United States Postal Service Usage
In the US Postal System, a delivery point is a specific set of digits between 00 and 99 assigned to every address. Combined with the ZIP + 4 code, the delivery point provides a unique identifier for every deliverable address served by the USPS.
The delivery point digits are almost never printed on mail in human-readable form; instead it is encoded in the POSTNET delivery point barcode (DPBC) or as part of the newer Intelligent Mail Barcode (IMB). The DPBC makes automated mail sorting possible, including ordering the mail according to how the carrier delivers it (walk sequence).
The two-digit delivery point number is combined with an additional check digit in the DPBC. This digit is used by barcode sorters (BCS) to check if the ZIP, ZIP + 4, or delivery point ZIP codes contain an error. In a database, storing the ZIP + 4 code in a 10 character field (with the hyphen) allows easy output in the address block, and storing the check digit in a 3-digit field (instead of calculating it) allows automatic checking of the validity of the ZIP+4 and delivery point fields (in case one had been changed independently). In order to receive the appropriate barcode discount, the delivery point digits and the +4 extension must be verified using an up-to-date, CASS or DPV certified program.
Since each city block or section of a rural route has a different +4 extension, and address numbers generally increase by 100 per block, the delivery point is typically the last two digits of the address. In the early days of DPBC, it was acceptable to determine the delivery point in this fashion, but since suite and other secondary designations are assigned unique delivery points—which cannot be determined without the CASS/DPV database—this is no longer possible. The delivery point is usually redundant for post office boxes, since they are typically assigned their own ZIP + 4 code, but must nonetheless be assigned a complete DPBC for full postal discounts.
Read more about this topic: Delivery Point
Famous quotes containing the words united states, united, states, postal, service and/or usage:
“In one notable instance, where the United States Army and a hundred years of persuasion failed, a highway has succeeded. The Seminole Indians surrendered to the Tamiami Trail. From the Everglades the remnants of this race emerged, soon after the trail was built, to set up their palm-thatched villages along the road and to hoist tribal flags as a lure to passing motorists.”
—For the State of Florida, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Emblem: the carapace of the great crowned snail is painted with all the flags of the United Nations.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“The genius of the United States is not best or most in its executives or legislatures, nor in its ambassadors or authors or colleges, or churches, or parlors, nor even in its newspapers or inventors, but always most in the common people.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“This is the Night Mail crossing the Border,
Bringing the cheque and the postal order,
Letters for the rich, letters for the poor,
The shop at the corner, the girl next door.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)
“In any service where a couple hold down jobs as a team, the male generally takes his ease while the wife labors at his job as well as her own.”
—Anita Loos (1888–1981)
“I am using it [the word ‘perceive’] here in such a way that to say of an object that it is perceived does not entail saying that it exists in any sense at all. And this is a perfectly correct and familiar usage of the word.”
—A.J. (Alfred Jules)