National Postcodes to be introduced

Trouwe Ier

Using Ossian Smith's table, I've done a small bit of analysis on routing key numbering and come up with the following:

a) There are no routing keys assigned the following 34 numbers:
19
27
29
30
33
38
40
44
46
48
49
50
55
57
58
59
60
64
66
68
69
70
73
74
76
77
79
80
87
88
89
90
97
99


b) The most commonly used routing key numbers are as follow:
23 5
34 5
35 5
42 5
56 5
12 6
14 6
45 6
91 7

c) Note the relative importance of towns and cities that have been assigned a "91" number.
A 91 Dundalk
E 91 Clonmel
F 91 Sligo
H 91 Galway
N 91 Mullingar
W 91 Naas
X 91 Waterford


d) Other important towns have also been assigned numbers in the nineties.
A 92 Drogheda
F 92 Letterkenny
V 92 Tralee
F 93 Lifford
R 93 Carlow
V 93 Killarney

e) Remember the Cork trend?
T12 Cork city southside
T23 Cork city northside
T34 Carrignavar
T45 Glanmire
T56 Watergrasshill

There are similar but partial trends in Kildare and north Dublin

K45 Lusk
K56 Rush
K67 Swords
K78 Lucan

W12 Newbridge
W23 Maynooth
W34 Monasterevin

f) Four of the five "35s" are followed followed by "42"

F35 Ballyhaunis
F42 Roscommon
R35 Tullamore
R42 Birr
V35 Kilmallock
V42 Newcastle West
X35 Dungarvan
X42 Kilmacthomas

Sam Russell

marmurr1916 wrote: »

So basically street address in rural areas, with currently nameless roads being assigned names and houses being assigned numbers.

That would take years to achieve, meet huge public resistance and require an enormous amount of money to implement.

Ireland has a fairly unique addressing system for most rural areas - any postcode needs to acknowledge that and work with it rather than trying to completely change the addressing system.

I have no idea how long such an exercise would take, but it will only take time after the exercise is started. If it had been started in 2009 when this thread started, we would be six years further on.

There is no reason why a proposed method of solving the problem could not be devised and doing so would not necessarily be expensive or even cost much.

Is there any evidence as to why it would meet with public resistance?

Ireland has a system of addressing that has changed. The addressing system, for rural areas, used to be:
Name, Townland; Barony; County.
This has become:
Name; Townland (spell it how you like); Post-town or barony or both; County (or maybe the adjacent county) . Sometimes there are a few more lines, but make it up anyway you like.

The first step is to standardise the system of address. Either return to how it was or get a new one, but this 'make it up as you like' type addressing is ridiculous. Then notify people of their address.

Giving roads names should be straight forward, and giving houses metric based numbers should be straight forward. You would only need unique names within a townland since all townlands are unique within a barony, and all baronies are unique within a county. Failing that, give each house a name or a code within the townland if a road name cannot be agreed.

Why look for problems, and then use these problems as a justification for a dog's breakfast of postcode system because the problems are too hard to solve.

recedite

^^^ Very hard to see any logic whatsoever in the above prefixes.

marmurr1916 wrote: »

And yet again you're whinging that a postcode, specifically designed for postal addresses, isn't a location code.
A bit like complaining that your car can't fly.

If I paid €27M for a car I would expect it to fly

recedite

recedite wrote: »

If I paid €27M for a car I would expect it to fly

Top gear or the Mythbusters could provide you with a flying car for much less!
The only downside is that it would be a single ticket journey!

brandodub

Just to reiterate it's a postcode people will use it people will not use it. It is not compulsory. It is added after your County name when writing your address or you may be asked for it in future transactions either online offline or in person.

In the case of Dublin where a district code has been in extensive use for many years the eircode reflects this and the sorting office used by An Post.

Use it for efficiency.

Don't use it if you don't want to.
Expect the majority to be aware and use it

Just to reiterate it's a postcode people will use it people will not use it. It is not compulsory.

Strictly speaking that is correct.but I expect that many organisations who have a financial interest will soon be insisting on the postcode if you want to do business with them.

A unique code per address will stop a lot of fraud and businesses that are affected by such fraud* will be fairly quick on insisting that clients provide postcodes before accepting business from those people.

* dodgy variations of the same address.

Many of us have several different variations of our address, I could have used at least four different variations of my address and still get the stuff delivered! (on one occasion, I had to contact a courier company to stop them from "ping - ponging" a package between distribution centres as the address "confused" their system! Athlone is in .... Roscommon no it's in Westmeath, wrong it's in Roscommon.

That parcel could have still been ping ponging between the distribution sites today If I hadn't called in to say that I will "jump" and catch it!

HardenendMan

Sam Russell wrote: »

I have no idea how long such an exercise would take, but it will only take time after the exercise is started. If it had been started in 2009 when this thread started, we would be six years further on.

There is no reason why a proposed method of solving the problem could not be devised and doing so would not necessarily be expensive or even cost much.

Is there any evidence as to why it would meet with public resistance?

Ireland has a system of addressing that has changed. The addressing system, for rural areas, used to be:
Name, Townland; Barony; County.
This has become:
Name; Townland (spell it how you like); Post-town or barony or both; County (or maybe the adjacent county) . Sometimes there are a few more lines, but make it up anyway you like.

The first step is to standardise the system of address. Either return to how it was or get a new one, but this 'make it up as you like' type addressing is ridiculous. Then notify people of their address.

Giving roads names should be straight forward, and giving houses metric based numbers should be straight forward. You would only need unique names within a townland since all townlands are unique within a barony, and all baronies are unique within a county. Failing that, give each house a name or a code within the townland if a road name cannot be agreed.

Why look for problems, and then use these problems as a justification for a dog's breakfast of postcode system because the problems are too hard to solve.

There is a relatively easy solution to the addressing problem. Take every address, apply a unique ID to them. Then use this ID to retrieve the location plus any other relevant data.

Oh wait, that's what Eircode is :-)

Or we could wreak havoc and try your ideological way.

I read back a good few pages. I am so so glad that the addressing experts on this thread have no input to the postcode solution.

People have explained the details of why the eircode design is the most advantageous given the reality. It falls on deaf ears.

To be honest, it seems that some people wanted another e-voting type debacle. What they got was a fairly successful government project. Oh that really hurts the moan bags.

Calina

HardenendMan wrote: »

There is a relatively easy solution to the addressing problem. Take every address, apply a unique ID to them. Then use this ID to retrieve the location plus any other relevant data.

Oh wait, that's what Eircode is :-)

Or we could wreak havoc and try your ideological way.

I read back a good few pages. I am so so glad that the addressing experts on this thread have no input to the postcode solution.

People have explained the details of why the eircode design is the most advantageous given the reality. It falls on deaf ears.

To be honest, it seems that some people wanted another e-voting type debacle. What they got was a fairly successful government project. Oh that really hurts the moan bags.

Currently postal addresses do not match physical addresses. I fail to see why it's ideological to standardise addresses so that they do. Eircode is built on and reinforcing the situation that postal and physical addresses do not match up.

I also am failing to see why a house numbering system is an ideological approach. It has practical applications which do not necessarily require a database look up the way that Eircode does.

Sam Russell

HardenendMan wrote: »

There is a relatively easy solution to the addressing problem. Take every address, apply a unique ID to them. Then use this ID to retrieve the location plus any other relevant data.

Oh wait, that's what Eircode is :-)

The internet took off when the addressing system was changed from a numerical group of four digits like 89.234.66.108 and replaced it with pseudonyms like boards.ie which was easily memorised. These memorable pseudonyms are highly valued.

So we are changing memorable addresses 8 Grand Parade, Cork with a look up code like T12 DP78 - a real step into the future. And of course your chances of finding the later on a brass plate outside the address are less than zero - not sure about having number 8 - but you could probably work out that it was number eight from the neighbouring properties.

Only one memorable Eircode was permitted - D08 XY00 - I wonder who got that one?

MarkK

Sam Russell wrote: »

So we are changing memorable addresses 8 Grand Parade, Cork with a look up code like T12 DP78

The address is still 8 Grand Parade, Cork.
The postcode goes at the end of the existing address.

plodder

Calina wrote: »

One of the key issues with Ireland is a tendency to go "yerrah it'll do" and that is the primary argument in favour of Eircode as designed. IT could have been so much more.

True.

Personal view is that while it may be a losing battle in terms of fixing the post code system to something better and more in line with best international practice given the opportunity it was and wasted, it may have beneficial effects on decisions in the future; it may encourage more people to voice opinions before it gets to this stage with future projects. It may make our decisions makers more inclined to have a longer term view rather than, as seems to be the case, look at short term monetary gains which come with a long term opportunity cost.

As such, I see advantages to pointing out where things could be done better and that there is an increasing demand towards doing things better in this country.

That, in itself, may be tremendously valuable in the future.

Exactly, it's very important that people realise if there is no public consultation when it comes to designing important national infrastructure, then what you get is not guaranteed to be in the public interest.

I'm not suggesting anything untoward obviously, but the trade-offs are different. For instance, what we got is a design that causes less trouble for the contractor at the cost of less usefullness for the public. If it were done differently, we might have got a more useful design at the cost of a little more trouble for the contractor.

It wouldn't happen that roads, rail or other built infrastructure would be just be presented as a fait-accompli with no opportunity for public input, why should it be acceptable in projects like this?

GJG

Calina wrote: »

One of the key issues with Ireland is a tendency to go "yerrah it'll do" and that is the primary argument in favour of Eircode as designed. IT could have been so much more.

Personal view is that while it may be a losing battle in terms of fixing the post code system to something better and more in line with best international practice given the opportunity it was and wasted, it may have beneficial effects on decisions in the future; it may encourage more people to voice opinions before it gets to this stage with future projects. It may make our decisions makers more inclined to have a longer term view rather than, as seems to be the case, look at short term monetary gains which come with a long term opportunity cost.

As such, I see advantages to pointing out where things could be done better and that there is an increasing demand towards doing things better in this country.

That, in itself, may be tremendously valuable in the future.

I totally agree with your Yerra, shur point, but I don't think it applies here.

I am willing to concede when people say a particular judgement call should have gone the other way, and they seem to have a point, but that is a totally different thing to saying that the decision was utterly wrong. People have to make a decision to move anything forward. Making the perfect the enemy of the good is a recipe for inaction.

That said, some of the drums that the Loc8iban are still banging are patent nonsense; a hierarchical or sequential code means that the closer the properties, the more similar their codes, so there would be the least difference between properties that share addresses. If someone is unwilling or incapable of understanding why that is a very bad idea, there is little point in engaging with them.

An important feature of Eircode is a unique property identifier to deter, prevent and detect fraud in tax, social welfare, insurance and many others. A self-service code, where people can generate multiple codes for the same property, and codes that cover multiple properties would eliminate much of that functionality.

After those two simple points, it's all details. I'm happy to discuss the details, but the idea of scrapping a system because of some aesthetic disagreement on the details is just silly.

Sam Russell wrote: »

I do not like the random codes, but hey .... .

Your aesthetics are not part of the design process.

Sam Russell wrote: »

I do think an attempt to standardised addressing in Ireland, and I include the requirement to number houses in named streets that have names.

Sure, go for it. Nothing about Eircode is inhibiting that process in any way; you might as well say no postcodes until the Shannon is drained or until the Seanad is abolished or unless the statue from Ballinspittle walks around handing them out.

Sam Russell wrote: »

I do think a better attempt at dealing with non-unique addresses should have been attempted even if it took time.

Again, off you toddle. Nobody is stopping you.

Sam Russell wrote: »

That and smaller routing keys and we would be fine.

If you ever work in management, you will learn why waiting for perfection is a bad idea

Sam Russell wrote: »

I do like the fixed length code, but D6W was a big mistake.

No, it was a very minor mistake. Keep things in proportion.

plodder

GJG wrote: »

That said, some of the drums that the Loc8iban are still banging are patent nonsense; a hierarchical or sequential code means that the closer the properties, the more similar their codes, so there would be the least difference between properties that share addresses. If someone is unwilling or incapable of understanding why that is a very bad idea, there is little point in engaging with them.

It's not even worth debating then? Well, addresses have exactly that characteristic - that addresses physically closest to each other are also the most similar. I've never heard anyone complain about that before. Oops ..

What you're doing here is taking a design decision made by Eircode, and trying to turn it into a requirement.

An important feature of Eircode is a unique property identifier to deter, prevent and detect fraud in tax, social welfare, insurance and many others. A self-service code, where people can generate multiple codes for the same property, and codes that cover multiple properties would eliminate much of that functionality.

No, they wouldn't. As explained numerous times already - there can be valid/invalid Eircodes (eg A41 XY01 is invalid). So, you need the database to determine which ones are real. You can use a database with geocodes. The difference is that the "invalid" codes in a geocode are still useful for other purposes (navigation to tops of mountains, bottoms of lakes for example)

After those two simple points, it's all details.

indeed.

GJG

plodder wrote: »

It's not even worth debating then? Well, addresses have exactly that characteristic - that addresses physically closest to each other are also the most similar. I've never heard anyone complain about that before. Oops ..

What you're doing here is taking a design decision made by Eircode, and trying to turn it into a requirement.
.

I'm aware of a single rural road, where two houses have the same address, family name and first name of occupants. If it's only first initial and surname, then there are four possible houses, and two other instances of two houses each.

Eircode took the view that having just a single character to distinguish all of those houses was simply too error-prone. (They went far further, no two houses in the same townland, or another townland with a similar name will ever have similar Eircodes.) I can't possibly see how they could have called it any different, but if you disagree, you disagree, fine.

But when someone says this decision of Eircode was self-evidently wrong, smack-down proof of stupidity, corruption and incompetence, and makes the entire Eircode system a waste of money, and not open to discussing its necessity then, yes, there is no point of discussion with such a person.

plodder wrote: »

No, they wouldn't. As explained numerous times already - there can be valid/invalid Eircodes (eg A41 XY01 is invalid). So, you need the database to determine which ones are real. You can use a database with geocodes. The difference is that the "invalid" codes in a geocode are still useful for other purposes (navigation to tops of mountains, bottoms of lakes for example)

Sure, if you disregard its unsuitability as per the above, then a geocode backed with a validation database would be just as good as an Eircode backed by a validation database; that's self-evident.

marmurr1916

MarkK wrote: »

The address is still 8 Grand Parade, Cork.
The postcode goes at the end of the existing address.

Precisely. In that respect, eircode is like every other postcode.

The eircode is a supplement to the address, not a substitute for it, just like all other postcodes.

Eircodes are designed to enable non-unique postal addresses, about 35% of all Irish addresses, to be distinguished from each other without disrupting the current townland system and without the need to name roads or number houses in rural townlands.

plodder

GJG wrote: »

I'm aware of a single rural road, where two houses have the same address, family name and first name of occupants. If it's only first initial and surname, then there are four possible houses, and two other instances of two houses each.

and each house will have a different code

Eircode took the view that having just a single character to distinguish all of those houses was simply too error-prone. (They went far further, no two houses in the same townland, or another townland with a similar name will ever have similar Eircodes.) I can't possibly see how they could have called it any different, but if you disagree, you disagree, fine.

I disagree. Though if you have bought into it, fair enough. I think it is a moderately useful (nice to have) feature if considered in its own right, but it was never a requirement, and certainly should never have been used beforehand or afterwards, to rule out other types of code.

I don't know much about Autoaddress, but given their name, maybe address validation is what they do, and it is natural that they would highlight this feature over all others. If that's the case, it's kind of accidental then, that we ended up with a code with this characteristic.

There are other possible aspects of a postcode design that are much more important in my opinion.

Calina

GJG wrote: »

I totally agree with your Yerra, shur point, but I don't think it applies here.

We will have to agree to disagree. Eircode's own assessment highlighted that it was not inline with best practice and that this was a key disadvantage of the design.

GJG wrote: »

I am willing to concede when people say a particular judgement call should have gone the other way, and they seem to have a point, but that is a totally different thing to saying that the decision was utterly wrong. People have to make a decision to move anything forward. Making the perfect the enemy of the good is a recipe for inaction.

I didn't say the action was utterly wrong. The fact remains that we had an opportunity to implement a best possible and modern system. Elements of the Eircode design mean that this didn't happen. Amongst them are the hierarchical elements that you consider a bad idea.

GJG wrote: »

That said, some of the drums that the Loc8iban are still banging are patent nonsense; a hierarchical or sequential code means that the closer the properties, the more similar their codes, so there would be the least difference between properties that share addresses. If someone is unwilling or incapable of understanding why that is a very bad idea, there is little point in engaging with them.

Unfortunately, there is a valid point suggesting that the lack of a hierarchical design element means that the eircode is not useful as a navigational tool without a database look up. I consider this a down side as it happens.

One of the core problems is we used a postcode to individualise addresses which has little geographic meaning. Ultimately I would have preferred a decent numbering system. The argument against that is that no one would have wanted it but it's fair to say that if the choice is an address system whereby postal and physical addresses match up, or a near totally randomised house counting system - which is all the postcode is anyway - that cannot be navigated without a database look up, either online or via a locally stored copy of it - I'd argue in favour of house number.

Plus making it mandatory to indicate that number. Other countries manage this and I know towns in France which have undertaken renumbering exercises in the last 30 years or so. It's not impossible and most of those saying that it would have been hard, unwelcome, impossible have provided no evidence to support that. I know rural people with townland addresses who would have preferred that to the idiocy whereby An Post have moved their address from one townland to another to facilitate their sorting meaning that their postal addresses are meaningless in geographic terms anyway.

GJG wrote: »

An important feature of Eircode is a unique property identifier to deter, prevent and detect fraud in tax, social welfare, insurance and many others. A self-service code, where people can generate multiple codes for the same property, and codes that cover multiple properties would eliminate much of that functionality.

You'll have to forgive me but I'm sick of hearing that excuse. When it's pointed out that as a system, Eircode has issues relating to its utility for routing non-postal deliveries, we get told it's a postcode, designed to facilitate delivery of post. If the pps numbers which are person specific are not adequate to prevent tax and SW fraud, then I'm pretty sure that eircodes will not be either. If eircode is a postal system, then facilitating logistics deliveries is more in line with its function than being an antifraud device.

GJG wrote: »

After those two simple points, it's all details. I'm happy to discuss the details, but the idea of scrapping a system because of some aesthetic disagreement on the details is just silly.

Most of the arguments I have seen against eircode are not aesthetic. Aimead has posted at length why it has issues in terms of facilitating logistics distribution. At no point has he said "I just don't like how the letter groupings look, dude".

I'm not sure the country desperately needed a postcode system. What it did need was a situation whereby physical and delivery routing addresses matched and were some way logical. We don't have that, and I'm not sure that eircode really gives you this.

oscarBravo

Calina wrote: »

Aimead has posted at length why it has issues in terms of facilitating logistics distribution.

The point both Aimead and you are carefully avoiding is that his use case is very much an edge case, in that it involves pickups and deliveries that appear to be almost exclusively to and from non-postal addresses. What percentage of deliveries are made in this country to non-postal addresses? I'm willing to bet that it's small.

I'm not sure the country desperately needed a postcode system. What it did need was a situation whereby physical and delivery routing addresses matched and were some way logical. We don't have that, and I'm not sure that eircode really gives you this.

What we needed was a way to reliably locate addresses. An Eircode gives you a latitude and a longitude. That's all I need.

I accept Aimead's reservations about the utility of eircodes for his use case. They are also useless to me for locating things that don't have postal addresses, which is a use case I have, and for which I use WGS84 co-ordinates, and will continue to do so.

What I wonder is how many of the other objectors' issues are grounded in actual problems for them. The people who are complaining about non-hierarchical codes: do they actually have an application for a hierarchical code, or is the objection merely aesthetic?

I run a business that requires me to know exactly where my customers are. Eircodes are useful to me. Could they be more useful? Maybe, but I'm not going to throw my toys out of the pram over it.

Calina

oscarBravo wrote: »

An Eircode gives you a latitude and a longitude. That's all I need.

You need a database look up to get that. As such, on the ground, without access to the database, it's useless. Street numbering is already more useful.

oscarBravo

Calina wrote: »

You need a database look up to get that. As such, on the ground, without access to the database, it's useless.

And my fleet of vans is useless without access to diesel.

Yes, I need access to the database. This doesn't change the fact that, with access to the database - which the person who manages the drivers has, at all times - Eircodes are useful for my purposes.

Street numbering is already more useful.

Yeah, it's a panacea in the rural areas where my business operates. Maybe you should tell Aimead to use street numbers.

Calina

oscarBravo wrote: »

And my fleet of vans is useless without access to diesel.

Yes, I need access to the database. This doesn't change the fact that, with access to the database - which the person who manages the drivers has, at all times - Eircodes are useful for my purposes. Yeah, it's a panacea in the rural areas where my business operates. Maybe you should tell Aimead to use street numbers.

I'm from a rural area. And telling me to tell another user to use street numbers is not helpful when the issue I am pointing out is that in many places we have none.

I'm happy that you've got diesel enough for your vans and what's more you live in a fantastic part of rural Ireland that has fantastic always on high speed wireless internet.

But quite a lot of the country doesn't have that. And there are days the network goes down. And there are days databases go down. On such days if you arrive at 1 Main Road, and want to get to 5 Main Road, you have a good chance of making it. Arriving at N00 AFGH tells you nothing whatsoever by comparison. A system which was not 100% technology reliant because it featured oh some slightly more granular geographical hierarchical which meant that perhaps, people would at least have a fighting chance of knowing when they are relatively near their destination.

Not only is there a tendency in this country to do yerrah it'll do, there is a tendency on the part of some people to think that a 100% technology based solution is the best for everything. It isn't.

ukoda

Calina wrote: »

You need a database look up to get that. As such, on the ground, without access to the database, it's useless. Street numbering is already more useful.

What's the big deal about accessing a database? We've already know it will fit on any sat nav or smart phone for offline use as the requirement is only about 20mb of storage.

GJG

Calina wrote: »

Unfortunately, there is a valid point suggesting that the lack of a hierarchical design element means that the eircode is not useful as a navigational tool without a database look up. I consider this a down side as it happens.

One of the core problems is we used a postcode to individualise addresses which has little geographic meaning. Ultimately I would have preferred a decent numbering system. The argument against that is that no one would have wanted it but it's fair to say that if the choice is an address system whereby postal and physical addresses match up, or a near totally randomised house counting system - which is all the postcode is anyway - that cannot be navigated without a database look up, either online or via a locally stored copy of it - I'd argue in favour of house number.

Plus making it mandatory to indicate that number. Other countries manage this and I know towns in France which have undertaken renumbering exercises in the last 30 years or so. It's not impossible and most of those saying that it would have been hard, unwelcome, impossible have provided no evidence to support that. I know rural people with townland addresses who would have preferred that to the idiocy whereby An Post have moved their address from one townland to another to facilitate their sorting meaning that their postal addresses are meaningless in geographic terms anyway.

So what? There is absolutely nothing about Eircode that inhibits any of that. I'm sure a dozen or more bills pass the Oireachtas every week. Would you object to all of them on the basis that they don't include this proposal of yours?

plodder wrote: »

and each house will have a different code

But how different? The view taken was that a single character in the entire address was not enough. I happen to agree, partly because I worked in a business where we regularly got post for addresses only vaguely similar to ours.

You can disagree with me, fine, but even if you disagree, it's hardly an unreasonably minimum threshold to set, four distinct characters as the minimum difference between addresses.

Calina wrote: »

You need a database look up to get that. As such, on the ground, without access to the database, it's useless. Street numbering is already more useful.

a) How does Eircode inhibit street numbering
b) Hang on a second...

plodder wrote: »

No, they wouldn't. As explained numerous times already - there can be valid/invalid Eircodes (eg A41 XY01 is invalid). So, you need the database to determine which ones are real. You can use a database with geocodes. The difference is that the "invalid" codes in a geocode are still useful for other purposes (navigation to tops of mountains, bottoms of lakes for example)

Eircode bad because it needs a database for some functions, but geocodes good because they can work when they are used in tandem with a database?

Calina

ukoda wrote: »

What's the big deal about accessing a database? We've already know it will fit on any sat nav or smart phone for offline use as the requirement is only about 20mb of storage.

Not everyone uses either or both. This has been pointed out to you several times. Also, 20Mb represents quite a few photographs on a smart phone.

But fine. We will wind up doing what we always do in this country which is make do.

GJG

Calina wrote: »

Not everyone uses either or both. This has been pointed out to you several times. Also, 20Mb represents quite a few photographs on a smart phone.

But fine. We will wind up doing what we always do in this country which is make do.

To put that in context, Angry Birds 2 takes up 200Mb on my phone, other games can take up to 500Mb. As of a year ago, smartphone penetration was 72 per cent, growing at 14.7 per cent per quarter. I don't think we need to worry much. Source.

SpaceTime

Your satnav already has to have a database of all the addresses in Ireland basically.
All you're adding is a 7-character code and ensuring they're all there.

I can't see it being THAT big.

Also, considering that we don't have street addresses in a lot of cases, it might actually mean the first time that sat navs in Ireland actually work!

I can't enter most Irish addresses at all as it stands, as they have house names.

Some satnavs force you to enter house numbers too which doesn't work if there aren't any. So, you end up going to 1 Leafy Road just to keep the sat nav happy, even though there's actually no numbers on Leafy Road.

ukoda

Calina wrote: »

Not everyone uses either or both. This has been pointed out to you several times. Also, 20Mb represents quite a few photographs on a smart phone.

But fine. We will wind up doing what we always do in this country which is make do.

Any postcode is limited in use without a device of some sort.

Can't navigate without a device
Can't route plan without a device
Can't do address validation without a device
Can't find a destination without a device

We live in the age of technology, eircode works with technology, I don't have to "make do" it fulfills the needs I have for a postcode.

clewbays

Calina wrote: »

not inline with best practice and that this was a key disadvantage of the design

You have said this before but can you explain what you regard as best practice

Calina wrote: »

we had an opportunity to implement a best possible and modern system.

is this best possible and modern system consistent with best practice?

Calina wrote: »

lack of a hierarchical design element means that the eircode is not useful as a navigational tool without a database look up

a spatial code does not have to be hierarchical to be useful as a navigational tool

oscarBravo

Calina wrote: »

I'm happy that you've got diesel enough for your vans and what's more you live in a fantastic part of rural Ireland that has fantastic always on high speed wireless internet.

Straw man. You're operating on the assumption that it's impossible to navigate to a location specified by an Eircode unless you have Internet access right to the door of the property.

You don't. You need to know the location that the Eircode refers to, and that can be determined by the person who's scheduling the customer visits; as I've already pointed out, that person has Internet access at all times (it's a prerequisite for their job). The crew that have to call to the house need enough Internet access to click on a Google Maps link in their Google Calendar app, and follow the turn-by-turn directions that they get as a result.

Now, do they always have Internet access in order to access those directions? No, they don't. The counter argument seems to be that if the code were designed differently, they would somehow be able to mentally parse it in such a way as to get somewhere relatively close to their destination, and... well, the rest of the argument seems to be omitted.

But quite a lot of the country doesn't have that. And there are days the network goes down. And there are days databases go down. On such days if you arrive at 1 Main Road, and want to get to 5 Main Road, you have a good chance of making it. Arriving at N00 AFGH tells you nothing whatsoever by comparison. A system which was not 100% technology reliant because it featured oh some slightly more granular geographical hierarchical which meant that perhaps, people would at least have a fighting chance of knowing when they are relatively near their destination.

Since when did knowing you were somewhere near your destination become good enough? You think a courier gets to drop a parcel off somewhere within a few hundred metres of a house and call it delivered?

Like a courier, my business requires that I be able to identify the exact premises where the customer is located. If I want to be able to get within a ten minute drive, I'll do what I've done pre-Eircode which is to drive to the customer's address, which might be fairly close. Or it might not.

Eircode gives me their precise location. Yes, it needs a database lookup to do that. Big f*cking deal. That's not a deal-breaker for me. It's not even much of a speedbump. I can use the Eircode to precisely locate the customer. That's my requirement satisfied.

Once again: I can see how it doesn't satisfy the requirement of someone whose business revolves around being able to locate non-residential or -business premises; and that's fair enough. But to argue that Eircode is a failure because you can think of scenarios where another code might have worked better is just standard Irish "it's not perfect therefore it's a complete cluster****" begrudgery.

Not only is there a tendency in this country to do yerrah it'll do, there is a tendency on the part of some people to think that a 100% technology based solution is the best for everything. It isn't.

But I'm not arguing that yerrah it'll do, I'm arguing that I'm already successfully using Eircodes in my business, and your doomsday scenarios of how disastrous it will be if I ever don't have Internet access are, frankly, not a blip on my horizon.

If the guy in the van doesn't have Internet access, then he's no worse off than he was before Eircodes were released. If he does have it (which, as much as I bitch about crappy mobile Internet, is often enough that it's realistically not a problem) then he gets to reap the benefit.

If lack of Internet access was a show-stopping problem, I would already have had to build low-tech solutions into my daily business processes. I haven't.

tl;dr: Eircodes are benefiting my business. I'm sorry if reality is contradicting your theories, but there it is.

recedite

oscarBravo wrote: »

Straw man. You're operating on the assumption that it's impossible to navigate to a location specified by an Eircode unless you have Internet access right to the door of the property....

Now, do they always have Internet access in order to access those directions? No, they don't. The counter argument seems to be that if the code were designed differently, they would somehow be able to mentally parse it in such a way as to get somewhere relatively close to their destination, and... well, the rest of the argument seems to be omitted.

For someone who bangs on about strawman arguments, you're not shy about creating them yourself.

The first strawman above in bold; who actually says that? You could check the location on the eircode finder website back in the office, and then convert GPS co-ordinates. Its possible, but time consuming and error prone.

The second strawman is also nonsense. If it were designed differently, the code would always relate to the co-ordinates of the address via a single formula or algorithm. In other words it would be a code, and not just a reference number. As such, it could be input into a standard type sat-nav device without requiring any internet access, and the device would calculate the route etc. in the normal way.