally interpretable structure for interoperability and information exchange. There are numerous cases of delivery points not being uniquely specified. One way of dealing with this is geocoordinates, but most people do not know these. They rely on written instructions. These need to be unambiguous and standardised.
The Universal Postal Union (UPU) has established a global standard for recognition and certification of address structures. This is the UPU S42 standard: International Postal Address Components and Templates [1]. The UPU S42 Standard is an internationally recognised, formal way of defining and structuring patterns for names, addresses and postcodes for every registered country in terms of the elements, and provides rendition instructions that specify how the name and address data is best presented, even under constraints of available space. This enables anyone from anywhere in the world to correctly structure an address for any location in a country that is compliant with UPU S42. At the same time, this can be done without having to share the data itself, which is usually a valued corporate or national asset and may be confidential or sensitive.
The UPU S42 standard is prescriptive in that it specifies correct ways of structuring data and naming, rather than descriptive, trying to accommodate all variations, all names and conventions. An example of the latter approach is the SANS 1883 Address Standard [2], [3].
UPU S42 testing and compliance
Compliance and certification requires that address structures pass stringent data structure tests. This involves rugged, objective tests that electronically pull the addresses apart and attempt to restructure them according to specific data element types. If all elements of the structures of all address types pass the tests, then a computer-generated Postal Address Template Description Language (PATDL, an XML schema) is generated for general application, as well as a Natural Language Notation code list. PATDL is used because regular XML does not adequately recognise different data elements in the same line.
When input addresses are disassembled, it is better to have a common set of elements rather than separate and distinct non-standardised elements. For this reason, UPU S42 has become a meaningful reference point within the postal and mailing industry. Also, UPU S42 enables valid addresses to reliably be distinguished from invalid addresses. This means that invalid addresses can be detected beforehand and corrective action can be taken.
Many countries try for compliance certification, sometimes for years, and some succeed. Even once certified as compliant, a country can become non-compliant and can be delisted. This is usually because the standard evolves and becomes stricter, or the country introduces additional structures that are not recognised by the standard. About a year ago, four countries (Japan, Sweden, Germany and Portugal) were de-listed; the last two made it back again in the last testing session for S42 version 6 at the end of 2008.
In this last testing session, South Africa was one of five countries that passed and are listed in version 6. There are now sixteen countries listed. Ten countries did not pass, including some very strong contenders: Switzerland, Sweden, Japan, Singapore and Saudi Arabia. The last is particularly strong in the rural addressing components; but South Africa’s rural addressing system was preferred and listed first [4]. This is important, as the first listings establish the structure and hence the de facto standard for others to follow.
Address structuring
The purpose of standards compliance for the SA Post Office is to facilitate the correct data structuring that is required for the development and implementation of the new postal addressing system and postcode, to be introduced over the next three years [5].
The SA Post Office uses three basic types of address: Physical (including street and site addresses), Postal Services (PO Box and Private Bag addresses) and SAPO Rural Addresses (there are certain uncommon other types that are deliverable that are classified as “others” that are not considered here). Each of the three has specific data element definitions for the last three lines.
The UPU S42 standard includes documentation of rendition instructions providing for intelligent abbreviation, prioritisation and reordering of elements. The PATDL code list is available for general use, but is most useful for software development for bulk data processing. For individual location addressing, the correct address formats are according to the following general guidelines:
- The last line contains the postcode
- In the second last line: for PO Box and Private Bag addresses and for Rural addresses: Post Office Name for physical or street address: Place Name
- The third last line describes the Delivery Point: PO Box/P Bag and number; or Street number and Street name.
So far this describes the delivery point. The address may require more refined data. Above these three lines it may be necessary to include additional information, such as complex physical addresses for apartment blocks, residential and business complexes. Similarly a PO Box or Private Bag address may have sub-delivery points, such as businesses and private post network suites. Beyond this, UPU S42 also describes correct data structures for individual’s names, also differentiating between the addressee and the mailee persona.
These rules enable you to structure and specify a unique delivery point, but obviously do not ensure that you have the correct address or person.
A last point on who is responsible for data: The custodian of data is important for verification purposes. SA Post Office is the custodian of post box and private bag addresses and also of SAPO-registered rural address data. Municipalities are the mandated authority and hence custodians for street address data. All others are termed users of the data.
References
[1] UPU standard S42-6 www.upu.int/standards/en/upu_technical_standards.shtml, 2008
[2] SANS/CD 1883-1. Geographic Information – Address Standard (committee
draft), 2008, SABS, Pretoria.
[3] SANS 1883 South African address standard,
www.cs.up.ac.za/~scoetzee/sans1883, 2008.
[4] P Rossouw and K Kgope: ‘Rural Addressing in South Africa’, PositionIT,
September/October 2007
[5] Pierre Rossouw “Addressing and the New Postcode System”, PositionIT,
March-April 2008
Contact Pierre Rossouw, South African Post Office, Tel 012 401-7465,
pierre.rossouw@postoffice.co.za
