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:
“The rising power of the United States in world affairs ... requires, not a more compliant press, but a relentless barrage of facts and criticism.... Our job in this age, as I see it, is not to serve as cheerleaders for our side in the present world struggle but to help the largest possible number of people to see the realities of the changing and convulsive world in which American policy must operate.”
—James Reston (b. 1909)
“We are told to maintain constitutions because they are constitutions, and what is laid down in those constitutions?... Certain great fundamental ideas of right are common to the world, and ... all laws of man’s making which trample on these ideas, are null and void—wrong to obey, right to disobey. The Constitution of the United States recognizes human slavery; and makes the souls of men articles of purchase and of sale.”
—Anna Elizabeth Dickinson (1842–1932)
“Not only [are] our states ... making peace with each other,... you and I, your Majesty, are making peace here, our own peace, the peace of soldiers and the peace of friends.”
—Yitzhak Rabin (b. 1922)
“none
Thought of the others they would never meet
Or how their lives would all contain this hour.
I thought of London spread out in the sun,
Its postal districts packed like squares of wheat:”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1985)
“Finally, your lengthy service ended,
Lay your weariness beneath my laurel tree.”
—Horace [Quintus Horatius Flaccus] (65–8)
“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)