National Postcodes to be introduced

SpaceTime

Dublin postal districts and quite possibly the Cork ones were introduced in 1917 and tweaked a bit over the years.

Cork was divided up into postal districts, but nobody ever used them for some reason. They're on the street signs and they come in on your address on the TV Licence demands.

The London ones were sometime in the late 1800s.

Basically in that system you'd a delivery office in each district. So, it just meant that in a manual sorting system you'd box 1,2,3,4,5 etc

London being a lot bigger and having a lot more postal centres, used letters for South, North, East, West etc too which were just kept in place for the new postcodes.

Originally, the Dublin codes were actually D1,D2,D3 etc as it was part of the Royal Mail system. At least that's what the articles on Wiki say.

Bigger French cities have arrondissements which are the same thing really.

E.g. Paris has 20 arrondissements 1st to the 20th and there's huge snobbery attached to certain numbers. They're incorporated into the very simple French post code system as 750XX

So if you were in the 4th Arrondissement you're 75004

Pretty useless system for GPS or any detail really and only ever intended for 1960s computers to sort post.

75 = the department (like county) of Seine
0 - nothing particular
04- 4th arrondissement.

In the proposed Irish system:

There's no particular reason why you'd necessarily want to merge those into the new codes. You could still write to:

RTE
Donnybrook
Dublin 4
X22 Y1N23

Whopping saving of 1 or 2 digits isn't really a big deal.

Sam Russell

Thanks for that. The proposed system is missing all of the detail other than it will consist of two groups, oneof three characters starting with a letter, and the second group consisting of four characters. Details beyond that are supposed - by trying to attach some logic to the bald information.

The proposed system will either aid postal sorting and delivery or will aid geo-location. To attain both simultaniously will require a significant management of databases to link the two and ongoing maitenance to add 'new' addresses to the system.

An Post are confident that they have the first one sorted (if you pardon the pun) and have no requirement for a postal code system. That may be so.

If the postal code system is not required for postal purposes, then the postcode system we need is for geo-location. If so, then we divide the country into districts defined by the first 3 characters (several thousand) in the proposed code. The location from the centre of each district is defined by some translation algorithm to get a point location using the last four characters. The translation is required to stop the random generation of rude or impolite codes. It is also needed to error check the codes. If the granularity of the system is adequate to define every location, then there is no need for maitenance. We do not 'maintain' the map co-ordinate system.

It smacks of the old 'jobs for the boys' and the brown envelope syndrome. The reason it is taking so long is no-one can agree what is to go into the brown envelope or who is to get it.

murphaph

I don't understand why the Dublin postal districts have to survive and new post code introduction, nor why the code should have some letters that may or may not relate (vaguely) to some postal town or county. The codes can and should appear random for reasons already discussed (Irish language lobby will moan if the letters chosen are the English representations of the town/county). It's a fudge as always instead of a clean break and a fresh system.

Jack180570

The question I have is... Why isn't the Minister using the available, proven and FREE system that already exists?
Its not like we have loads of money to be wasting trying to reinvent the wheel and its not like we dont need, in my humble opinion...

mackerski

Jack180570 wrote: »

The question I have is... Why isn't the Minister using the available, proven and FREE system that already exists?
Its not like we have loads of money to be wasting trying to reinvent the wheel and its not like we dont need, in my humble opinion...

Which one? Does it do what the government wanted (if it's an algorithmic manipulation of co-ordinaries it doesn't)?

Jack180570

Hi Mackerski...
Its the postcode system that works...
the one that can give any point in the country a specific postcode, and its free.

SPDUB

murphaph wrote: »

I don't understand why the Dublin postal districts have to survive

Political pressure from the people in the D4 district

nor why the code should have some letters that may or may not relate (vaguely) to some postal town or county

Nobody has said they will apart from in Dublin and indeed if they don't want to cause problems with the Irish language lobby it would be best to avoid any connection with codes that are obviously versions of town or county names in English .

As for the Wiki article and postal districts it is both right and wrong .

The Royal Mail did leave the D prefixes aside for Dublin in 1917 but they weren't introduced to the public until 1963

GoCoder

Jack180570 wrote: »

Hi Mackerski...
Its the postcode system that works...
the one that can give any point in the country a specific postcode, and its free.

Which one?

Jack180570

@GoCoder.... this is boards.ie not adverts.ie....
no advertising of products is allowed...
if you don't know which one I am referring to then you most likely will not be able to answer my question...
Thank you.

mackerski

Jack180570 wrote: »

Hi Mackerski...
Its the postcode system that works...
the one that can give any point in the country a specific postcode, and its free.

But what colour are these wonderful postcodes? We should be told...

radagast

Red...

Considering how long the country will be in the red paying for it!

Carawaystick

Jack180570 wrote: »

@GoCoder.... this is boards.ie not adverts.ie....
no advertising of products is allowed...
if you don't know which one I am referring to then you most likely will not be able to answer my question...
Thank you.

If it was trully free, then it would not be advertising.
Are you talking about loc8?

mackerski

Carawaystick wrote: »

If it was trully free, then it would not be advertising.
Are you talking about loc8?

Clearly not, unless "free" has changed its meaning.

Curly Judge

GoCoder wrote: »

Have you or any of your two Amigos ever picked up the phone and asked how much it would cost to get Loc8 implemented.
I don't, in all honestly, know the answer but I'll bet a pound against one of your smirks that it'll be lot less than 25 million and a lot shorter than the ever lengthening time frame your process will involve.

mackerski

Curly Judge wrote: »

Have you or any of your two Amigos ever picked up the phone and asked how much it would cost to get Loc8 implemented.
I don't, in all honestly, know the answer but I'll bet a pound against one of your smirks that it'll be lot less than 25 million and a lot shorter than the ever lengthening time frame your process will involve.

A co-ordinate system (which is what Loc8 is) will not give us a postcode. Specifically, without a central database of each address in the country, any given property could be addressed by a great many co-ordinates, given that houses and land parcels have extent and are not simple points.

So which of the many possible co-ordinates should be the actual postcode to be used as the unique reference for your address? The government has chosen to build a database to solve this problem. This effort is extensive and therefore expensive, regardless of the implementation details of whatever code you chose to use.

The encoding isn't the expensive bit, basically.

BailMeOut

Curly Judge wrote: »

Have you or any of your two Amigos ever picked up the phone and asked how much it would cost to get Loc8 implemented.
I don't, in all honestly, know the answer but I'll bet a pound against one of your smirks that it'll be lot less than 25 million and a lot shorter than the ever lengthening time frame your process will involve.

Any technology used needs to be wholly owned by the state. Loc8 is not free as there would be licensing requirements for the post office to utilize the database. Yes it is free for you to get a code for your house but there is a license cost for any equipment on the vans and trucks that use this technology. I am sure they would love to negotiate some cost to license this to the Post Office for xx years but who know what happens after that. The codes must be owned and freely available to anyone after put in place. €25m for an investment that may last 100 years is money well spent.

Sam Russell

BailMeOut wrote: »

Any technology used needs to be wholly owned by the state.

€25m for an investment that may last 100 years is money well spent.

Did they not say that about electronic voting?

They bought the outdated hardware for ten times its value and left the software to be owned by the Dutch company. Money well spent indeed!

BailMeOut

Sam Russell wrote: »

Did they not say that about electronic voting?

They bought the outdated hardware for ten times its value and left the software to be owned by the Dutch company. Money well spent indeed!

If we develop a post code system for €25m that is ultimately owned by a private company (e.g. Loc8) then that is obviously a bad thing.

What I said is that any post code system must be wholly ours and owned and controlled by the state. I have also expressed my opinion as a citizen to to the minister of communications. Hopefully other concerned citizens will do the same.

larchill

SpaceTime wrote: »

In the proposed Irish system:

There's no particular reason why you'd necessarily want to merge those into the new codes. You could still write to:

RTE
Donnybrook
Dublin 4
X22 Y1N23

Whopping saving of 1 or 2 digits isn't really a big deal.

No, that'll be D04 Y1N23 or whatever: they'll still be using the Dublin postal districts:D

larchill

aimhigh wrote: »

That's broadly what ABC 123 was trying to do. It was what PA consulting and the Post Code Board recommended and what got Cabinet approval in 2010 with PA steering implementation;- here's that link again:
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/ryan-under-fire-as-firm-wins-05m-contract-on-postcodes-26685975.html

However, it took 32 months of a failed tender process for them to discover that this would not work... unbelieveable! ... but why?....

1. The choice between Irish V English version of the Name
2. Too many confusing 3 character combinations, Rathmore, Rathcormac, Rathnew etc etc etc!

having now found that out with nearly 3 more years wasted (10 altogether!) they have now changed the design, PA is gone, Capita is in and they have to start all over again...!

....and by the looks of it they have decided D04 stays but D6W is gone..... well that's what they think - wait till the people in D6W find out!

I am sorry to say that this is unlikely to see the light of day and this thread, already 4 years old will probably celebrate its 10th birthday still running and most definietly boards.ie 's longest running thread ever ever ever :cool::mad::o!!!!!!!!

The ABC 123 proposal proposed by the last Government for implementation by PA Consulting was based upon streets in urban areas (citys & towns) &

townlands in rural areas. In towns, taking 'Main St' as an example, the ABC part is the code for the postal town (or postal district), the 'Main St' will be say 001

to give ABC 001. Where Main St intersects with another street, county bountry, river, or Electoral Division (ED), the code changes to 002, & so on if there're

other streets till the end of Main St is reached. In rural areas, the numerical part (001, 002, etc) relates to the townland up to 50 units. So, if Ballymiddleof nowhere

is in the area of postal district DEF, then the code will be say DEF 123. In the event of there being more than 50 units then the townland is split into 2 to give DEF

123, & DEF 124. As with urban areas if the townland is crosses a county boundary, river, or ED another code is used eg: DEF 125. The problem with this

proposal was that while in urban areas it would be sufficient enough in locating a premises down to 15 - 20 units, in rural areas it was inadequate & not an

improvement on the current situation. Upon coming into office in 2011 the new Minister Pat Rabbite stated that the current proposal was to be reexamined in the

light of the availability of location finding technology (satnav, & gps) with a view to arrive at the best approach. The proposal announced last week is such with

each premises having a unique code - a world 1st.

SpaceTime

That previous system sounds very over complicated

petronius

What did the Nazis ever do for us? - Post Codes!

Well I cant see how much of a major benefit it is, individual post codes for each mail box - well turns us into numbers ... I am amazed and like the fact that some addresses in ireland are name, town and county and they get there no bother.

The argument of ambulances being easier to find a patient may make sense but i dont know how with gps etc. how much of a benefit it is, and if the post code is not known or wrong cud it be as easily a problem

I have my suspicions it is something to track every household to make the property tax etc more efficient.

Sam Russell

We already have a very good system for locating premises. It is used by the ESB Networks to find their meters, and Bord Gais Networks have a system as well to find theirs. That will be adequate to use as a valid (because people pay their bills) and unique (because double billing is unproductive) system. It is maintained by both companies as part of their bisiness, so no net cost to the state so a bonus there and both companies are owned by the state. All is needed is to add a location code for each address in the data base and we are there.

Unfortunately, this does not allow for any side benefits for politicians and their friends.

SpaceTime

Hmmm My MPRN locates the wrong address lol

Sam Russell

SpaceTime wrote: »

Hmmm My MPRN locates the wrong address lol

Well, if it pointed to your post code, then you would get it corrected or you would get no mail. That is the point, if it is important to people, errors get corrected. On the other hand, if all you get is junk mail and unwanted bills, fines and such, you will not want it corrected.

BailMeOut

Sam Russell wrote: »

We already have a very good system for locating premises. It is used by the ESB Networks to find their meters, and Bord Gais Networks have a system as well to find theirs. That will be adequate to use as a valid (because people pay their bills) and unique (because double billing is unproductive) system. It is maintained by both companies as part of their bisiness, so no net cost to the state so a bonus there and both companies are owned by the state. All is needed is to add a location code for each address in the data base and we are there.

Unfortunately, this does not allow for any side benefits for politicians and their friends.

don't ESB and Bord gas 'own' these systems? What if they decide they want huge payments from the post office or courier companies to use these numbers. System has to be open and freely usable and not at the behest of any other 3rd party.

Curly Judge

BailMeOut wrote: »

don't ESB and Bord gas 'own' these systems? What if they decide they want huge payments from the post office or courier companies to use these numbers. System has to be open and freely usable and not at the behest of any other 3rd party.

If an Irish hospital wants a CAT scanner in the morning, what does it do?
Form a committee that sits for 10 years and draws up the plans for a new, never before seen or heard of, scanner.
Or... buys, leases or licences the use of a scanner from a private [dirty word, I know] company.
Do the public expect the private company to provide the service free of charge?
I would suggest that what the public want is the scanner provided and operated at a reasonable, competitive price and [equally important] that the bloody thing does what it says on the tin.

SpaceTime

Usually they form a committee, talk about it for ten years then buy and install it but refuse to hire anyone to run it. Then by the time they consider hiring them the machine is obsolete so they can't use it anyway.

BailMeOut

Curly Judge wrote: »

If an Irish hospital wants a CAT scanner in the morning, what does it do?
Form a committee that sits for 10 years and draws up the plans for a new, never before seen or heard of, scanner.
Or... buys, leases or licences the use of a scanner from a private [dirty word, I know] company.
Do the public expect the private company to provide the service free of charge?
I would suggest that what the public want is the scanner provided and operated at a reasonable, competitive price and [equally important] that the bloody thing does what it says on the tin.

very different situation. I am talking about not wanting a private 3rd party entity own the keys and intellectual rights to how every business and home is addressed and ultimately how all goods are picked up and delivered.

This is going to the best €25m ever spent as we are going to see a massive uptake in online commerce in this country. Business will see their bits getting picked up and delivered faster and as a bonus ambulance and guards maybe find people in rural areas. I do not want us as a nation to be at the mercy of anyone for this to all work smoothly for the next 100 years.

murphaph

petronius wrote: »

I have my suspicions it is something to track every household to make the property tax etc more efficient.

Would it be such a bad thing?