Yeah; via radio in the 1970's when I drove cab at night, until I could get a real job again. It was almost as much fun as getting directions/destination from the drunk in the back seat. At that time, I also had a 300+ plus customer newspaper motor route. (Thank you, Jimmy Carter; God bless Ronald Reagan!)
In the 1960's, I also did special deliveries for the Post Office at night.
The four miles of gravel is county, but only the first 2 1/2 is maintained. All the mailboxes, of those beyond who have them, are at a fork 1 mile from the pavement. The rest is reverted "public" private maintained road...but 'the busies' still stuck up signs and number posts.
When they started changing addresses for 911 when I lived in rural PA they changed our street address three times.
They tried to standardize on at lot width and assign street numbers according to how many standard lot widths you were down the road from where they marked your neighbor. However, some places had street numbers for years before that which didn't match up with their new standard.
Sounds like the Back Easty types are as competent as I feared. I tend to forget that 'those of a certain political persuasion' are not as competent at running things, including their public employees union help, as they are at collecting campaign contributions and getting themselves reelected.
As to GPS, I do not mean a 'navigation system', but rather a gps unit to give Dispatch actual coordinates, and then get directions.
A lot of counties still don't have the ability to track their cars by GPS, or at least they didn't around here a couple years ago.
The technology involved has become pretty common, but setting up a dispatching office and all the emergency service vehicles with all the equipment is a huge capital investment. Since a lot of municipalities have fallen on budget deficits such large investment could only come at the cost of manpower, unless provided for by a specific state of federal grant.