National Postcodes to be introduced

dr.fuzzenstein

Exactly. And where is 64646?
No looking it up now...

Aimead

ukoda wrote: »

In the UK, they freely give to anyone the database of postcodes and the corresponding geocodes, which is all that's needed for most app developers and sat nav companies, yet Royal Mail still managed to monetise their postcode database and sell services to companies

Can you understand why, had Eircode followed the above, I’d have been much happier with what we actually got? Think about it.

---

TheBustedFlush wrote: »

Wonder how long it would take for a regular person sorting parcels/mail, etc to remember/recognise which county has which routing keys and vice versa?

It will be depend a lot on the business and the nature of the deliveries involved, but with a high enough volume I’d say the average person would be very proficient after only a month. I’ve nothing scientific behind that estimate, just basing it on my experience with new people on the job.

---

ukoda wrote: »

Well isn't the beauty of it that you can use any variation of your address you like with your eircode on the end and An Post know the correct postal address from the routing key and database?

Stop being deliberately disingenuous. The other poster was asking the (rather valid) question of the routing keys were designed solely on An Post’s model, at the expense of any would-be competitors and to the detriment of anyone using different distribution centres than An Post. Can you address this specific question without the blatant side-step this time?

---

TheBustedFlush wrote: »

In delivery terms, a company that perhaps sorts its deliveries by county or combination of counties into delivery regions. I know of one in the west of Ireland that does about 120,000 deliveries a year - and as they told me in exasperation last week - the address database currently online is **** all use to them since a lot of their deliveries are to rural addresses. I don't know if the address databases that eircode are going to license are going to be any better than, perhaps they will.

With the exception of Nightline, I’ve yet to see a full endorsement from a delivery service. DHL have international expertise and dwarf Nightline, and some of their workers have some very choice language to describe their opinions on Eircode.

If you’ve done routing or deliveries for a living the problems with Eircode are plain as day. Unless you happen to be An Post and had the system set up to your existing system, but that just highlights the problems even more.

---

marmurr1916 wrote: »

What's the geographic location of BT56 8QN? No looking it up now....

On the coast north of Coleraine. Try doing that with an Eircode.

plodder

Aimead wrote: »

Can you understand why, had Eircode followed the above, I’d have been much happier with what we actually got? Think about it.

I suppose they could give the ECAD (? the one without the addresses) for free. But there would have been more commercially useful options if the code was structured. Eg, you could release a dataset with only the locations of the small area centroid for free. That would be more equivalent to what Royal Mail does, and would leave the complete ECAD and ECAF as commercial products.

ukoda

Aimead wrote: »

On the coast north of Coleraine. Try doing that with an Eircode.

T23 XXXX: North side of cork city

Do I get a prize?

MBSnr

As previous posters have mentioned - lot's of companies have amended their websites to include the postcode. Mostly B&B's and hotels from my quick google search. Good to see it being used but not much use until it works with google maps (and not just via the eircode website on a mobile..). Hopefully it'll be a few wks rather than months..... :rolleyes:

Alun

MBSnr wrote: »

As previous posters have mentioned - lot's of companies have amended their websites to include the postcode.

Yes, I Googled "A98 Bray" and was surprised how many entries I found.

marmurr1916

Aimead wrote: »

Can you understand why, had Eircode followed the above, I’d have been much happier with what we actually got? Think about it.

---

It will be depend a lot on the business and the nature of the deliveries involved, but with a high enough volume I’d say the average person would be very proficient after only a month. I’ve nothing scientific behind that estimate, just basing it on my experience with new people on the job.

---

Stop being deliberately disingenuous. The other poster was asking the (rather valid) question of the routing keys were designed solely on An Post’s model, at the expense of any would-be competitors and to the detriment of anyone using different distribution centres than An Post. Can you address this specific question without the blatant side-step this time?

---

With the exception of Nightline, I’ve yet to see a full endorsement from a delivery service. DHL have international expertise and dwarf Nightline, and some of their workers have some very choice language to describe their opinions on Eircode.

If you’ve done routing or deliveries for a living the problems with Eircode are plain as day. Unless you happen to be An Post and had the system set up to your existing system, but that just highlights the problems even more.

---

On the coast north of Coleraine. Try doing that with an Eircode.

T23 - Northside of Cork, T12 - Southside of Cork, D01 - D24 - Dublin, A96 - Southeast Dublin (Blackrock, Stillorgan, Dundrum, Kilmacud), P - most of Co. Cork - haven't had a chance to learn them off yet or the rest of the T areas (parts of Co. Cork close to the city) but give it time...
If I was bothered could learn off the K routing codes for north county Dublin, along with the Cs for around Navan and the Ys for Wexford. And if I was delivering goods across Ireland regularly I'd get to know the most frequently routing keys fairly quickly. There's no particular reason that someone couldn't identify geographical areas associated with routing keys from memory over time in the same way that some people can remember geographical areas associated with individual BT postcode districts within the BT postcode area - covering all of Northern Ireland.

Aimead

ukoda wrote: »

T23 XXXX: North side of cork city

Do I get a prize?

I’m much more at home with chan sites and other places where, shall we say, moderation is done with a lighter hand. Boards.ie isn’t the typical place I’d post on, and I’ve been putting effort into holding back the sort of invective that I’d be free to post elsewhere.

But, in this case, I’m going to make a bit of an exception and call you out for peddling a wilful and disingenuous strawman (not the first one either).

Suppose someone gave you the following (making these up):
T23 UUUU
T23 VVVV
T23 WWWW
T23 XXXX
T23 YYYY
T23 ZZZZ

You wouldn’t know where they where with reference to each. Now suppose someone had given me the following:
BT56 UUU
BT56 VVV
BT56 WWW
BT56 XXX
BT56 YYY
BT56 ZZZ

I would now where they where with reference to each other. On visual inspection you can obtain useful information from the postcode that you do not obtain from Eircode. This point isn’t new and has been made multiple times in this thread. So why are you being deliberately disingenuous when the point being made is clear? You know that the routing boundaries are currently not known, and you know that it isn’t possible to tell where within a boundary a given Eircode is on visual inspection. To borrow your own phrase, isn’t a bit pathetic that an old code from the 60’s outperforms the supposedly modern Eircode in this scenario?

To put it simply – if you really believe in the veracity of your defence of Eircode, then why do you continually play dumb as you have done so above?

marmurr1916

ukoda wrote: »

T23 XXXX: North side of cork city

Do I get a prize?

An all expenses paid trip from T23 to T12!

marmurr1916

Aimead wrote: »

I’m much more at home with chan sites and other places where, shall we say, moderation is done with a lighter hand. Boards.ie isn’t the typical place I’d post on, and I’ve been putting effort into holding back the sort of invective that I’d be free to post elsewhere.

But, in this case, I’m going to make a bit of an exception and call you out for peddling a wilful and disingenuous strawman (not the first one either).

Suppose someone gave you the following (making these up):
T23 UUUU
T23 VVVV
T23 WWWW
T23 XXXX
T23 YYYY
T23 ZZZZ

You wouldn’t know where they where with reference to each. Now suppose someone had given me the following:
BT56 UUU
BT56 VVV
BT56 WWW
BT56 XXX
BT56 YYY
BT56 ZZZ

I would now where they where with reference to each other. On visual inspection you can obtain useful information from the postcode that you do not obtain from Eircode. This point isn’t new and has been made multiple times in this thread. So why are you being deliberately disingenuous when the point being made is clear? You know that the routing boundaries are currently not known, and you know that it isn’t possible to tell where within a boundary a given Eircode is on visual inspection. To borrow your own phrase, isn’t a bit pathetic that an old code from the 60’s outperforms the supposedly modern Eircode in this scenario?

To put it simply – if you really believe in the veracity of your defence of Eircode, then why do you continually play dumb as you have done so above?

On visual inspection? But the challenge was to specify the geographical location from a postcode or eircode WITHOUT looking them up. Checking on a map is cheating...

moyners

marmurr1916 wrote: »

T23 - Northside of Cork, T12 - Southside of Cork, D01 - D24 - Dublin, A96 - Southeast Dublin (Blackrock, Stillorgan, Dundrum, Kilmacud), P - most of Co. Cork - haven't had a chance to learn them off yet or the rest of the T areas (parts of Co. Cork close to the city) but give it time...
If I was bothered could learn off the K routing codes for north county Dublin, along with the Cs for around Navan and the Ys for Wexford. And if I was delivering goods across Ireland regularly I'd get to know the most frequently routing keys fairly quickly. There's no particular reason that someone couldn't identify geographical areas associated with routing keys from memory over time in the same way that some people can remember geographical areas associated with individual BT postcode districts within the BT postcode area - covering all of Northern Ireland.

Aimead wrote: »

I’m much more at home with chan sites and other places where, shall we say, moderation is done with a lighter hand. Boards.ie isn’t the typical place I’d post on, and I’ve been putting effort into holding back the sort of invective that I’d be free to post elsewhere.

But, in this case, I’m going to make a bit of an exception and call you out for peddling a wilful and disingenuous strawman (not the first one either).



Suppose someone gave you the following (making these up):
T23 UUUU
T23 VVVV
T23 WWWW
T23 XXXX
T23 YYYY
T23 ZZZZ

You wouldn’t know where they where with reference to each. Now suppose someone had given me the following:
BT56 UUU
BT56 VVV
BT56 WWW
BT56 XXX
BT56 YYY
BT56 ZZZ

I would now where they where with reference to each other. On visual inspection you can obtain useful information from the postcode that you do not obtain from Eircode. This point isn’t new and has been made multiple times in this thread. So why are you being deliberately disingenuous when the point being made is clear? You know that the routing boundaries are currently not known, and you know that it isn’t possible to tell where within a boundary a given Eircode is on visual inspection. To borrow your own phrase, isn’t a bit pathetic that an old code from the 60’s outperforms the supposedly modern Eircode in this scenario?

To put it simply – if you really believe in the veracity of your defence of Eircode, then why do you continually play dumb as you have done so above?

They could have made the routing areas much smaller so that they approached more usable small areas that you could distinguish visually. There's 5 or 6 T codes for instance when they could use 99! There's no reason An Post couldn't assign T12, T13, T14, T15, etc. to be routed via their Cork South sorting office instead of just T12 - if they don't need them anyway as they say, and we'd have a better idea of exactly where each post code was located.

I think this may still happen in the future...

Aimead

marmurr1916 wrote: »

On visual inspection? But the challenge was to specify the geographical location from a postcode or eircode WITHOUT looking them up. Checking on a map is cheating...

You don’t need a map to know when two postcodes represent adjacent (or at least very close) properties, but you cannot do that with Eircode. TheBustedFlush (who started this train of thought) and I have made this point in the thread already. Maybe I misread their thought, but I interpreted them as making this same point yet again.

---

moyners wrote: »

I think this may still happen in the future...

Are any routing areas currently marked likely to hit over the 300,000 odd limit? If they change the routing areas won’t they have to change someone’s Eircode? The only way I see them being changed is if An Post need them changed…

moyners

Are any routing areas currently marked likely to hit over the 300,000 odd limit? If they change the routing areas won’t they have to change someone’s Eircode? The only way I see them being changed is if An Post need them changed…

I have no idea, I wouldn't imagine so. But if eircodes start to get any acceptance and usage at all I think An Post may lose some of their 'control' over the system. Quite an easy thing to notify people that they are now T14 XXXX instead of T12 XXXX. Postcodes often get changed in other countries when needed. Just my opinion - I can't see it changing in the short term!

Aimead

I think the same. I'm going to call it 'An Post-code' from now on.

BarryD

Aimead wrote: »

I think the same. I'm going to call it 'An Post-code' from now on.

Except that An Post aren't going to use them, are they??

moyners

Can someone answer me this (or point me to the right answer) - we've been hearing over and over that An Post currently has a next-day delivery rate of 98% and this can't be improved on realistically they (Loc8 et al) say.

BUT - as far as I'm aware this is in relation to 'correctly addressed mail', and as has been shown by this whole thing, huge sections of the public are using an address that is not, according to An Post, the 'correct' one - hence the outcry when people have been shown what An Post thinks their postal address is.

So would I right in saying that the actual next-day delivery rate is way way below 98%?

marmurr1916

Aimead wrote: »

You don’t need a map to know when two postcodes represent adjacent (or at least very close) properties, but you cannot do that with Eircode. TheBustedFlush (who started this train of thought) and I have made this point in the thread already. Maybe I misread their thought, but I interpreted them as making this same point yet again.

---

Are any routing areas currently marked likely to hit over the 300,000 odd limit? If they change the routing areas won’t they have to change someone’s Eircode? The only way I see them being changed is if An Post need them changed…

There was a very specific challenge set - identify a geographical area from an eircode without looking it up.

I responded by presenting a similar challenge using a BT postcode.

Maybe you have some unique or rare ability to identify every geographical area associated with every UK postcode from memory without having to look them up on a database of some kind.

But if you don't have such an ability you'd fail the challenge.

You'll have to excuse me now. I think I can hear the neighbours shifting goalposts...

ukoda

Aimead wrote: »

I’m much more at home with chan sites and other places where, shall we say, moderation is done with a lighter hand. Boards.ie isn’t the typical place I’d post on, and I’ve been putting effort into holding back the sort of invective that I’d be free to post elsewhere.

But, in this case, I’m going to make a bit of an exception and call you out for peddling a wilful and disingenuous strawman (not the first one either).

Suppose someone gave you the following (making these up):
T23 UUUU
T23 VVVV
T23 WWWW
T23 XXXX
T23 YYYY
T23 ZZZZ

You wouldn’t know where they where with reference to each. Now suppose someone had given me the following:
BT56 UUU
BT56 VVV
BT56 WWW
BT56 XXX
BT56 YYY
BT56 ZZZ

I would now where they where with reference to each other. On visual inspection you can obtain useful information from the postcode that you do not obtain from Eircode. This point isn’t new and has been made multiple times in this thread. So why are you being deliberately disingenuous when the point being made is clear? You know that the routing boundaries are currently not known, and you know that it isn’t possible to tell where within a boundary a given Eircode is on visual inspection. To borrow your own phrase, isn’t a bit pathetic that an old code from the 60’s outperforms the supposedly modern Eircode in this scenario?

To put it simply – if you really believe in the veracity of your defence of Eircode, then why do you continually play dumb as you have done so above?

Oh for god sake, you were able to tell a general area for an NI postcode, I was able to tell a general area for an eircode.

That is all. It's correct. Nothing mentioned in my post about relating adjacent codes. Did not mention it. Did you decide to layer that in now that your example of being smart fell flat on its ass.

It was a light hearted rebuttal and I'm sorry it seems to have hit you at your core and is causing you to be stuck in loop of calling me "disingenuous" every time I post anything you don't like.

ukoda

Aimead wrote: »

I think the same. I'm going to call it 'An Post-code' from now on.

In not sure why people are upset that our national postcode suits the needs of our national postal service.

You can't have it both ways, it's either of no use to An Post, or only of use to An Post. People seem to change their mind to suit their argument.

Calina

ukoda wrote: »

Oh for god sake, you were able to tell a general area for an NI postcode, I was able to tell a general area for an eircode.

That is all. It's correct. Nothing mentioned in my post about relating adjacent codes. Did not mention it. Did you decide to layer that in now that your example of being smart fell flat on its ass.

It was a light hearted rebuttal and I'm sorry it seems to have hit you at your core and is causing you to be stuck in loop of calling me "disingenuous" every time I post anything you don't like.

Personal view at this stage is about the primary thing which would make the Irish postcode system even half way useful is if people put the things on their gates.

As it stands, where I live in Dublin city, there is the grand total of no added value from the randomised code and the routing key is more or less the same as it ever was anyway. Sure I get an extra zero but in terms of people's comprehension, the postcode does nothing new and the randomised 4 character section is basically meaningless. As for the people in the country, since a lot of them seem to have been picked up and dropped down in places away from their actual physical location, I'm struggling to see much sense there either.

But we're stuck with it. I just want to you to know that while I recognise we're stuck with it, I still believe it was a completely wasted opportunity to do something properly. In no respect can you honestly argue that we got the best possible system now.

flushed busted

ukoda wrote: »

T23 XXXX: North side of cork city

Do I get a prize?

On inspection, it would appear that T23 offers less of a geographical dimension than the "Hollyhill" area denominator that way well already be in an associated address in any case.

T23 volunteers no more than the fact that An Post handled mail for this location in its Churchfield office. In my experience few have a need for this kid of insight.

However, some might hastily point to the V94 example which not only lacks a useful geographic dimension (better than the word "Limerick" that is) but is also unable to give the same mail handling insight as for T23.

It does appear to me that the equivalent Northern Ireland examples do engender some more intelligent and expandable insights. One can't help casting one's mind back to Plan W and how useful this would have been. Perhaps, the prize, if there were to be one, would be for offering an intelligence answer as to why?

marmurr1916

BarryD wrote: »

Except that An Post aren't going to use them, are they??

An Post had previously claimed that a nationwide public postcode system was unnecessary, stating that it was "a 1960s solution to a 21st century problem",[48] that it would be expensive, and that its existing system was superior.[49] However, they are now actively involved in implementing the new Eircode system, with their CEO saying they are investing in their four main sorting centres to adopt the new postcode system at a cost of €1m, according to an Irish Times report stating "An Post chief executive Donal Connell said it would work "very closely" with Eircode, the new company set up by Capita to manage the codes, in implementing the national infrastructure. "It will certainly help with the efficiency of our distribution'. Mr Connell said €1 million from An Post’s capital investment fund would be spent to install new software in its four national sorting centres.[50][51][52]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_addresses_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland

bluesteel

Calina wrote: »

Personal view at this stage is about the primary thing which would make the Irish postcode system even half way useful is if people put the things on their gates.

That would certainly help; putting existing street numbers on gates would too (ask any Doctor doing housecalls how common this is); but most people are too lazy/inconsiderate to do so. Even plain numbers on the door are too much to ask for for many people

Calina wrote: »

As it stands, where I live in Dublin city, there is the grand total of no added value from the randomised code and the routing key is more or less the same as it ever was anyway. Sure I get an extra zero but in terms of people's comprehension, the postcode does nothing new and the randomised 4 character section is basically meaningless. As for the people in the country, since a lot of them seem to have been picked up and dropped down in places away from their actual physical location, I'm struggling to see much sense there either.
.

Get over yourself.

I live in an apartment complex in Dublin one of several on the road - it will make it embarrassingly straight forward to give the address to a courier with a SatNav (i.e. only a moron will need to ring up in future). No more describing the colour of the bricks and the neighbouring business. No more explaining the precise block in which my apartment is located.


My Parents and most of my relatives live in the country. No street numbers. Do I really need to explain how useful this is??
"the postcode does nothing new" :mad:


"lot of them seem to have been picked up and dropped down in places away from their actual physical location"

No, a lot of people don't know/use their correct postal address; I see this at first hand - our (where I grew up) part of the townland has a suffix - but most people just use the larger townland name. Even my Dublin apartment complex's name has 4 different variants - plural, with a space between the components...

Are you still struggling?

flushed busted

marmurr1916 wrote: »

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_addresses_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland

I am intrigued with the choice of this source as a reference for this subject especially since alternative quotations from characters directly involved are available. I proffer as a notable alternative example the following statement from the record of the parliament no less: "In the context of An Post, delivery performance rates have been running at exceptionally high levels. We do not believe the use of postcodes will lift us beyond the figure of 98%"

In further pursuance of the realities, I note recent images online of mail successfully delivered with only the mere postcode appended as an address in its totality. Suspecting as I do that automated sortation of at least the routing key at the 4 hubs is indeed possible (thought perhaps not welcomed), it is notable that the address has not been appended as a remedy in the process. To those with an interest, this would strongly suggest that these items are distributed to post towns also with just the alphanumeric coding. At the post town, the Routing key is already resolved and of no immediate interest, leaving the sorter to attempt a decoding of the unique identifier element. My investigations suggest that at this point in the now manual sortation process a diversionary step is necessarily required to affect the translation and associated racking, presumably via a manual software interrogation. This no doubt is seen as a mild inconvenience once but a notable nuisance if repetitive. Once again, if the address is not appended at this stage then delivery must be effected either by a memory note, association with other bundled and normal postal addressed mail or by use of some technology (presumed personal as I have noted no new appropriate equipping)

It would seem therefore that if postcode only delivery were to become the norm, the 98% efficiency would be quickly compromised without the application of further technology at all sortation steps, especially at the hubs where address correction & appending either manually or by printing would be required in order to maintain current manual processes on the remainder of the inward sort.

As a substantial point, the absence of address appending through printing at the automatic sortation stage in the hubs suggests less that a full commitment to the new post code and a determined hope that the declaration of "non mandatory" is persuasive enough to ensure the required postal address is maintained as the necessary norm.

Suggestions that the new postcode has merit as an address validation in the case of doubt, does appear to promote a circular logic when considered against claims from the code designers that the address is also needed to validate the code.

It might be suggested that the intricacies of these considerations are beyond most, including the editorial capabilities of Wikipedia and many of the determined eircode enthusiasts who might populate this domain.

marmurr1916

The source is interviews with the CEO of An Post published in the Irish Times and quoted in the Wikipedia article - the footnote numbers from the Wikipedia article are shown in the quoted section in my post above.

Is an interview with the CEO of An Post in the Irish Times a suitably acceptable source?

I haven't provided a direct link to the Irish Times article containing the interview - if you want to read it you can click on the relevant citation in the Wikipedia article.

flushed busted

marmurr1916 wrote: »

The source is interviews with the CEO of An Post published in the Irish Times and quoted in the Wikipedia article - the footnote numbers from the Wikipedia article are shown in the quoted section in my post above.

Is an interview with the CEO of An Post in the Irish Times a suitably acceptable source?

I haven't provided a direct link to the Irish Times article containing the interview - if you want to read it you can click on the relevant citation in the Wikipedia article.

yes I see how an attributed quotation can occasionally turn heads when direct quotations and logic are overlooked. Though a full read of the attributed quotation does appear to confirm that An Post's postcode efforts are confined to "National sorting centres" which we can presume to equate to the 4 hubs as referenced by myself.

Accordingly, as I promoted, an investment in correcting the absence of an address, or indeed a correct address as deduced from the postcode, by appending through printing in order to avoid the onward promulgation of accumulated related counter efficiency to where sorting is manual, seems to have been discounted. This suggests a less than fulsome commitment to the new "non mandatory" postcode.

oscarBravo

flushed busted wrote: »

It would seem therefore that if postcode only delivery were to become the norm...

Why would it become the norm?

More to the point, why are people so keen to construct straw men like this?

flushed busted

oscarBravo wrote: »

Why would it become the norm?

More to the point, why are people so keen to construct straw men like this?

merely a hypothesis used as a basis from which to develop the argument leading to the substantive points.

And happily discounted in response to the related question posed and tested by some.

GJG

moyners wrote: »

Can someone answer me this (or point me to the right answer) - we've been hearing over and over that An Post currently has a next-day delivery rate of 98% and this can't be improved on realistically they (Loc8 et al) say.

BUT - as far as I'm aware this is in relation to 'correctly addressed mail', and as has been shown by this whole thing, huge sections of the public are using an address that is not, according to An Post, the 'correct' one - hence the outcry when people have been shown what An Post thinks their postal address is.

So would I right in saying that the actual next-day delivery rate is way way below 98%?

I've nothing but anecdote to back it up, but I'm deeply suspicious of that figure. I worked in an office where communication was very important to the business function. We typically had 30 outgoing and maybe 5 - 10 incoming pieces of post per day, from about 2001 to 2009.

Rare was the day when post for some other address was not put through our letterbox. We missed important incoming mail, and I certainly thought that if we were getting other people's mail, they might be getting ours. We also had a significant number of customers who were adamant that they did not get post that we had a clear record of sending, I'd say mabye five per cent.

All of our outgoing post had printed addresses, with very high quality data, but I can't say the same for the incoming post, certainly hand-written addresses were over-represented in the misdelivered post that we got.

To be honest, I don't think that Eircode will have a big impact on any of that. The real benefit will be in rural areas, where I suspect 'delivery' means sticking it in the neighbour's, brother-in-law's or whoever's door.

TheBustedFlush

An Post's next-delivery targets are set on properly addressed mail - so it's 98% of properly addressed mail.

Allowing for the reaction by some people to the address that they had received from the Eircode mailing via An Post, then one could be forgiven for thinking that the delivery success rate of all mail - properly and not-properly addressed - might be somewhat lower than 98%.

But An post are hardly likely to admit that with Comreg looking over their shoulder.