National Postcodes to be introduced

Remind Me Tomorrow

Don't really understand the fuss to be honest. It's a database primary key that's easily memorized. Anyone who needs your address can enter it into a computer and get your address without the hassle of having to spell it to them.

So we have an easily memorized key that will give someone your exact address with very little chance of them getting it wrong. That's it, nothing more to it. Don't like it? Then don't use it. Nobody cares.

clewbays

plodder wrote: »

They should also send a phonetic pronunciation guide (seriously) for how to read the codes out over the phone. You don't want to be mixing up M6TV with N6DV when you're looking for an ambulance in the middle of the night. .

Only 15 letters are in the character set so no danger of mixing up M and N!
A,C,D,E,F,H,K,N,P,R,T,V,W,X,Y

antoinolachtnai

Remind Me Tomorrow wrote: »

Don't really understand the fuss to be honest. It's a database primary key that's easily memorized. Anyone who needs your address can enter it into a computer and get your address without the hassle of having to spell it to them.

So we have an easily memorized key that will give someone your exact address with very little chance of them getting it wrong. That's it, nothing more to it. Don't like it? Then don't use it. Nobody cares.

It really isn't that. It's a good bit more complex than that, and it has to be to solve the problems with addressing in Ireland.

Place names in Ireland are very ambiguous. They are derived from a very small number of roots and are very similar. As a result, decent looking geographical designations like 'Warrenstown, Co. Meath' and 'Pembroke Cottages, Dublin 4' turn out to be ambiguous. There are also problems with the same location having many acceptable addresses.

Addresses are hierarchical. There are a load of privacy advantages with hierarchical addresses. You can give part of your address without giving the whole thing.

Postcodes are also hierarchical in every single country in the world except Ireland. There are also privacy advantages (and other practical advantages) with hierarchical postcodes.

clewbays

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

It is certainly a problem that can be solved. But at this point in time, there is apparently no plan for solving it. I think it will end up costing a lot of money.

Do you really believe that something as important as how to notify addresses of their eircode has been overlooked or that eircode announced that they are going to do it to an Oireachtas Committee without having them having first examined how it could be done?

clewbays

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

It is certainly a problem that can be solved. But at this point in time, there is apparently no plan for solving it. I think it will end up costing a lot of money.

Do you really believe that something as important as how to notify addresses of their eircode has been overlooked or that eircode announced that they are going to do it to an Oireachtas Committee without them first examining how it could be done?

Remind Me Tomorrow

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

It really isn't that. It's a good bit more complex than that, and it has to be to solve the problems with addressing in Ireland.

Place names in Ireland are very ambiguous. They are derived from a very small number of roots and are very similar. As a result, decent looking geographical designations like 'Warrenstown, Co. Meath' and 'Pembroke Cottages, Dublin 4' turn out to be ambiguous. There are also problems with the same location having many acceptable addresses.

Addresses are hierarchical. There are a load of privacy advantages with hierarchical addresses. You can give part of your address without giving the whole thing.

Postcodes are also hierarchical in every single country in the world except Ireland. There are also privacy advantages (and other practical advantages) with hierarchical postcodes.

People are certainly making it out to be more complicated that it is, but it really isn't. This makes it easier to give out your full address or your area (routing key). End of story. Privacy is of no concern because it is no different to handing out your address. And you still have your address by the way, this compliments it, it doesn't replace it.

As for a hierarchical system, lookup systems will take care of this. This is the main point of it, there will be a database and a lookup services, put in the eircode and you get back all the information you need in a structured and accurate manner. this includes backward lookups as in put in a street and get back all the eircodes on that street.

plodder

clewbays wrote: »

Only 15 letters are in the character set so no danger of mixing up M and N!
A,C,D,E,F,H,K,N,P,R,T,V,W,X,Y

Probably makes sense to start with. Other letters can be brought in later, if needed.

plodder

Remind Me Tomorrow wrote: »

People are certainly making it out to be more complicated that it is, but it really isn't. This makes it easier to give out your full address or your area (routing key). End of story. Privacy is of no concern because it is no different to handing out your address. And you still have your address by the way, this compliments it, it doesn't replace it.

Your address can't be used as a key in a database, for the simple reason that addresses are vague, with multiple variations and spellings. I'm not saying the risks are sufficient to not do it this way with Eircodes, but it's wrong to pretend there are no privacy implications.

As for a hierarchical system, lookup systems will take care of this. This is the main point of it, there will be a database and a lookup services, put in the eircode and you get back all the information you need in a structured and accurate manner. this includes backward lookups as in put in a street and get back all the eircodes on that street.

Why should people have to use lookup systems, that will cost money presumably? Hierarchical codes can be used without any lookup system. Eg a pizza delivery service. They have a simple map on the wall of the local areas (based on postcode) that they serve. Who decided that businesses couldn't have this capability with Eircodes?

my3cents

plodder wrote: »

Probably makes sense to start with. Other letters can be brought in later, if needed.

There is plenty of built in capacity so that won't happen. If you look at the letters that have been missed out you can see that they are the ones that can be confusing.

B or 8 ? always 8
G or C ? always C
I or 1 ? always 1
J not sure
L or l or I or 1 ? can only be 1
M or N ? always N
O or 0 or Q ? can only be zero
Q or 0 or O ? can only be zero
S or 5 ? always 5
U or V ? always V
Z or 2 ? always 2

my3cents

plodder wrote: »

Your address can't be used as a key in a database, for the simple reason that addresses are vague, with multiple variations and spellings. I'm not saying the risks are sufficient to not do it this way with Eircodes, but it's wrong to pretend there are no privacy implications.

Why should people have to use lookup systems, that will cost money presumably? Hierarchical codes can be used without any lookup system. Eg a pizza delivery service. They have a simple map on the wall of the local areas (based on postcode) that they serve. Who decided that businesses couldn't have this capability with Eircodes?

I think the suggestion is that the Eircode is the Key in the database as it has all the required properties because its unique.

Company will be paying to use the database where as I suspect individuals will have access to a web based system that allows a certain number of lookups each day.

plodder

my3cents wrote: »

I think the suggestion is that the Eircode is the Key in the database as it has all the required properties because its unique.

Company will be paying to use the database where as I suspect individuals will have access to a web based system that allows a certain number of lookups each day.

I'll explain what I'm talking about with an example: Say our pizza delivery guy has five orders to deliver to:

D04-XC12
D04-XC99
D04-PR98
D04-PR51
D04-TX74

With Eircodes these addresses could be anywhere in D04. If Eircode was structured hierarchically, he would know that the first two are in the same area. The second two are in the same area and the last one is somewhere else - all without needing to use a lookup service. He would also get to know where the various sub-areas are just by looking at them.

This information is hidden in Eircodes, which presumably is why the original postcode reports said they didn't want a "hidden" code.

SpaceTime

plodder wrote: »

I'll explain what I'm talking about with an example: Say our pizza delivery guy has five orders to deliver to:

D04-XC12
D04-XC99
D04-PR98
D04-PR51
D04-TX74

With Eircodes these addresses could be anywhere in D04. If Eircode was structured hierarchically, he would know that the first two are in the same area. The second two are in the same area and the last one is somewhere else - all without needing to use a lookup service. He would also get to know where the various sub-areas are just by looking at them.

This information is hidden in Eircodes, which presumably is why the original postcode reports said they didn't want a "hidden" code.

It should be human friendly.

They need smaller routing codes if they are insisting on random house IDs.

So maybe

D04X-YZQ

D04X could be a chunk of Sandymount.

If you divided say Dublin 4 into 36 chunks (26 letters and ten numbers)… then that might be a useful code.

The routing code isn't any use otherwise.

It could be a lot more useful by just shifting one more character into the routing code and shortening the randomised bit.

The main thing delivery companies need is that level of detail to chunk things together into areas.

Leonard Shelby

SpaceTime wrote: »

The main thing delivery companies need is that level of detail to chunk things together into areas.

Let me fix that for you:
The main thing delivery companies with no access to modern technology need is that level of detail to chunk things together into areas.

SpaceTime

Leonard Shelby wrote: »

Let me fix that for you:
The main thing delivery companies with no access to modern technology need is that level of detail to chunk things together into areas.

Even with modern technology, it's a huge amount of extra work to actually key every address to figure out where it is rather than to be simply able to group them visually.

We're adding a whole layer of extra processing for no logical reason. A lot of applications like simple deliveries don't need that level of technology and are unlikely to invest in it anytime soon, meaning that a lot of Irish businesses will be wasting money, increasing CO2 outputs and taking extra time for no logical reason.

I can appreciate that if you want pin-point accuracy you might want to be able to decode the full address, but it is extremely useful to be able to get a rough idea of where it is based on the code.

I just cannot see why you couldn't simply shift one digit from the randomised code into the routing code and make it either 26 or 36 times more accurate.
You'd at least then be able to get things to down to sensibly small areas, and still preserve some degree of anonymity if that's what you want to do.

There's absolutely no point in having a postcode that amounts to:

Dublin 4 + serial number.
I mean, at that rate, you might as well just include your phone number in a database and allow reverse look ups. It would be more useful!

Just write to:

Boards.ie,
Boards Towers,
Dublin 01-123-4567.

All we're getting is some kind of arbitrary code that identifies a property. That's not a postal code, it's an ID number.

Eircode to me looks like someone's failed to define what the actual problem is. They've come up with a solution that's parallel to the problem rather than something useful.

I mean, why not just use MRPNs or Revenue's Local Property Tax ID numbers at that rate? They're about as useful.

ukoda

SpaceTime wrote: »

Even with modern technology, it's a huge amount of extra work to actually key every address to figure out where it is rather than to be simply able to group them visually.

We're adding a whole layer of extra processing for no logical reason. A lot of applications like simple deliveries don't need that level of technology and are unlikely to invest in it anytime soon, meaning that a lot of Irish businesses will be wasting money, increasing CO2 outputs and taking extra time for no logical reason

I mean, why not just use MRPNs or Revenue's Local Property Tax ID numbers at that rate? They're about as useful.

Unless you live in the Stone Age your delivery company will scan everything that arrives to them. The technology used for this linked to eircode provides an optimised route for delivery and grouping in a split second. And groups the packages together and plans their delivery sequence along the route.

If you think there's a lad in the delivery office taking hold of the all packages and then scratching his head going "jaysus what route will I put this on" your completely mistaken.

Also MPRNs are for METERS which means there could be multiple meters in one property or only one meter feeding lots of properties (house converted to flats) and the property code is purely for identifying a property to pay a tax and not where to deliver mail.

Eircode was designed as an independent code for the specific purpose of being a postcode with multiple functions

SpaceTime

There's absolutely no point in just accusing various micro-businesses, SMEs and people who have occasional need to find addresses of living in the 'stone age'. There are very large amounts of companies and individual that have to do small-scale deliveries, may need to visit a number of premises occasionally and do not have route planning technology and most likely never will.

You keep accusing anyone who won't invest in complicated software as being backwards. The reality is that lots and lots of people need this level of information from addresses without having complex scanning and logistics systems.

Yes, big organisations or couriers will probably invest in the technology and should, but there are plenty of other applications that I can think of immediately where this will simply not happen due to scale and due to costs involved. They'll continue fumbling away with existing addresses and phoning for directions as the postal codes will be next to useless to them.

We have an opportunity to produce a system that works both for human reading of rough areas and machine reading of very accurate pin point addresses. The Eircode system is too technology-heavy and it's human-unfriendly and is not going to deal with that whole element of addressing.

Basically, the code isn't going to be as useful as it could have been if it had been designed properly.

To me, it appears that the designers did not do sufficient market research to establish what end users' needs really were and instead just went off and designed something based on what they felt that end users should do.

There's absolutely no point in telling people how they should behave when you're developing a product or service and I get the sense that this is exactly what's happened with eircode and that will inevitably result in poor uptake and lack of interest in the service.

If the service and the costs of implementing the service outweigh the benefits being delivered, people won't use it. That's pretty much all that matters in terms of uptake and I can foresee lots of small and medium businesses not bothering, particularly if there are high IT costs involved.

I know plenty of businesses for example who manually pre-sort mail before it goes to An Post. How exactly are they going to do that by eircode?
Do you seriously expect them to buy OCR sorters? Or a secretary to key every individual eircode, look it up on a map and figure out which group to put it into?!

In the UK system you can do that visually in seconds. In the Irish system you'll have to key stuff into a computer to do that.

ukoda

SpaceTime wrote: »

There's absolutely no point in just accusing various micro-businesses, SMEs and people who have occasional need to find addresses of living in the 'stone age'. There are very large amounts of companies and individual that have to do small-scale deliveries, may need to visit a number of premises occasionally and do not have route planning technology and most likely never will.

You keep accusing anyone who won't invest in complicated software as being backwards. The reality is that lots and lots of people need this level of information from addresses without having complex scanning and logistics systems.

Yes, big organisations or couriers will probably invest in the technology and should, but there are plenty of other applications that I can think of immediately where this will simply not happen due to scale and due to costs involved. They'll continue fumbling away with existing addresses and phoning for directions as the postal codes will be next to useless to them.

We have an opportunity to produce a system that works both for human reading of rough areas and machine reading of very accurate pin point addresses. The Eircode system is too technology-heavy and it's human-unfriendly and is not going to deal with that whole element of addressing.

Basically, the code isn't going to be as useful as it could have been if it had been designed properly.

To me, it appears that the designers did not do sufficient market research to establish what end users' needs really were and instead just went off and designed something based on what they felt that end users should do.

There's absolutely no point in telling people how they should behave when you're developing a product or service and I get the sense that this is exactly what's happened with eircode and that will inevitably result in poor uptake and lack of interest in the service.

If the service and the costs of implementing the service outweigh the benefits being delivered, people won't use it. That's pretty much all that matters in terms of uptake and I can foresee lots of small and medium businesses not bothering, particularly if there are high IT costs involved.

You've missed my point completely. If you need to occasionally find addresses use your phone. Eircode is on Google maps or buy a sat nav and tap your codes in. Or look it up for FREE on the eircode website as they've confirned you can do that.

BUT if it's your BUSINESS to deliver packages then it is well worth integrating eircode into your planning sorting software

SpaceTime

ukoda wrote: »

You've missed my point completely. If you need to occasionally find addresses use your phone. Eircode is on Google maps or buy a sat nav and tap your codes in. Or look it up for FREE on the eircode website as they've confirned you can do that.

BUT if it's your BUSINESS to deliver packages then it is well worth integrating eircode into your planning sorting software

Are you doing PR for eircode?

As an end user of this stuff, I am actually getting frustrated that every time anyone puts up a commentary on why the system is flawed, you and a few others simply bat it aside almost like a PR agency doing damage control.

There are also some other posters who are clearly representing other companies involved in counter bids.

I won't be bothering posting here again as it's just frustrating and the thread's been going around in the same circle for years at this stage.

You just completely dismiss the whole issue that this code is basically useless for many SMEs that have to process packages, letters, deliveries etc manually.

It could be a whole lot more useful simply by shifting the digits a bit further to the right i.e. making the routing code define a smaller area, but no, the current proposed system is absolutely perfect! All hail eircode!

ukoda

Why on earth are people pre sorting mail before they hand it to An Post?!

SpaceTime

ukoda wrote: »

Why on earth are people pre sorting mail before they hand it to An Post?!

Because, if you're doing any kind of bulk mailing An Post give you a discount for presorting.

You basically submit your mail already sorted down to the town / delivery office.

So, for example, I know several companies who will be sending out xmas cards and they're all pre-sorted by hand before they go anywhere near An Post.

ukoda

SpaceTime wrote: »

Are you doing PR for eircode?

As an end user of this stuff, I am actually getting frustrated that every time anyone puts up a commentary on why the system is flawed, you and a few others simply bat it aside almost like a PR agency doing damage control.

There are also some other posters who are clearly representing other companies involved in counter bids.

I won't be bothering posting here again as it's just frustrating and the thread's been going around in the same circle for years at this stage.

You just completely dismiss the whole issue that this code is basically useless for many SMEs that have to process packages, letters, deliveries etc manually.

It could be a whole lot more useful simply by shifting the digits a bit further to the right i.e. making the routing code define a smaller area, but no, the current proposed system is absolutely perfect! All hail eircode!

I'll be an end user too and I'm looking forward to it. I have read the code spec and product guide and I'm happy with what they've designed. This thread has done nothin but bash eircode and I'm sick of listening to every stupid argument being rehashed over and over again by a small few people who are never going to be happy with anything. When I see a point I think is a weak argument I give a counter argument as a rebuttal.

ukoda

SpaceTime wrote: »

Because, if you're doing any kind of bulk mailing An Post give you a discount for presorting.

You basically submit your mail already sorted down to the town / delivery office.

So they'll sort it by the routing key as that's down to the delivery office level....seems no issue here either

plodder

ukoda wrote: »

You've missed my point completely. If you need to occasionally find addresses use your phone. Eircode is on Google maps or buy a sat nav and tap your codes in. Or look it up for FREE on the eircode website as they've confirned you can do that.

BUT if it's your BUSINESS to deliver packages then it is well worth integrating eircode into your planning sorting software

The question isn't really about the delivery sector. They will invest in whatever they have to do, to make use of it. Though it should be troubling that the biggest players in that sector don't seem to be too happy with it.

The issue really relates to other uses. I gave the example of market research already. Insurance is another. Insurance companies in the UK would use postcodes to assess risk based on the fact that multiple claims from the same postcode might point to a general problem.

Can you do this with Eircode? Not unless you're happy to lump the whole of Dublin 4 into the same risk category. Insurance companies have probably invested in significant IT systems to work around problems like this. So, the incremental solution that Eircode offers might be ok for them. But we could do so much better, especially if you want to attract new companies into sectors like that.

SpaceTime

ukoda wrote: »

So they'll sort it by the routing key as that's down to the delivery office level....seems no issue here either

It'll be a major problem if the routing key doesn't correspond to a postal district. Which, I can see happening in Cork for example where the routing keys probably don't correspond to the An Post delivery offices and it will still mean reading and guessing addresses.

The current pre-sort system is a total joke as in the bigger urban areas and Dublin areas that are Co. Dublin you can't guess which delivery office it's supposed to go to without having to manually look up every address or by having some deep level of familiarity with where places are.

So, I just still don't think that it's going to solve the problem of being able to manually group items together into a reasonably sized area.

Shrinking the size of the routing keys would make it a LOT more useful. I cannot understand why they couldn't split them down to say 8 times smaller. Making them too small wouldn't be helpful either though as you'd end up with no ability to group stuff.

ukoda

plodder wrote: »

The question isn't really about the delivery sector. They will invest in whatever they have to do, to make use of it. Though it should be troubling that the biggest players in that sector don't seem to be too happy with it.

The issue really relates to other uses. I gave the example of market research already. Insurance is another. Insurance companies in the UK would use postcodes to assess risk based on the fact that multiple claims from the same postcode might point to a general problem.

Can you do this with Eircode? Not unless you're happy to lump the whole of Dublin 4 into the same risk category. Insurance companies have probably invested in significant IT systems to work around problems like this. So, the incremental solution that Eircode offers might be ok for them. But we could do so much better, especially if you want to attract new companies into sectors like that.

Sorry now but you can run quires on the eircode database to find nearby postcodes or any other type of info like "all postcodes on street X"

So yes, yes eircode can do this

plodder

ukoda wrote: »

Sorry now but you can run quires on the eircode database to find nearby postcodes or any other type of info like "all postcodes on street X"

So yes, yes eircode can do this

It doesn't do anything you couldn't have done already with Geodirectory but more important, it requires you to license some product to be able to do it.

In the UK situation, an insurance company can build up their own database of postcodes of their own customers and don't need to license anything else. That's a major benefit.

Carawaystick

ukoda wrote: »

Sorry now but you can run quires on the eircode database to find nearby postcodes or any other type of info like "all postcodes on street X"

So yes, yes eircode can do this

Unless this is available now, then its a forward looking statement and may or may not become true.

ukoda

plodder wrote: »

It doesn't do anything you couldn't have done already with Geodirectory but more important, it requires you to license some product to be able to do it.

In the UK situation, an insurance company can build up their own database of postcodes of their own customers and don't need to license anything else. That's a major benefit.

No it's actually a major flaw as it discriminates against people based on their postcode which is why the EU have moved to ban basing insurance premiums on postcodes

Carawaystick

ukoda wrote: »

No it's actually a major flaw as it discriminates against people based on their postcode which is why the EU have moved to ban basing insurance premiums on postcodes

Have you a source for this?

Is this recent?
Last time I bought motor insurance(in the autumn), it was cheaper for parts of Dublin without a postcode than with one.

ukoda

Carawaystick wrote: »

Unless this is available now, then its a forward looking statement and may or may not become true.

Everything is future tense until launch. BUT I'm basing that on the product spec eircode released, so as it stands, it's a feature that will be available at launch per eircode.