Why are Aust Post tracking numbers so long?

[rocket2retro]

Can anyone explain why Australia Post tracking numbers are so long (recently increased in length on the postal receipts).

They start with R and have 24 digits. That means that they are capable of recording 999 billion trillion parcels.

By way of comparison there are just 1 billion trillion estimated stars in the observable universe (1 followed by 21 zeros).

On the positive side, they wont ever need increase the number's length, as the Earth will have been well and truly swallowed up by the expanding sun long before they deliver that amount of parcels!

[jellybirddesigns]

No idea why they are now so long, but probably because someone at head office gets great delight in knowing how many more digits we can mess up with our fat fingers.

[love_of_cars]

I just did a quick check and confirmed there doesn't seem to be any sequential order involved, so am pretty sure it's because they are randomised numbers and the chances of a repeated number, given the size of each number, would probably never happen for a very long time.  It may also have a check to see if it exists and to generate another number.  They are also given a fixed prefix in my case which I assume is relevant in some way and would change depending on some factor, so even less of a chance of repeating.

[sugar249]

The first 6 digits are the WCC (Work Centre Code) or Post office ID.

The last 4 digits are generally 090X

There are a couple of unique identifiers in the rest, and then there is the parcel ID in there as well. 

So no there arent really as many as you think.

[sugar249]

I now use Mypost and it auto updates Ebay.  But Previously I would just have a template setup which I could paste in, knowing that in reality only a few of the numbers changed,  cant remember which ones anymore

[gutterpunkz05]

01110111 01101000 01111001 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110100 00111111 00100000 00100000 01101101 01101001 01100111 01101000 01110100 00100000 01101000 01100001 01110110 01100101 00100000 01110011 01101111 01101101 01100101 01110100 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01100100 01101111 00100000 01110111 01101001 01110100 01101000 00100000 01110101 01110011 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110111 00100000 01100010 01100101 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100100 01101001 01100111 01101001 01110100 01100001 01101100 00100000 01100001 01100111 01100101

[sugar249]

01101111 01110010 00100000 01101101 01100001 01111001 01100010 01100101 00100000 01100011 01101111 01100100 01100101 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101101 01100001 01110010 01110100 01101001 01100001 01101110 01110011

[gutterpunkz05]

01001001 00100000 01101011 01101110 01100101 01110111 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01110010 01100101 00100000 01101000 01100001 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01100010 01100101 00100000 01100001 00100000 01101100 01101111 01100111 01101001 01100011 01100001 01101100 00100000 01100101 01111000 01110000 01101100 01100001 01101110 01100001 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 00101110 00001010 01100111 01101111 01100100 00100000 01100100 01100001 01101101 01101110 01100101 01100100 00100000 01101101 01100001 01110010 01110100 01101001 01100001 01101110 01110011

[sugar249]

57 61 74 63 68 20 6f 75 74 20 61 64 6d 69 6e 20 6d 61 79 20 73 61 79 20 74 68 69 73 20 69 73 20 67 65 74 74 69 6e 67 20 74 6f 20 68 65 61 74 65 64 20 6c 69 6b 65 20 74 68 65 20 6f 74 68 65 72 20 74 68 72 65 61 64 2e 20 20 54 68 65 20 70 6f 6f 72 20 6d 61 72 74 69 61 6e 73

[papermoon.lady]

I have noticed that the tracking  numbers given by sellers sometimes are shorter, and as soon as I copy and paste in the box on the AusPost tracking site, more digits are automatically added??