Post offices

[HellMapGoesCoding]

• Post code analyzing
• Post offices from OSM
• Post offices from LP
• Compare OSM to LP post offices
• Post codes from OSM
• Post codes from LP
• Compare OSM to LP post codes occurrences
• Post code regions from OSM
• Post code regions from LP
• Compare expected to actual regions

[markalex2209]

Data for all objects that are shown on LP site is retrieved from https://pasts.lv/ajax/module:post_office/

Data there is in somewhat strange format:

{"all":"<serialised json array of POIs>","count":1287}

And POIs in that array look like this:

{
    "tmpLat":57.077432765182,
    "tmpLong":24.323845390354,
    "tmpName":"\\u0100da\\u017eu pasta noda\\u013ca",
    "tmpNameFull":"\\u0100da\\u017eu pasta noda\\u013ca LV-2164",
    "tmpAddress":"Gaujas iela 11, \\u0100da\\u017ei, \\u0100da\\u017eu nov., LV-2164",
    "tmpCategory":1,
    "tmpDistrict":"\\u0100da\\u017eu nov.",
    "tmpPhone":"67008001",
    "tmpService":"LV-2164",
    "tmpImage":null,
    "tmpWork":"P 8:00-18:00<br \\/>O 8:00-18:00<br \\/>T 8:00-19:00<br \\/>C 8:00-18:00<br \\/>P 8:00-18:00<br \\/>S -<br \\/>Sv -<br \\/>",
    "tmpPayment":"1",
    "tmpFilterOut":false,
    "tmpMarker":null,
    "tmpInfo":null
},

As far as I can tell tmpCategory stands for category of object to be shown on the map, where

• 1 - post office,
• 2 - Circle K (don't know why they are here)
• 4 - post box,
• 5 - parcel lockers,
• 6 - I'm not sure, but based on the site itself, probably something called "Pasta pakalpojumi pēc pieprasījuma". Crude translation "Postal services on request", not sure what this means exactly.

[markalex2209]

This information will probably also be useful in #7

[markalex2209]

I see a lot of the "unexpected" post offices being reported. At least some of them seems to be locations corresponding to type 6.

Have you reached some understanding what those are, and how they are expected to be mapped on OSM?

[HellMapGoesCoding]

It's a gigantic mess. And LP has made so many changes in past few years, OSM data is grossly out of date. A lot of the offices are actually closed - I've removed a lot in the past day based on news announcements. I am having trouble finding announcements for many of them. I'm basically going through https://pasts.lv/lv/zinas/ .

I was going to make separate issues tracking various parts of these instead of everything in here. I am still trying to figure out their data.

From what I saw looking at a bunch of LP news articles - there are both physical and virtual type 6s for "pasta pakalpojumu sniegšanas vieta". For example, "Salaspils pasta nodaļa" https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/11989909205 is working full-time while "Salaspils 1.pasta pakalpojumu sniegšanas vieta" https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/11989909204 is open like an hour a day but technically does all the post office stuff during that time (but I'm not even sure it's really there). And LP doesn't call it a "pasta nodaļa", rather "pasta pakalpojumu sniegšanas vieta". I have no idea how many of them are like this. There is no information on their website/data as to whether it is a physical location or only home-service-on-request. I think most are only remote service. To make matters more confusing, some remote post offices operate basically the same - only an hour a day - and offer on-demand services at other times. But at least they are marked as full offices in data.

I am not sure "raw" remote service locations can be mapped on the map with the current tagging. We would need to invent something then.