To answer the question regarding information needed in the address of a letter I hope I can shed some light on it without getting to technicial or wordy. A machine called a Multiline Optical character Reader/sorter MLOCR for short, employs a camera and software to read the address on a letter. It is designed, hence name multiline, to read multiple lines of an adddress and consult a database of US addresses and match it to the delivery point code (DPC), or 11 digit barcode, Those short and long bars at the bottom of an address represent the Zip Code, the +4, and the last 2 digits of your street number, and a check digit. Many of you are correct that the city is not needed to lookup the correct DPC but often Zip Codes are wrong and hence another element, such as the City is needed. My company makes these MLOCR sorters for private mailing companies and many foriegn postal services.
If anyone has any other questions please PM me.
|