Eircode and Google Maps Working

Ben D Bus

I've only just seen this thread so I excitedly entered my Eircode.

Not found

So still not perfect?

larchill

They'd better not make any announcements yet so! They'd only have even more thrown at them

plodder

swampgas wrote: »

I wonder if there are any other countries where the postcode uniquely identifies an address?

I don't believe so. In a lot of countries, large public buildings may have their own code, but those countries' postcodes don't generally uniquely identify buildings.

If not, then the existing algorithms in Google's codebase are probably designed to translate a postcode into a defined area on the map, rather than a specific point or address. Integrating Eircodes may require additional features (and maybe new API calls) that were not required before.

That's what I thought initially, but from what I can see, places in google maps are identified uniquely by a placeid which is a long random string. So, it should be possible to have multiple "places" with different Eircodes and different placeids, at the same location. But, there could be other hidden constraints. Maybe the system assumes that different places are at different physical locations. That would be a problem if true, though there would be ways around it.

sennah

BailMeOut wrote: »

one thing nobody has talked about and that how they will match business markers that are manually placed when setup to the official Eircode marker. In most cases you would imagine that the markers will be off unless the business happened to place exactly where the eircode is. Not a huge issue but you will end up with the eircode marker not matching the business. The fix would be to get all business to edit their listings to include their eircode on their address.

Google have been requesting Eircodes this past number of months when submitting business listings. Unfortunately, it looks like they've ignored them as many of the businesses I manage are not matching their Eircode location despite it being included when they were setup. That's not to say they won't come back when it's setup and re-align any business listings that had an Eircode included with their correct geo

plodder wrote: »

...That's what I thought initially, but from what I can see, places in google maps are identified uniquely by a placeid which is a long random string. So, it should be possible to have multiple "places" with different Eircodes and different placeids, at the same location. But, there could be other hidden constraints. Maybe the system assumes that different places are at different physical locations. That would be a problem if true, though there would be ways around it.

Google use a unique Customer ID or CID for business listings and a Place ID for other objects. The Eircode for the GPO (D01 F5P2) returns a place ID of "ChIJneisa4QOZ0gRiFjzPdksgFk". Doing a reverse lookup on this Place ID does not return the Eircode however... not yet anyway

Based on this, I can't understand why they would be having difficulty with multiple Eircodes sharing the same geo-coordinates as each Eircode would be a unique Place ID. If you look at some of the business listings that Google create themselves, the source data they import is so poor that you usually end up with 10-20 of these listings sitting right atop either on the map... much the same as multi-eircode dwellings would be. However, other than a bit of messing with their API's, I don't know all that much about how they structure their map data so there's probably a lot more to it

ukoda

Newstalk have picked up the story. It's gaining traction on twitter now, surprisingly no complaints about "my codes not working" yet.

MBSnr

ukoda wrote: »

Newstalk have picked up the story. It's gaining traction on twitter now, surprisingly no complaints about "my codes not working" yet.

Gotta love Newstalk - article dated 21/9/16
http://www.newstalk.com/You-can-now-use-Eircode-to-find-places-on-Google-Maps

"Reddit user scannderdarkley revealed last night that the latest Google Maps update for Android included the helpful feature,.. "

scannderdarkley (as spelt by them) isn't a reddit username...

*cough* My post #1... 2/9/16 :rolleyes:

MBSnr

I just tried D01 N971 on my phone in Galway after the latest Android Maps update. If I don't click the auto filled suggestion (just enter the Eircode as shown and click search) I now get a prompt above the map saying,

"Did you mean"

H54 N971

H65 N971

with an EDIT and CLEAR option.

So certainly progress. Desktop Google Maps still takes me to H65 N971 with my location as Galway.

Padster90s

The postcode is now appearing on at address of some places when you google them. Department of Education and National Rehab Hospital being the ones I seen. New feature, wasn't showing this up to Wednesday. Not all addresses are showing the Eircode.

Ben D Bus

Ben D Bus wrote: »

I've only just seen this thread so I excitedly entered my Eircode.

Not found

So still not perfect?

Tried again today and now it's taking the last 4 characters but putting me in Bray instead of Dublin 20. I guess I just need to be patient.

MBSnr

Ben D Bus wrote: »

Tried again today and now it's taking the last 4 characters but putting me in Bray instead of Dublin 20. I guess I just need to be patient.

Yeah been a month now, since I first noticed this, and apartment Eircodes still don't resolve. Kinda thought they'd have it up and running now but then I remembered that it was 'Eircode' and everything related to them tends to happen slowly...

BailMeOut

MBSnr wrote: »

Kinda thought they'd have it up and running now but then I remembered that it was 'Eircode' and everything related to them tends to happen slowly...

Eircode resolves and maps apartments just fine. This is a google issue, nothing to do with Eircode.

lawred2

worked first time

MBSnr

BailMeOut wrote: »

Eircode resolves and maps apartments just fine. This is a google issue, nothing to do with Eircode.

Didn't say otherwise... Just that things don't happen very quickly when the word Eircode is involved..

Sam Russell

Put an address into Eircode finder and got the Eircode - Dublin 8.

Put the Eircode I got into Google and it identified the house correctly but the address it gave was Merchants Quay Dublin 8 - complete *****.

So they have a problem reading the address corectly from the Eircode file.

mrsdewinter

It can't be live yet - I just inputted my own apartment address (in D15 ) and it returned a large house over in D4.

plodder

mrsdewinter wrote: »

It can't be live yet - I just inputted my own apartment address (in D15 ) and it returned a large house over in D4.

I doesn't work for apartments yet, maybe because it expects all postcodes to have different locations, which would be the case for all other countries' postcodes.

Whether it's live, alpha or beta - certainly alpha quality, but it is running on their live system. So, who knows?

plodder

Deedsie wrote: »

Every unbiased person knows it is not live yet.

It's running today on their live system. Fact. This idea that they are just tweaking it as a "beta" is obvious spin. Unique eircodes for apartments is a major feature of Eircode and it doesn't work on google maps yet. I've already outlined ways they can possibly fix it, so that's not in dispute. But alpha quality is a fair summary of the situation.

There will obviously be an announcement when it is officially launched.

"Obviously". Show me where google have announced anything like this before, or where they have said this is only a beta version. I've learned to take every claim coming out of this project with a pinch of salt, ever since google maps "yeah, it's only a few weeks away", or "95% of people know their Eircode".

You lot are your own worst enemies, pouncing on anything that looks like the mildest of criticism and conceding nothing.

PDVerse

plodder wrote: »

It's running today on their live system. Fact. This idea that they are just tweaking it as a "beta" is obvious spin. Unique eircodes for apartments is a major feature of Eircode and it doesn't work on google maps yet. I've already outlined ways they can possibly fix it, so that's not in dispute. But alpha quality is a fair summary of the situation.

"Obviously". Show me where google have announced anything like this before, or where they have said this is only a beta version. I've learned to take every claim coming out of this project with a pinch of salt, ever since google maps "yeah, it's only a few weeks away", or "95% of people know their Eircode".

You lot are your own worst enemies, pouncing on anything that looks like the mildest of criticism and conceding nothing.

Let's just wait until Google has implemented Eircode fully, until then irrelevant speculation just demonstrates the bias of each poster.

ukoda

plodder wrote: »

It's running today on their live system. Fact. This idea that they are just tweaking it as a "beta" is obvious spin. Unique eircodes for apartments is a major feature of Eircode and it doesn't work on google maps yet. I've already outlined ways they can possibly fix it, so that's not in dispute. But alpha quality is a fair summary of the situation.

"Obviously". Show me where google have announced anything like this before, or where they have said this is only a beta version. I've learned to take every claim coming out of this project with a pinch of salt, ever since google maps "yeah, it's only a few weeks away", or "95% of people know their Eircode".

You lot are your own worst enemies, pouncing on anything that looks like the mildest of criticism and conceding nothing.

Google are probably using the Agile approach, I.e. throw it live at 80/90% and fix it on the fly using real user feedback. Something Google are well known for. If you work in IT you know this is a very well respected and often used methodology that literally is a "tweak it when it's live" approach. I wouldn't call it "spin" just a project management approach adapted by a lot of multinationals and start ups.

I don't think anyone claimed it would be *google* who would announce anything, my expectation is that capita / dcenr would announce it, maybe we'll get another Ad

sondagefaux

Looks like you were right:
[font=Arial, sans-serif]dccae.gov.ie [ltr]@Dept_CCAE[/ltr] Oct 17[/font]
[font=Arial, sans-serif]#Eircodes are now searchable on @googlemaps. Just type in your 7 digit Eircode and let Google maps do the rest.

[/font]

MBSnr

^^^
They forgot the prefix...

Some #Eircodes are now searchable on @googlemaps

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Every one I tried is perfect. Happy days.

Ben D Bus

Deedsie wrote: »

Seems to be an issue for apartments? All houses I have tried are perfect.

My apartment is still wrong anyway. Google maps puts me in Bray when I'm actually in Chapelizod. The place it puts me has the same last 4 characters. What I find Strange is that I enter D20 as the first part of the code and it brings me to - and displays - A98. How can it get something so obvious like that wrong? It KNOWS it's displaying a different Eircode to the one I entered!

MBSnr

Malcolm Obnoxious Parakeet wrote: »

Every one I tried is perfect. Happy days.

Not for me. Can't look up some commercial units, apartments or even some shops in a parade....
As others mention - desktop maps also defaults to the local 4 digit code instead, if it hasn't the one you entered.
Bit ****e really being as the Gov dept. are now promoting it as being working with Google maps.

OldMrBrennan83

This post has been deleted.

plodder

Ben D Bus wrote: »

My apartment is still wrong anyway. Google maps puts me in Bray when I'm actually in Chapelizod. The place it puts me has the same last 4 characters. What I find Strange is that I enter D20 as the first part of the code and it brings me to - and displays - A98. How can it get something so obvious like that wrong? It KNOWS it's displaying a different Eircode to the one I entered!

Eircodes that represent multiple units at the same location aren't in the google database. So, the way the search works is it looks for other codes that "best match" and it throws up locations that have the same last four characters, but are pretty much guaranteed to be in the wrong place.

Sam Russell

plodder wrote: »

Eircodes that represent multiple units at the same location aren't in the google database. So, the way the search works is it looks for other codes that "best match" and it throws up locations that have the same last four characters, but are pretty much guaranteed to be in the wrong place.

I think that is a case of Google being too clever by half. The normal search pattern used by Google will not work with Eircode because 'nearest match' is no use when it is dealing with a binary 'Exact match' or 'No match' situation.

Google is brilliant at finding 'nearest match' in all situations - not much use when it concentrates on the random bit and ignores the routing bit. 'Elephant in the room' springs to mind - 'we found the match for the last four characters in 0.2 seconds, what more do you want?'

Impetus

Sam Russell wrote: »

I think that is a case of Google being too clever by half. The normal search pattern used by Google will not work with Eircode because 'nearest match' is no use when it is dealing with a binary 'Exact match' or 'No match' situation.

Google is brilliant at finding 'nearest match' in all situations - not much use when it concentrates on the random bit and ignores the routing bit. 'Elephant in the room' springs to mind - 'we found the match for the last four characters in 0.2 seconds, what more do you want?'

One of the features of the eircode is randomization of the last four characters to make nearest match impossible. A quasi-postcode system, designed by public service idiots for their exclusive use. The most expensive "postcode system" ever implemented in Europe. The Irish state puts up two fingers to the needs of business and private users.

Consistent with virtually every state "designed" infrastructural project in Ireland. A wastefully huge motorway network with no online service areas to minimise travel delays. The offline service areas are under-scaled for the volume of business. Ireland's poorly timed traffic signals do more to create traffic chaos than alleviate it. Planning bureaucracy is a total mess. Apple announced two data centres in Europe at the same time. One in Denmark and one in the West of Ireland. The one in Denmark is nearly completed. The Irish one is still in planning dispute stage. Zurich has 16 tram lines. Dublin, similar size has 2. And Luas trams don't even have a route number. There are no duplex suburban train lines in Irish cities. Dublin Airport T2 is only a few years old, and can't handle the volume of traffic that presents itself.

Greater Cork has the fastest growing population in the country, and is close to running out of serviced land to build new apartments and houses. In the biggest county!

http://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-cpr/censusofpopulation2016-preliminaryresults/copc/ Please see fig 4.

I suspect that most/all the money taken on planning charges is sucked up paying salaries and pensions of unproductive "public servants".

Impetus

D04 YY68 is in Serpantine Ave, Ballsbridge. If you put that eircode into Google maps, it shows an address in Clondalkin - ie

https://www.google.ie/maps/place/Clondalkin,+Dublin,+D22+YY68/@53.3192972,-6.3964925,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x486773448ae8c4fb:0xa448f9093e2024!8m2!3d53.319294!4d-6.3943038

which is D22 YY68

Many eircodes are not recognized in Google maps at all - ie they don't even do a "near match" (ie confuse D4 with D22).

Ben D Bus

Ben D Bus wrote: »

My apartment is still wrong anyway. Google maps puts me in Bray when I'm actually in Chapelizod. The place it puts me has the same last 4 characters. What I find Strange is that I enter D20 as the first part of the code and it brings me to - and displays - A98. How can it get something so obvious like that wrong? It KNOWS it's displaying a different Eircode to the one I entered!

Google Maps has now at least decided to not recognise my Eircode at all. Which I suppose is better than putting me in Bray instead of Chapelizod.

An indication they're still working on it anyway?

Impetus

The State should sue Capita for the EUR 40 million wasted developing the defective eircode.

Use the refund to give every building a number and a road name and a standard town name.

It would cost about 5'000 EUR to give every postal district in the country a 4 digit code - which would be geo meaningful and easy to remember, and useful to business and the population at large.

CSO.ie was the main push behind eircode. CSO can't come up with accurate house price increase statistics because their eircode monster does not work. They can't match the addresses used on stamp tax returns for property transfers (which reveal current property prices) with other data from mortgages. Because of the absence of address consistency between the two datasets. It is no wonder DHL, Fedex and UPS have given two fingers to eircode.

Statistics are supposed to be anonymously collected. The eircode breaches this doctrine. The eircode has made the CSO a big data risk for anybody concerned with their personal privacy.

oscarBravo

Impetus wrote: »

The Irish state puts up two fingers to the needs of business and private users.

Except for those businesses who are blue in the frigging face telling the naysayers how Eircodes have revolutionised the way we do business.

But hey: how can mere facts compete with the combination of a preconceived idea and a closed mind?

You're off-topic. There's a thread open for people to bitch about how Eircodes should have been designed, and come up with brilliant solutions that are perfect in every way, apart from the minor detail that they wouldn't have worked. Maybe we should have one for why we should be driving on the right-hand side of the road, while we're at it.

Impetus

oscarBravo wrote: »

Except for those businesses who are blue in the frigging face telling the naysayers how Eircodes have revolutionised the way we do business.

But hey: how can mere facts compete with the combination of a preconceived idea and a closed mind?

I can't think of any activity that eircodes have "revolutionised the way" business is done. Such an achievement would (a) require wide-scale use and acceptance of the eircode - which is difficult to conceive as the eircode is the most user-unfriendly concept foisted on the public that I can think of (b) they provide no benefit to humans and their long, complex, randomness puts them at a high risk of typographical errors and (c) to use them in a business system has been made needlessly expensive by the licensing or the eircode and accommodating the code structure - requiring customized software because they do not fit into the normal address structure of packaged systems.

SAP, the largest business / financial software system on the planet used by most large companies in the world can't make use of eircodes.

oscarBravo wrote: »

Maybe we should have one for why we should be driving on the right-hand side of the road, while we're at it.

Well at least driving on the right hand side of the road does have a benefit for people who are right handed (ie the majority) as many controls in a car are in the centre console. Also new car models would be available sooner in Ireland.

clewbays

Impetus wrote: »

Statistics are supposed to be anonymously collected.

hmm ... do you mean disseminated?

Impetus

clewbays wrote: »

hmm ... do you mean disseminated?

While they certainly should be anonymously disseminated, I believe it applies to collection of the data too. Otherwise I suspect many people would not be as forthcoming in supplying data. Unique identifiers used to manage the raw data collection function can be hashed using random encryption techniques to prevent lookup of personally identifiable submissions.

Business statistics are probably OK for anonymous dissemination only.

oscarBravo

Impetus wrote: »

I can't think of any activity that eircodes have "revolutionised the way" business is done.

Here's a thought that may shock you: the fact that you can't think of such an activity in no way precludes the existence of such activities.

Such an achievement would (a) require wide-scale use and acceptance of the eircode - which is difficult to conceive as the eircode is the most user-unfriendly concept foisted on the public that I can think of...

And yet, they're being used. When faced with an apparent contradiction, check your premises.

(b) they provide no benefit to humans...

That'll be the same trap of believing that something doesn't exist just because you personally can't comprehend it.

...and their long, complex, randomness puts them at a high risk of typographical errors...

If only there was some way to cross-check an Eircode with an address. Oh wait, there is.

...and (c) to use them in a business system has been made needlessly expensive by the licensing or the eircode and accommodating the code structure - requiring customized software because they do not fit into the normal address structure of packaged systems.

And yet, businesses are investing in both the software changes and licenses required. Why? Because the benefits outweigh the costs.

I don't know how to make this any plainer to you: you're wrong about this. You're arguing from ignorance. If you believe that Eircodes are useless, it's because you're going to lengths to ignore those of us who are telling you how useful they are.

SAP, the largest business / financial software system on the planet used by most large companies in the world can't make use of eircodes.

As a certified SAP consultant in a past life, I'm not even remotely surprised.

Well at least driving on the right hand side of the road does have a benefit for people who are right handed (ie the majority) as many controls in a car are in the centre console. Also new car models would be available sooner in Ireland.

Great! Now all you need to do is completely ignore the cost of switching, and you'll have a compelling argument for changing over.

Sam Russell

I can't implement Eircodes on my Christmas card list because I do not know anyone's Eircode. Most of the people I send cards to live in rural Ireland and have a non-unique address. I could try looking then up, but that does not work because I do not recognise their house on the OS map, and I do not have a phone number for them.

So how can anyone else implement Eircode for sending cards to people they only send cards to - like old friends who have moved a few times since last visited?

sondagefaux

You don't have the phone numbers of most of the people on your Christmas card list? Rather odd. Email them instead.

Sam Russell

sondagefaux wrote: »

You don't have the phone numbers of most of the people on your Christmas card list? Rather odd. Email them instead.

I do not have email or phone numbers for most of them. I only send Christmas Cards to them. If they move, they send me their new address on their card.

I would imagine I am not the only one in this situation. No-one has sent me their Eircode yet.

oscarBravo

Sam Russell wrote: »

No-one has sent me their Eircode yet.

When they do, use them. Until they do, send them cards without. I'm really not seeing the problem.

byrnefm

Sam Russell wrote: »

I do not have email or phone numbers for most of them. I only send Christmas Cards to them. If they move, they send me their new address on their card.

I would imagine I am not the only one in this situation. No-one has sent me their Eircode yet.

Same here. I looked up any I could where I could identity their house. One which I couldn't, I emailed. He didn't know his Eircode, either!

I still think a financial 'incentive' might help. If Eircode really does help An Post with mail sorting, how about not increasing inland postal prices for those using the Eircode on them when the next round of increases are due? Rather like the difference in cost when travelling by Dublin bus and using their Leap card, instead of cash. The choice would thus be there! The more who use it then, the more useful it would become. Most people I've spoken to about them do not see any benefit in using Eircodes .. so they don't.

oscarBravo

byrnefm wrote: »

Most people I've spoken to about them do not see any benefit in using Eircodes .. so they don't.

Most people we speak to don't see any benefit in using them... until we explain how much quicker and easier it makes it for us to provide them with a service, and then they do.

At this stage, well over half the people who contact us can tell us their Eircode, in many cases without having to go look for it. Roughly half of the people who contact us by email include their Eircode in the initial contact. Anyone who wants broadband via the NBP is going to have to figure out their Eircode, because that's how the targeted premises will be identified.

So, fair enough: not that many Christmas cards will have Eircodes on them. That doesn't mean they're not being adopted, slowly but surely.

sondagefaux

Sam Russell wrote: »

sondagefaux wrote: »

You don't have the phone numbers of most of the people on your Christmas card list? Rather odd. Email them instead.

I do not have email or phone numbers for most of them. I only send Christmas Cards to them. If they move, they send me their new address on their card.

I would imagine I am not the only one in this situation. No-one has sent me their Eircode yet.

I just think it's odd that you don't have phone numbers or email addresses for people on your Christmas card list. I only send cards to close friends and family so I obviously have their phone numbers and email addresses. I don't understand why people send Christmas cards to all and sundry. That's all - completely OT and nothing to do with Eircodes.

Ben D Bus

Ah, lads. This is the Google Maps thread. And I don't do Christmas Cards!

plodder

oscarBravo wrote: »

Except for those businesses who are blue in the frigging face telling the naysayers how Eircodes have revolutionised the way we do business.

But hey: how can mere facts compete with the combination of a preconceived idea and a closed mind?

You're off-topic. There's a thread open for people to bitch about how Eircodes should have been designed, and come up with brilliant solutions that are perfect in every way, apart from the minor detail that they wouldn't have worked. Maybe we should have one for why we should be driving on the right-hand side of the road, while we're at it.

For someone who seems to enjoy leaping on the tiniest inconsistency in other people's posts, that's a rather careless claim. You know well there are a multitude of solutions that would have worked, including some that were fully compatible with the present design, and would have satisfied most of what other people wanted from it.

oscarBravo

plodder wrote: »

For someone who seems to enjoy leaping on the tiniest inconsistency in other people's posts, that's a rather careless claim. You know well there are a multitude of solutions that would have worked, including some that were fully compatible with the present design, and would have satisfied most of what other people wanted from it.

I was replying to someone who suggested changing hundreds of thousands of addresses would be a better idea than Eircodes.

But, to your point: sure, there may be different designs that would satisfy some of Eircode's critics. But those designs would have other downsides. We've done that to death on the design thread, and we're still off-topic here.

plodder

oscarBravo wrote: »

I was replying to someone who suggested changing hundreds of thousands of addresses would be a better idea than Eircodes.

But, to your point: sure, there may be different designs that would satisfy some of Eircode's critics. But those designs would have other downsides. We've done that to death on the design thread, and we're still off-topic here.

I'm a bit confused. I think you need to explain why it's is off-topic, yet this post which discusses eircode design on the implementation thread, isn't ..... :eek:

You must have clicked the "Thanks!" button by mistake instead of the "Report" button.....

MBSnr

Hmm - Tried to look up drinkstore.ie D07 NH48. Seems as there's both a number 87 and 87B in their shopfront, Google Maps can't resolve.

Surprised they haven't fixed these outstanding issues after 11 odd wks....

irishgeo

MBSnr wrote: »

Hmm - Tried to look up drinkstore.ie D07 NH48. Seems as there's both a number 87 and 87B in their shopfront, Google Maps can't resolve.

Surprised they haven't fixed these outstanding issues after 11 odd wks....

You tried telling them by reporting a problem with Google maps link.

MBSnr

irishgeo wrote: »

You tried telling them by reporting a problem with Google maps link.

No, as it's part of the wider issue with GM and Eircode in that any building (apartment, business/shopping units or my example) that has multiple Eircode's residing in it is unable to resolve.