3 ms·

My guess is that one of the biggest motivations is to enable one-time address digitization. I'm only really familiar with USPS but my understanding is that the

My guess is that one of the biggest motivations is to enable one-time address digitization. I'm only really familiar with USPS but my understanding is that the Royal Mail Mailmark system is largely similar to the USPS IMB system. Bulk mailers have long been required to barcode mail with destination information to reduce the need to OCR addresses, which is a particularly complex and expensive part of the operation. Non-bulk mail actually gets barcoded by an inline printer in the sorting machine after the first time it is OCRd, to avoid the need to OCR it again later in handling. Well, that's the case in the US. From what I can tell Royal Mail doesn't currently do this, and so they're going to have to OCR the address repeatedly on all non-bulk items. At this point, putting a unique barcode on the stamp and then associating it with the destination in an online database is probably much cheaper for them to roll out than adding barcode printing to their sorting equipment. And it provides counterfeiting and fraud resistance, along with the ability to add detailed tracking to letters very cheaply.

TMWNN 4y ago
>And it provides counterfeiting and fraud resistance, along with the ability to add detailed tracking to letters very cheaply. Yes, this is what I was curious about. (For non-Americans' benefit: All USPS shipping is tracked with barcodes, except for stamped mail. USPS offering this would benefit merchants who would be able to ship very small/thin items in envelopes with tracking, and people in general who want to be able to follow their stamped letters' progress.)
tialaramex 4y ago
> Well, that's the case in the US. From what I can tell Royal Mail doesn't currently do this, and so they're going to have to OCR the address repeatedly on all non-bulk items. Take a closer look at the bottom right hand edge of some non-bulk mail. Huh, those are some faint orange lines. What's going on? That's RM4SCC encoded data from the sorting machinery. It's not "really" faint orange, that's a fluorescent ink, inside the machine under appropriate lighting rather than the faint orange these lines show up very nicely. They're encoding (2 bits per line) a unique identifier so the system can track every individual piece of mail for a few weeks, plus its Delivery Point destination. [I would guess "faint orange" was chosen because it's unobtrusive, yet you can't honestly claim it's hiding] After the initial OCR run, later machines just see "Oh, #238205724145, still headed for 18 Long Drive, AB12 34XZ" without needing OCR and then people at a higher level can ask e.g. why the fuck is there so much mail handled by this Glasgow sorting office and find that aha, some bozo has directed all the mail for Swansea via this office, what a buffoon, we'll fix that. Probably if you're murder police, you could get Royal Mail to scan it and tell you this crucial envelope entered their system at about 12:30 on September 24th in Liverpool central office, and it was eventually given to a human to deliver at 08:47 last Tuesday, but I'd guess this is rarely useful and it's not something they will tell random members of the public. The Delivery Point is redundant if you're a human since the address is printed in human readable letters.
- jalk 4y ago
  > [I would guess "faint orange" was chosen because it's unobtrusive, yet you can't honestly claim it's hiding] I imagine the fluorescent ink was chosen so it's easily readable on all background colors - well except orange fluorescent envelopes.
  - smegsicle 4y ago
    > except orange fluorescent envelopes i said fluorescent orange was my favourite colour, they said i was 'anti social'

TMWNN 4y ago

>And it provides counterfeiting and fraud resistance, along with the ability to add detailed tracking to letters very cheaply. Yes, this is what I was curious about. (For non-Americans' benefit: All USPS shipping is tracked with barcodes, except for stamped mail. USPS offering this would benefit merchants who would be able to ship very small/thin items in envelopes with tracking, and people in general who want to be able to follow their stamped letters' progress.)

tialaramex 4y ago

> Well, that's the case in the US. From what I can tell Royal Mail doesn't currently do this, and so they're going to have to OCR the address repeatedly on all non-bulk items. Take a closer look at the bottom right hand edge of some non-bulk mail. Huh, those are some faint orange lines. What's going on? That's RM4SCC encoded data from the sorting machinery. It's not "really" faint orange, that's a fluorescent ink, inside the machine under appropriate lighting rather than the faint orange these lines show up very nicely. They're encoding (2 bits per line) a unique identifier so the system can track every individual piece of mail for a few weeks, plus its Delivery Point destination. [I would guess "faint orange" was chosen because it's unobtrusive, yet you can't honestly claim it's hiding] After the initial OCR run, later machines just see "Oh, #238205724145, still headed for 18 Long Drive, AB12 34XZ" without needing OCR and then people at a higher level can ask e.g. why the fuck is there so much mail handled by this Glasgow sorting office and find that aha, some bozo has directed all the mail for Swansea via this office, what a buffoon, we'll fix that. Probably if you're murder police, you could get Royal Mail to scan it and tell you this crucial envelope entered their system at about 12:30 on September 24th in Liverpool central office, and it was eventually given to a human to deliver at 08:47 last Tuesday, but I'd guess this is rarely useful and it's not something they will tell random members of the public. The Delivery Point is redundant if you're a human since the address is printed in human readable letters.

jalk 4y ago
> [I would guess "faint orange" was chosen because it's unobtrusive, yet you can't honestly claim it's hiding] I imagine the fluorescent ink was chosen so it's easily readable on all background colors - well except orange fluorescent envelopes.
- smegsicle 4y ago
  > except orange fluorescent envelopes i said fluorescent orange was my favourite colour, they said i was 'anti social'