RAPID

The Rabastorian Postal Indicator of Destination (or RAPID for short) is a postal system based on fixed geographical locations, allowing postal services to quickly expedite delivery. The concept was conceived in the late 23rd century, when the Rabastorian Union sought to increase co-operation between member states in the wake of the Temporal War. It is almost always used in conjunction with LOCUS, and allows the postal service to pinpoint any location with a full RAPID code to within 4 acres.

How it works

Creating the code

Plotting the nation on a grid of squares with side length of two kilometres – assuming a single nation; for multi-national application, this would require adjustment – it is possible to assign a unique four-character code to each square based on its co-ordinates. This is achieved through hexadecimal notation, allowing a grid of upto 255 x 255 squares, each representing an area of 4 square kilometres (for a total of 262,144 square kilometres area covered). This is called the base map. Ranges of codes can then be assigned to specific locales, depending on the area covered on the base map.

A single-digit from 0-9 is added at the beginning of this base map code, depending on the type of area (see the table below) to produce a five-character RAPID code. This is the minimum RAPID code required.

Each base map grid square is further divided into 256 smaller squares with an area of approximately two football pitches (15,625m² or around 3.86 acres; a typical football pitch is roughly 110m x 70m, or approximately 1.8 acres). An additional two characters may then be added to the end of the code, corresponding to the co-ordinates of a square within the relevant base map grid square, containing the specified location.

Processing the code

When processing the code, mail sorters can quickly split the mail out using the first character, to enable swifter subsorting by base map code. In conjunction with the nation name and LOCUS, this allows mail sorting to occur much faster than traditional methods would allow.

Processing example

A piece of mail may be addressed as follows:

Mr X Ample

Demo House, Illustrative Grove

Osarius

FWD-1A05A-BF

From the LOCUS (FWD) we know this address is in Firewood. The first character of the RAPID code tells us this location is specifically in the Northwest segment of the city. Immediately, this allows the mail to be re-routed to the sorting office serving the Northwestern part of Firewood before any further processing occurs.

In the absence of the LOCUS, the second through fifth characters of the RAPID code would be processed first. To do this, the four characters are split into two pairs, which represent our base map co-ordinates. A0 corresponds to the decimal value 160, while 5A corresponds to 90. This tells us that the address we seek is in the base map grid co-ordinate 160 from the left, and 90 from the top. The computer can process that this is in Firewood, leaving only the initial digit (which signifies that the address is in the Northwest segment of a major city), and the mail can be re-routed to the sorting office serving the Northwestern part of Firewood.

The final two digits of the RAPID code correspond to the co-ordinates of a sub-grid within the base map grid square. In this case, a square in the southern half (B is the twelfth segment down from the top) of the eastern boundary (F is the easternmost segment).

Area type mapping

Locales in Rabastor are classified as one of ten types of settlement, which inform the type mapping applied to RAPID codes for the area.

Code	Description
0	Special code, usually used for government facilities
1	Northwest segment of a major city
2	Northeast segment of a major city
3	Southwest segment of a major city
4	Southeast segment of a major city
5	Central segment of a major city
6	Northern outskirts of a major city
7	Southern outskirts of a major city
8	Northern half of a large city
9	Southern half of a large city
A	Areas near a large city
B	Large towns
C	Notable towns
D	An area with a local population < 75,000
E	A remote area with population < 5,000
F	Unused