National Postcodes to be introduced

busman

marmurr1916 wrote: »

That's the point of postcodes - to group addresses in a given area.

It allows for all sorts of socio-economic analysis, based on these types of postcodes, that can't be achieved with pure co-ordinate codes that don't group addresses.

I total agree but my point is that the actual code does not need to mean anything other that the group your in.
What's the fascination with having C for Cork etc.
Look at the US Zip codes, start on the east coast and work west.

marmurr1916

busman wrote: »

I total agree but my point is that the actual code does not need to mean anything other that the group your in.
What's the fascination with having C for Cork etc.

If it makes them easier to remember, and encourages more people to use them, then it's a good thing.

busman wrote: »

Look at the US Zip codes, start on the east coast and work west.

Most US zip codes I've ever seen start with a two letter state code (eg. CA - 90210).

marmurr1916

Alun wrote: »

It's the same in the Netherlands, 4 digits and 2 letters plus the house number is all you need.

Whatever system we adopt is likely to be much the same.

Alun wrote: »

Every single road or street that has buildings on it has a name also, even if it's on a dyke in the back end of nowhere and only has one house on it.

If we adopted that system in Ireland, we'd end up losing the system of townland names which is a cultural feature unique to Ireland. We've already lost too much of our culture as it is.

mackerski

marmurr1916 wrote: »

If we adopted that system in Ireland, we'd end up losing the system of townland names which is a cultural feature unique to Ireland. We've already lost too much of our culture as it is.

Ah yes, didn't Brian Boru himself fight the foreign foe to preserve the townland and county systems? Oh no, wait...

busman

marmurr1916 wrote: »

If it makes them easier to remember, and encourages more people to use them, then it's a good thing.

True, but take phone numbers as an example, most are 7 digits now without area code/mobile prefix and people still remember them.
People will only use postcodes when they have too.
Quotes for insurance etc ....
Can't see my mother putting it on her Christmas cards.

marmurr1916 wrote: »

Most US zip codes I've ever seen start with a two letter state code (eg. CA - 90210).

The State designation is not part of the zip system. it's part of the address,
you can use California or CA

recedite

marmurr1916 wrote: »

I'd imagine that D will be used instead of BAC.

D stands for Dubh Linn if anyone starts making a fuss.

marmurr1916 wrote: »

If we end up more or less replicating the UK system, all you'll need is a house number/name and the post code.

EDIT: From reading the Irish Times article, this is the system we're going to end up with:

Its been said before; in rural Ireland you won't see a street name or a house number.

The "hybrid" model currently favoured seems to be a location code piggybacked onto a postcode. The combined code will probably end up very long, for anyone who uses the full version.

recedite

Alun wrote: »

It's the same in the Netherlands, 4 digits and 2 letters plus the house number is all you need. Every single road or street that has buildings on it has a name also, even if it's on a dyke in the back end of nowhere and only has one house on it.

Fair play to them for getting that level of accuracy decades before GPS was invented.
If the Dutch were doing it now though, they would use available technology to do even better.

marmurr1916

recedite wrote: »

D stands for Dubh Linn if anyone starts making a fuss.

recedite wrote: »

Its been said before; in rural Ireland you won't see a street name or a house number.

But you do have townlands with defined boundaries. My sister lives in a townland near Bandon in Co. Cork. There are about 50 houses in the townland.

I'd imagine the post code for the townland will be something like BN07 - 123.

BN - Bandon (the post town), 07 - a main postal district within the Bandon post town 'region', 123 - the individual townland code. After that, there could be several more digits for each individual address within the townland.

recedite wrote: »

The "hybrid" model currently favoured seems to be a location code piggybacked onto a postcode. The combined code will probably end up very long, for anyone who uses the full version.

It could - but if people can remember 10 digit mobile phone numbers then I don't see why they won't be able to remember a 10 character post code.

marmurr1916

mackerski wrote: »

Ah yes, didn't Brian Boru himself fight the foreign foe to preserve the townland and county systems? Oh no, wait...

Mock away. The fact is that most place names in Ireland are townland names. Townland names are generally derived from the original, pre-Norman, Irish language place names,

Ireland has already lost enough of its cultural heritage. It doesn't need most of its Irish language-derived place names (ie townland names) to disappear from daily use as well.

marmurr1916

busman wrote: »

True, but take phone numbers as an example, most are 7 digits now without area code/mobile prefix and people still remember them.

Agreed, phone numbers with codes are usually 10 digits. I reckon people will be able to remember a 10 character post code as readily as they remember phone numbers.

busman wrote: »

People will only use postcodes when they have too.Quotes for insurance etc ....
Can't see my mother putting it on her Christmas cards.

She might not. Then again most people in the UK use post codes even for personal mail, because they know there's less likely to be delays to the post if they're used. Try getting anything you've bought delivered in the UK without giving the post code...

catbear

marmurr1916 wrote: »

Mock away. The fact is that most place names in Ireland are townland names. Townland names are generally derived from the original, pre-Norman, Irish language place names,

Ireland has already lost enough of its cultural heritage. It doesn't need most of its Irish language-derived place names (ie townland names) to disappear from daily use as well.

So based on that, as a Norman descendant would you prefer if I and others like me were to disappear instead?
You may need us to defend your superior culture against evolving.

marmurr1916

catbear wrote: »

So based on that, as a Norman descendant would you prefer if I and others like me were to disappear instead?
You may need us to defend your superior culture against evolving.

Where in my post do you get that notion? Wanting to protect cultural features that are unique to Ireland doesn't mean I'm some kind of exclusivist xenophobe. :rolleyes:

BTW, I have a mixed ancestry, Norman, Gael and Scottish amongst others, much like many Irish people.

redalicat

busman wrote: »

The State designation is not part of the zip system. it's part of the address,
you can use California or CA

Correct. If you put "Name of Person, 13 Some Street, 90210" it would get there (though the USPS would frown on it and stamp some message all over the envelope). However, the code isn't specific enough without including the street address, unless you added the +4 code (90210-4538) which most people don't use or know about.

redalicat

recedite wrote: »

Its been said before; in rural Ireland you won't see a street name or a house number.

I'd be in that group, and it makes receiving delivery really, really frustrating.

marmurr1916

redalicat wrote: »

I'd be in that group, and it makes receiving delivery really, really frustrating.

Hence the need for postcodes that can identify individual addresses within townlands...

busman

marmurr1916 wrote: »

Mock away. The fact is that most place names in Ireland are townland names. Townland names are generally derived from the original, pre-Norman, Irish language place names,

Ireland has already lost enough of its cultural heritage. It doesn't need most of its Irish language-derived place names (ie townland names) to disappear from daily use as well.

Well said! I'm very proud of my townsland*
Have a email address "my_townsland"@gmail.com
where "my_townsland" translates into "little enclosure/ruin"

*Not that I own all 487 Acres 3 Roods and 12 Poles of it!

Edit: Could you not say that townslands WERE the postcodes of Ireland,
Grouping a cluster of houses together?
The only problem that they were not always unique!

busman

marmurr1916 wrote: »

Hence the need for postcodes that can identify individual addresses within townlands...

And hence the problem that even with the proposed postcodes you can identify individual addresses but still can't tell where in the townland the individual addresses is!

marmurr1916

busman wrote: »

And hence the problem that even with the proposed postcodes you can identify individual addresses but still can't tell where in the townland the individual addresses is!

It's obviously going to be on a road within the townland. Each road within a townland can have its own code, assuming there's more than one house on each road. Much like streets in towns and cities will have their own codes.

antoinolachtnai

We did some work on this, and assigning a number to every road segment or street within a particular electoral division(01-99) or within a small area (1-9) seems a pretty practical way to do this. You could use 'half-roads if you wanted, i.e, have a different code for each side of the road.

The next step, obviously, would be to number all the houses on each street or road segment. One way to do this in rural areas would be to measure the distance along the road from the startpoint, and base the number on that, so a house with an entrance onto the road 190 meters from the start would be assigned the number 19, for example.

All this protects the townland name, because it becomes the townland becomes the key part of the address for rural addresses, in order to verify that the postcode is correct.

larchill

I see the dail is to debate postcodes which are coming as part of the new Postal Bill ...

"Proposals to introduce a national post code system will be examined by a Dáil committee today.

The plan is part of a new Postal Bill being introduced by Communications Minister Pat Rabbitte.

The Bill also includes a legal guarantee of a delivery service every working day to every address in the State.

“The postal service in Ireland faces many challenges just as it does in other countries," Minister Rabbitte said.

"This legislation will lead to greater competition in the sector which will be good for consumers but will also put pressure on An Post to be extremely innovative.

"I am confident that the company will be able to rise to the challenges using its unique infrastructure of well over 1,000 retail outlets, its standing in the community and its sophisticated technology to deliver new services.”

However, opposition parties say the Bill could lead to higher postal charges for people in rural areas.

And the Communications Workers Union says it will put jobs in An Post at risk."

We wait in earnest ...

Aard

When they say "higher postal charges for people in rural areas", they don't mean higher charges by an Post right?

spoonface

marmurr1916 wrote: »

Try getting anything you've bought delivered in the UK without giving the post code...

Never mind a package, I tried to order a cab by phone outside London lately and they wouldn't even deal with me till I could provide a postcode, even though I had the full street address!

gjim

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

All this protects the townland name, because it becomes the townland becomes the key part of the address for rural addresses, in order to verify that the postcode is correct.

I really don't see how encoding townland names into a postcode system (in a semi-human readable form) "protects the townland name". I very much doubt people will referring to themselves as being "from ZE41I8TC" instead of being from "Knockbrack" or whatever.

And anyway, once you've solved the issue of disambiguation, you'll have lost the supposed benefit of a semi-human verifiable system if you use mnemonics or the benefit of post-codes by making them too long and unwieldy.

Just use a coordinate based system; it's flexible, future proof and CHEAP AND SIMPLE to set up and maintain. If you want to verify addresses against postcodes, pay for an electronic map which includes townland boundaries.

For me, it's about practicalities. An old-fashioned traditional post-code system will require setting up a government quango to maintain a large database, a budget (when there are cut-backs everywhere) and endless debate about design and that's before local politicians get wind of it and produce the customary amount of outrage if even a single household feels they've been included in the wrong townland or if anyone feels their townland was not given the correct precedence in the system. It would take years.

A coordinate system can be established simply by publishing a specification document; let the GPS makers, delivery companies and the rest do the work of marketing and implementing the system. There's no politics involved and nothing required to "run" the system. I prefer simple solutions.

SPDUB

Aard wrote: »

When they say "higher postal charges for people in rural areas", they don't mean higher charges by an Post right?

Legally it wouldn't just be An Post since any company would have the right to deliver to rural areas but since rural area are loss making , at current universal price levels , then in practice it would be An Post .

That's because if they allow private companies to just cherry pick the profitable areas of the country such as Dublin then An Post will have to charge the actual economic cost of delivering a letter to rural areas which is currently subsided by the likes of Dublin ,Cork .

Cool Mo D

gjim wrote: »

Just use a coordinate based system; it's flexible, future proof and CHEAP AND SIMPLE to set up and maintain. If you want to verify addresses against postcodes, pay for an electronic map which includes townland boundaries.

A coordinate system is a terrible idea for postcodes. People living in a rural area, on the opposite site of a river with no local bridge, for example, would be in the same postcode. Since one of the main purposes of postcodes is to group buildings for planning deliveries of post, this would obviously be unworkable.

A good postcode system must group places that are closely linked by road in the same postcode, without regard to their geographical location. A coordinate system cannot provide this.

Aard

A simple (at this stage I guess we're far beyond that) system would be to just use the District Electoral Divisions. There's 3440 of them, so even you you began the codes at 1000 there'd still be plenty of numbers to go around. If absolutely necessary, a fifth digit could be added to further narrow down the address.

Solair

If anything, a post code would protect our ability to call our houses and townlands whatever we like, rather than some daft system dictated by An Post's internal requirements, which in some cases requires people to put the wrong county on their letters to ensure delivery!

If the courier / postal delivery person / delivery company etc can read the post code, it won't matter what the rest of the address is, which language it is in or how it is formatted.

Also, there's no reason why Dublin postal districts need to be dropped or merged into the new codes:

For example:

RTE,
Donnybrook
Dublin 4
XYZ-2938

Údarás na Gaeltachta
Páirc Ghnó Ghaoth Dobhair
Doirí Beaga
Co. Dhún an nGall
XYZ-2929


There's absolutely no reason to tamper with townlands, or language of addresses or snob value of ancient obsolete postal districts.

garydubh

Its gas really - Postcodes are now 3.5 years late - yet every time someone mentions the word postcode in the press there is a new discussion about what they should look like - strangely never about why nothing is happening or what they will actually do for the people that will use them???

There was no discussion about postcodes in the Dail Tuesday - just a committee meeting on the postal bill of which santion to have a Postcode is an insignificant section and got no mention at all. It seems a press release suggesting that there would be discussion on Postcodes was just an attempt by DCENR honchos to make it look like something was happening on postcodes - which it actually aint!!! Bad Year for Dept Of Communications - first Moriarity and ESAT and now failure to sort postcodes!

Coordinates/Townlands etc etc - same old discussion here for years - fact is Loc8 Codes are already doing the job - Couriers/Hospitality/GAA/Local Authorities and many others are already using Loc8 Codes - a modern age solution to finding places... www.loc8code.com - for the "post postcode" era - sorted!

PS - for those tempted to launch into more discussion on what a postcode should look like - take a quick look at when this thread actually started and recap all the discussion that has happened since !

Solair

It seems like it's one of those things that will probably never get properly implemented.

I see it as a bit like not having direct-dial phones. In this day and age you do need some form of digital address / location system to supplement traditional address.

It's worse in Ireland than in many places as we have rather whimsical and inaccurate addresses at the best of times. Even in major urban areas you've no guarantee that the building numbers follow any particular logic.

We should just get on with it and roll something out. I think there's a lot of over-analysis going on.

We need a code that identifies places, without relying on any other form of address information. The traditional systems are just not fit for purpose.

People can easily remember a short sequence of numbers or digits. They remember their phone numbers, bank account numbers and all sorts of other codes and passwords with ease.

There used to be ridiculous arguments that telephone numbers beyond 5-digits were too cumbersome which led to a situation where we'd vast numbers of unnecessary area codes. The same kind of debate's going on with this.

We need something, practical, GPS-friendly, easy to roll out and we need to get it done yesterday.

Also, calling it a post code is kind of stupid too as it implies that it's only for delivery of letters. An Post has its own systems internally and can muddle on. However, the actual need for location codes in Ireland comes from other services i.e. couriers, emergency services, utility companies, taxis etc etc etc.

I think there's far too much emphasis on An Post / Post Office uses of these codes. The last thing we need is some kind of a half-baked version of an internal an post system mapping postal routes or something which is only of use to them.

Also, the system has to be open, and a national resource like the telephone numbering system.

We need to stop looking at the minutia and looking for problems and just get this thing implemented !!!

There's a lot of reinventing the wheel in these kinds of projects:

Digital TV - testing off the shelf products for decades by the Dept of Comms.
Digital Radio - same!
Integrated Smart Card transport tickets - being implemented since 2001 or earlier and still not rolled out!
.....

garydubh

Solair wrote: »

It seems like it's one of those things that will probably never get properly implemented.

I see it as a bit like not having direct-dial phones. In this day and age you do need some form of digital address / location system to supplement traditional address.

It's worse in Ireland than in many places as we have rather whimsical and inaccurate addresses at the best of times. Even in major urban areas you've no guarantee that the building numbers follow any particular logic.

We should just get on with it and roll something out. I think there's a lot of over-analysis going on.

We need a code that identifies places, without relying on any other form of address information. The traditional systems are just not fit for purpose.

People can easily remember a short sequence of numbers or digits. They remember their phone numbers, bank account numbers and all sorts of other codes and passwords with ease.

There used to be ridiculous arguments that telephone numbers beyond 5-digits were too cumbersome which led to a situation where we'd vast numbers of unnecessary area codes. The same kind of debate's going on with this.

We need something, practical, GPS-friendly, easy to roll out and we need to get it done yesterday.

Also, calling it a post code is kind of stupid too as it implies that it's only for delivery of letters. An Post has its own systems internally and can muddle on. However, the actual need for location codes in Ireland comes from other services i.e. couriers, emergency services, utility companies, taxis etc etc etc.

I think there's far too much emphasis on An Post / Post Office uses of these codes. The last thing we need is some kind of a half-baked version of an internal an post system mapping postal routes or something which is only of use to them.

Also, the system has to be open, and a national resource like the telephone numbering system.

We need to stop looking at the minutia and looking for problems and just get this thing implemented !!!

There's a lot of reinventing the wheel in these kinds of projects:

Digital TV - testing off the shelf products for decades by the Dept of Comms.
Digital Radio - same!
Integrated Smart Card transport tickets - being implemented since 2001 or earlier and still not rolled out!
.....

But it is already done - Loc8 Codes are it - they do not need Government to roll them out at all - if we left Google Maps to Government we would be still waiting!!!