Re: [Talk-ca] Postcodes in Canada

[john whelan]

Canadian Postal Codes in urban areas are blocks of roughly 50 buildings
which makes them extremely interesting to use for GIS studies.  Average
income etc.

Both in the UK and Canada many people would rather type in a 6 character
code than a street address with city when looking for directions to a
location.  In the UK postcodes where restricted to a street which meant
when computer storage was expensive we used something called a prem code
which was the building number followed by the postcode and generated the
full address when required.  Canadian postcodes can spam different streets
especially in areas served by supermail boxes.

If I use  the example of my own address.  The house was built in the City
of Cumberland, but my postal address was Navan.  Then Canada Post changed
the postal address to Orleans which is interesting as Orleans does not
exist as a municipality.  Apparentyl there are one or two other places in
Canada that Canada Post doesn't use the municipality name in the postal
address.  Currently it is in the City of Ottawa so some mail gets addressed
Orleans and some Ottawa.  I had an elderly aunt who always addressed my
Christmas card to Navan and included the postcode until she died and each
year the post office would attach a sticker saying the postal address was
wrong.  The post code remains the same over all the changes.

So yes a postcode can change but from time to time they are more stable
than the official postal address.

As long as one address contains the postcode then Nominatim will find it
which means it can be used for directions.  You might be 30 buildings away
but you are in the right general area so I think adding them as part of a
street address is of value.

Cheerio John



On Thu, 3 Oct 2019 at 11:24, Justin Tracey  wrote:

> In the US, ZIP Codes (the US postal code equivalent) are frequently
> emphasized to not correspond to geographic locations, but sets of
> addresses. Of course they frequently cluster according to geography (and
> the prefixes are indeed assigned to states and regions within the
> state), and are often used as stand-ins, but you can't make assumptions
> about continuity or proximity for the addresses they correspond with.
> Even though I can't find it explicitly worded that way (i.e., "post
> codes are address sets, not locations"), it seems to be the same
> situation here. Given that, the most "correct" thing to do would be
> tagging postal codes in addresses, and not as distinct entities.
>
> The Canada Post website has a tool to lookup the postal code for a
> particular address, so if it were released, wouldn't the data they use
> to supply that information be good enough for this? It doesn't quite
> solve people trying to navigate "to" a particular postal code, but it
> seems like that's an ambiguous request anyway.
>
>  - Justin
>
>
>
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Re: [Talk-ca] Postcodes in Canada

[Justin Tracey]

In the US, ZIP Codes (the US postal code equivalent) are frequently
emphasized to not correspond to geographic locations, but sets of
addresses. Of course they frequently cluster according to geography (and
the prefixes are indeed assigned to states and regions within the
state), and are often used as stand-ins, but you can't make assumptions
about continuity or proximity for the addresses they correspond with.
Even though I can't find it explicitly worded that way (i.e., "post
codes are address sets, not locations"), it seems to be the same
situation here. Given that, the most "correct" thing to do would be
tagging postal codes in addresses, and not as distinct entities.

The Canada Post website has a tool to lookup the postal code for a
particular address, so if it were released, wouldn't the data they use
to supply that information be good enough for this? It doesn't quite
solve people trying to navigate "to" a particular postal code, but it
seems like that's an ambiguous request anyway.

 - Justin

On 2019-10-02 8:53 p.m., Kevin Farrugia wrote:
> 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.
>
> Some things I've noticed about the data and postal codes in general:
> * 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.
> * 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.
> * Postal codes will sometimes jump from one side of a road (even
> municipality) between years as they try to improve accuracy.
> I would check out the Limitations section if you'd like to see
> more: 
> https://www.canadapost.ca/cpc/assets/cpc/uploads/files/marketing/2017-postal-code-conversion-file-reference-guide-en.pdf
>
> 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:
> 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.
> 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.
> Here's the reference document if you're
> interested: 
> https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/92-179-g/92-179-g2016001-eng.htm
>
> 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.
>
> -Kevin (Kevo)
>
>
> On Wed, 2 Oct 2019 at 20:39, James  > wrote:
>
> funny you should mention geocoder.ca  
>
> 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)
>
> On Wed., Oct. 2, 2019, 8:08 p.m. Jarek Piórkowski,
> mailto:ja...@piorkowski.ca>> wrote:
>
> Yeah, Canada Post currently considers postal codes their
> commercial
> data. Crowd-sourcing all or a substantial amount of full codes
> seems
> infeasible. Crowd-sourcing the forward sortation areas (the
> first A1A)
> seems difficult since verifiability is going to be a problem
> especially around the edges of the areas.
>
> The website OpenStreetMap.org returns results for some postal
> codes
> from a third-party database https://geocoder.ca/?terms=1 which
> is not
> ODbL-compatible either.
>
> Partial mapping is causing some problems with tools like Nominatim
> that attach the nearest tagged postcode to search results, often
> resulting in improper postal codes for reverse address lookups,
> however that is arguably a tooling problem and not an OSM
> problem per
> se.
>
> This isn't going to be pretty until Canada Post is persuaded
> to free
> the data. Call your MP, everybody.
>
> --Jarek
>
> On Wed, 2 Oct 2019 at 17:38, john whelan
> mailto:jwhelan0...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> >
> > 

Re: [Talk-ca] Postcodes in Canada

[James]

>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.

Not necessarily. The first three characters are province, region
indicators. The last three are based on Canada Post's routes/delivery
zones. They create new ones all the time and probably not sequentially so
people need to subscribe to their shitty 5000$/year service

On Thu., Oct. 3, 2019, 12:23 a.m. Kyle Nuttall, 
wrote:

> I've found a good resource to use is a business website. Particularly a
> store with multiple locations, a mall directory, or a BIA. They have
> several postal codes that are associated with their respective addresses.
>
> Unfortunately it does require manual work (or you could pair a scrapper
> with a geocoder to do the tedious part) but given there is no available
> datasets we're licenced to use currently, it's the only public resource I
> know of where you can get pockets of postal codes.
>
> As more and more get added, the zones will begin to reflect their true
> shape more accurately and it'll be easier to extrapolate.
>
> I know it's not the best answer but any bit helps I suppose.
>
> On Oct. 2, 2019 21:33, John Whelan  wrote:
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> Open Data would be nice but realistically it isn't going to happen in the
> short term.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> Cobourg is an example where there are far fewer postcodes than one might
> like to see.
>
> Cheerio John
>
>
>
> Kevin Farrugia wrote on 2019-10-02 8:53 PM:
>
> 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.
>
> Some things I've noticed about the data and postal codes in general:
> * 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.
> * 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.
> * Postal codes will sometimes jump from one side of a road (even
> municipality) between years as they try to improve accuracy.
> I would check out the Limitations section if you'd like to see more:
> https://www.canadapost.ca/cpc/assets/cpc/uploads/files/marketing/2017-postal-code-conversion-file-reference-guide-en.pdf
>
> 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:
> 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.
> 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.
> Here's the reference document if you're interested:
> https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/92-179-g/92-179-g2016001-eng.htm
>
> 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.
>
> -Kevin (Kevo)
>
>
> On Wed, 2 Oct 2019 at 20:39, James  wrote:
>
> funny you should mention geocoder.ca
>
> 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)
>
> On Wed., Oct. 2, 2019, 8:08 p.m. Jarek Piórkowski, 
> wrote:
>
> Yeah, Canada Post currently considers postal codes their commercial
> data. Crowd-sourcing all or a substantial amount of full codes seems
> infeasible. Crowd-sourcing the forward sortation areas (the first A1A)
> se

Re: [Talk-ca] Postcodes in Canada

[Kyle Nuttall]

I've found a good resource to use is a business website. Particularly a store 
with multiple locations, a mall directory, or a BIA. They have several postal 
codes that are associated with their respective addresses.

Unfortunately it does require manual work (or you could pair a scrapper with a 
geocoder to do the tedious part) but given there is no available datasets we're 
licenced to use currently, it's the only public resource I know of where you 
can get pockets of postal codes.

As more and more get added, the zones will begin to reflect their true shape 
more accurately and it'll be easier to extrapolate.

I know it's not the best answer but any bit helps I suppose.

On Oct. 2, 2019 21:33, John Whelan  wrote:
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.

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.

Open Data would be nice but realistically it isn't going to happen in the short 
term.

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.

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.

Cobourg is an example where there are far fewer postcodes than one might like 
to see.

Cheerio John



Kevin Farrugia wrote on 2019-10-02 8:53 PM:
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.

Some things I've noticed about the data and postal codes in general:
* 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.
* 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.
* Postal codes will sometimes jump from one side of a road (even municipality) 
between years as they try to improve accuracy.
I would check out the Limitations section if you'd like to see more: 
https://www.canadapost.ca/cpc/assets/cpc/uploads/files/marketing/2017-postal-code-conversion-file-reference-guide-en.pdf

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:
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.
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.
Here's the reference document if you're interested: 
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/92-179-g/92-179-g2016001-eng.htm

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.

-Kevin (Kevo)


On Wed, 2 Oct 2019 at 20:39, James 
mailto:james2...@gmail.com>> wrote:
funny you should mention geocoder.ca

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)

On Wed., Oct. 2, 2019, 8:08 p.m. Jarek Piórkowski, 
mailto:ja...@piorkowski.ca>> wrote:
Yeah, Canada Post currently considers postal codes their commercial
data. Crowd-sourcing all or a substantial amount of full codes seems
infeasible. Crowd-sourcing the forward sortation areas (the first A1A)
seems difficult since verifiability is going to be a problem
especially around the edges of the areas.

The website OpenStreetMap.org returns results for some postal codes
from a third-party database https://geocoder.ca/?terms=1 which is not
ODbL-compatible either.

Partial mapping is causing some problems with tools like Nominatim
that attach the nearest tagged postcode to search results, often
resulting in improper postal codes for reverse address lookups,
however that is arguably a tooling problem and not an OSM problem 

Re: [Talk-ca] Postcodes in Canada

[John Whelan]

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.


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.


Open Data would be nice but realistically it isn't going to happen in 
the short term.


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.


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.


Cobourg is an example where there are far fewer postcodes than one might 
like to see.


Cheerio John



Kevin Farrugia wrote on 2019-10-02 8:53 PM:
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.


Some things I've noticed about the data and postal codes in general:
* 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.
* 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.
* Postal codes will sometimes jump from one side of a road (even 
municipality) between years as they try to improve accuracy.
I would check out the Limitations section if you'd like to see more: 
https://www.canadapost.ca/cpc/assets/cpc/uploads/files/marketing/2017-postal-code-conversion-file-reference-guide-en.pdf


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:
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.
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.
Here's the reference document if you're interested: 
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/92-179-g/92-179-g2016001-eng.htm


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.


-Kevin (Kevo)


On Wed, 2 Oct 2019 at 20:39, James > wrote:


funny you should mention geocoder.ca 

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)

On Wed., Oct. 2, 2019, 8:08 p.m. Jarek Piórkowski,
mailto:ja...@piorkowski.ca>> wrote:

Yeah, Canada Post currently considers postal codes their
commercial
data. Crowd-sourcing all or a substantial amount of full codes
seems
infeasible. Crowd-sourcing the forward sortation areas (the
first A1A)
seems difficult since verifiability is going to be a problem
especially around the edges of the areas.

The website OpenStreetMap.org returns results for some postal
codes
from a third-party database https://geocoder.ca/?terms=1 which
is not
ODbL-compatible either.

Partial mapping is causing some problems with tools like Nominatim
that attach the nearest tagged postcode to search results, often
resulting in improper postal codes for reverse address lookups,
however that is arguably a tooling problem and not an OSM
problem per
se.

This isn't going to be pretty until Canada Post is persuaded
to free
the data. Call your MP, everybody.

--Jarek

On Wed, 2 Oct 2019 at 17:38, john whelan
mailto:jwhelan0...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> " The number one request on open.canada.ca
 is to open the postal code database. 
Feel free to add your vote.
https://open.canada.ca/en/suggested-datasets";
>
> Cheerio John
>
> On Wed, 

Re: [Talk-ca] Postcodes in Canada

[Kevin Farrugia]

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.

Some things I've noticed about the data and postal codes in general:
* 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.
* 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.
* Postal codes will sometimes jump from one side of a road (even
municipality) between years as they try to improve accuracy.
I would check out the Limitations section if you'd like to see more:
https://www.canadapost.ca/cpc/assets/cpc/uploads/files/marketing/2017-postal-code-conversion-file-reference-guide-en.pdf

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:
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.
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.
Here's the reference document if you're interested:
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/92-179-g/92-179-g2016001-eng.htm

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.

-Kevin (Kevo)


On Wed, 2 Oct 2019 at 20:39, James  wrote:

> funny you should mention geocoder.ca
>
> 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)
>
> On Wed., Oct. 2, 2019, 8:08 p.m. Jarek Piórkowski, 
> wrote:
>
>> Yeah, Canada Post currently considers postal codes their commercial
>> data. Crowd-sourcing all or a substantial amount of full codes seems
>> infeasible. Crowd-sourcing the forward sortation areas (the first A1A)
>> seems difficult since verifiability is going to be a problem
>> especially around the edges of the areas.
>>
>> The website OpenStreetMap.org returns results for some postal codes
>> from a third-party database https://geocoder.ca/?terms=1 which is not
>> ODbL-compatible either.
>>
>> Partial mapping is causing some problems with tools like Nominatim
>> that attach the nearest tagged postcode to search results, often
>> resulting in improper postal codes for reverse address lookups,
>> however that is arguably a tooling problem and not an OSM problem per
>> se.
>>
>> This isn't going to be pretty until Canada Post is persuaded to free
>> the data. Call your MP, everybody.
>>
>> --Jarek
>>
>> On Wed, 2 Oct 2019 at 17:38, john whelan  wrote:
>> >
>> > " The number one request on open.canada.ca is to open the postal code
>> database.  Feel free to add your vote.
>> https://open.canada.ca/en/suggested-datasets";
>> >
>> > Cheerio John
>> >
>> > On Wed, 2 Oct 2019 at 13:32, john whelan  wrote:
>> >>
>> >> 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.
>> >>
>> >> 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?
>> >>
>> >> 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?
>> >>
>> >> As a minimum if you could add a few in you know from local knowledge
>> that might help fill in some gaps.
>> >>
>> >> Thoughts
>> >>
>> >> Thanks John
>> >
>> > ___
>> > Talk-ca mailing list
>> > Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org
>> > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca
>>
>> ___
>> Talk-ca mailing list
>> Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org
>> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca
>>
> ___
> 

Re: [Talk-ca] Postcodes in Canada

[John Whelan]

I seem to recall the case was dropped as well. Having sad that I think 
the best way forward is


" The number one request on open.canada.ca  is to 
open the postal code database.  Feel free to add your vote. 
https://open.canada.ca/en/suggested-datasets";


and also add in a building that has a missing postcode.

For example I'm not sure a commitment from the "Stop Climate Change 
Party " to make them Open Data should mean we all vote for this party.  
I think current MPs are too busy with the election at the moment.


Cheerio John


James wrote on 2019-10-02 8:38 PM:

funny you should mention geocoder.ca 

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)


On Wed., Oct. 2, 2019, 8:08 p.m. Jarek Piórkowski, 
mailto:ja...@piorkowski.ca>> wrote:


Yeah, Canada Post currently considers postal codes their commercial
data. Crowd-sourcing all or a substantial amount of full codes seems
infeasible. Crowd-sourcing the forward sortation areas (the first A1A)
seems difficult since verifiability is going to be a problem
especially around the edges of the areas.

The website OpenStreetMap.org returns results for some postal codes
from a third-party database https://geocoder.ca/?terms=1 which is not
ODbL-compatible either.

Partial mapping is causing some problems with tools like Nominatim
that attach the nearest tagged postcode to search results, often
resulting in improper postal codes for reverse address lookups,
however that is arguably a tooling problem and not an OSM problem per
se.

This isn't going to be pretty until Canada Post is persuaded to free
the data. Call your MP, everybody.

--Jarek

On Wed, 2 Oct 2019 at 17:38, john whelan mailto:jwhelan0...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> " The number one request on open.canada.ca
 is to open the postal code database.  Feel
free to add your vote. https://open.canada.ca/en/suggested-datasets";
>
> Cheerio John
>
> On Wed, 2 Oct 2019 at 13:32, john whelan mailto:jwhelan0...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> 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?
>>
>> 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?
>>
>> As a minimum if you could add a few in you know from local
knowledge that might help fill in some gaps.
>>
>> Thoughts
>>
>> Thanks John
>
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Re: [Talk-ca] Postcodes in Canada

[James]

funny you should mention geocoder.ca

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)

On Wed., Oct. 2, 2019, 8:08 p.m. Jarek Piórkowski, 
wrote:

> Yeah, Canada Post currently considers postal codes their commercial
> data. Crowd-sourcing all or a substantial amount of full codes seems
> infeasible. Crowd-sourcing the forward sortation areas (the first A1A)
> seems difficult since verifiability is going to be a problem
> especially around the edges of the areas.
>
> The website OpenStreetMap.org returns results for some postal codes
> from a third-party database https://geocoder.ca/?terms=1 which is not
> ODbL-compatible either.
>
> Partial mapping is causing some problems with tools like Nominatim
> that attach the nearest tagged postcode to search results, often
> resulting in improper postal codes for reverse address lookups,
> however that is arguably a tooling problem and not an OSM problem per
> se.
>
> This isn't going to be pretty until Canada Post is persuaded to free
> the data. Call your MP, everybody.
>
> --Jarek
>
> On Wed, 2 Oct 2019 at 17:38, john whelan  wrote:
> >
> > " The number one request on open.canada.ca is to open the postal code
> database.  Feel free to add your vote.
> https://open.canada.ca/en/suggested-datasets";
> >
> > Cheerio John
> >
> > On Wed, 2 Oct 2019 at 13:32, john whelan  wrote:
> >>
> >> 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.
> >>
> >> 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?
> >>
> >> 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?
> >>
> >> As a minimum if you could add a few in you know from local knowledge
> that might help fill in some gaps.
> >>
> >> Thoughts
> >>
> >> Thanks John
> >
> > ___
> > Talk-ca mailing list
> > Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org
> > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca
>
> ___
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>
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Re: [Talk-ca] Postcodes in Canada

[Jarek Piórkowski]

Yeah, Canada Post currently considers postal codes their commercial
data. Crowd-sourcing all or a substantial amount of full codes seems
infeasible. Crowd-sourcing the forward sortation areas (the first A1A)
seems difficult since verifiability is going to be a problem
especially around the edges of the areas.

The website OpenStreetMap.org returns results for some postal codes
from a third-party database https://geocoder.ca/?terms=1 which is not
ODbL-compatible either.

Partial mapping is causing some problems with tools like Nominatim
that attach the nearest tagged postcode to search results, often
resulting in improper postal codes for reverse address lookups,
however that is arguably a tooling problem and not an OSM problem per
se.

This isn't going to be pretty until Canada Post is persuaded to free
the data. Call your MP, everybody.

--Jarek

On Wed, 2 Oct 2019 at 17:38, john whelan  wrote:
>
> " The number one request on open.canada.ca is to open the postal code 
> database.  Feel free to add your vote. 
> https://open.canada.ca/en/suggested-datasets";
>
> Cheerio John
>
> On Wed, 2 Oct 2019 at 13:32, john whelan  wrote:
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> 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?
>>
>> 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?
>>
>> As a minimum if you could add a few in you know from local knowledge that 
>> might help fill in some gaps.
>>
>> Thoughts
>>
>> Thanks John
>
> ___
> Talk-ca mailing list
> Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca

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Re: [Talk-ca] Postcodes in Canada

[john whelan]

" The number one request on open.canada.ca is to open the postal code
database.  Feel free to add your vote.
https://open.canada.ca/en/suggested-datasets";

Cheerio John

On Wed, 2 Oct 2019 at 13:32, john whelan  wrote:

> 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.
>
> 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?
>
> 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?
>
> As a minimum if you could add a few in you know from local knowledge that
> might help fill in some gaps.
>
> Thoughts
>
> Thanks John
>
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