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A small Canadian company is seeking support to standardize a new address system that would work with maps, geographic databases and GPS systems to make life easier for everyone from travellers to postal workers.

"We originally developed this because we thought there was a need for some sort of international postal code - every country has a different system and it's confusing," Xinhang Shen, president of Toronto-based software developer NAC Geographic Products Inc., told globetechnology.com. "Simply using longitude and latitude would be too long for people to remember, or even to fit on an envelope, so we developed an algorithm to optimize the representation of a geographical location and make it more compact."

The Natural Area Coding system Mr. Shen's company developed can represent an area the size of a province using two alphanumeric characters. A "universal address" with six characters takes things down to a box measuring 1 kilometer per side, and boosting it to 10 characters represents a specific area measuring one square meter.

"With NAC, everything is efficient," Mr. Shen said. "For example, four characters would represent a city like Toronto, whereas it would take more than 20 characters with current GIS systems."

Mr. Shen's company proposes a 10-digit universal address for homes and businesses. It would be slightly longer than Canada's six-digit alphanumeric postal code, but it would be a standardized system that would work around the world. For example, NAC Geographic Products' address in Toronto would be 8CNB5 Q8Z4R.

"The Holy Grail in terms of addresses is a simple system that will work in all countries," said Tim Evangelatos, Strategic Technologies and Policy Advisor for GeoConnections at Natural Resources Canada in Ottawa. "The idea is not unique by any means, but this system is interesting and it builds on other things that have been proposed for more than a decade."

The NAC system can make mail delivery more precise and efficient, Mr. Shen said, but it is also useful for geography specialists trying to locate maps of specific areas. Natural area codes could be used for search and rescue, by municipalities trying to inventory things like traffic lights and fire hydrants, and by people simply trying to get from point A to point B.

Natural area codes can be plugged into electronic map software and global positing systems (GPSs) that have been configured to recognize them, but people can also use NACs to find locations on simple paper maps that are organized using his company's system, Mr. Shen said.

By adding characters, NACs can also represent a point in, around or above the earth, using the centre of the earth as a reference point. This is handy for poinpointing areas underground for mining companies, or in space for satellites, Mr. Shen said.

As Mr. Evangelatos pointed out, the concept of a universal area code is not new - many public and proprietary ideas for such a system have been proposed in recent years.

"But this is an elegant solution that seems to supply something that is becoming necessary as the world becomes more globalized - it certainly solves a lot of the problems with current systems," said Matt Ball, editor of Boulder, Colo.-based GeoWorld magazine and show manager for the recent GEOTec conference in Toronto.

"It's a relatively simple system that does much more than an existing [postal] code. It goes to a position based on longitude and latitude without the complexity of listing the longitude and latitude, and it's more streamlined and accurate," he said.

But even though the system looks promising, it's extremely difficult to get the attention of international standards organizations, Mr. Ball added.

"Implementing something like this is hugely challenging, because you have to deal with multiple countries, governments, jurisdictions, and so on," he said. "I see just the political obstacles to implementation being fairly huge. It's something that's needed, but it's similar to trying to enact the Metric system in terms of promoting adoption."

As a result, Mr. Shen said that while he is pitching his natural area code system to a number of world standards groups, he is also seeking corporate partners to help push the system in the private sector.

Still, whether he goes the public or private route, the journey likely won't be easy for NAC, critics say.

"It's really, really hard to make something a standard - old traditions die hard, and there are so many official bodies involved," Mr. Evangelatos said. "But I did find the idea interesting, and if he can sell the idea to people who have money and resources, you never know, it could eventually become the basis of a de facto standard."

He added that while it's too hard to say whether NAC will succeed in becoming a standard, "at the very least, this will be a spark for debate and discussion, which could lead to better things."

Mr. Ball, too, is unsure whether NAC will be successful in its drive to standardize its natural area code system, but he said it's a concept whose "time is just around the corner."

"It's only a matter of time before something like this will be implemented. This particular system may be a bit ahead of its time, it's hard to speculate, but so many advancements in geospatial technology are really creating a digital world," Mr. Ball said. "This is a vision a lot of people have, because it breaks down barriers to interoperability of data with a standard reference system, and that would be a huge benefit for everyone."