National Postcodes to be introduced

SpaceTime · 11-07-2015 2:22am

A very small % of Irish addresses are in the same building anyway. We've one of the smallest uptakes of apartments in the world.

It's hardly a massive problem we have here!

EU average 46% apartments/flats.

Ireland 4% !!

Jack180570 · 11-07-2015 8:52am

ukoda wrote: »

And because they are of no use to helping with the problems of non unique addresses.

Lucky there isn't a penalty for pretending to be knowledgeable and then making an even bigger ass of oneself by broadcasting here.

Please explain why Loc8 Code doesn't solve the issue of non unique addresses?

Also, can you state what professional or practical experience or qualifications you have on this matter that would encourage the general public to believe the strong opinions you appear to express as fact?

recedite · 11-07-2015 9:49am

oscarBravo wrote: »

Worse: there's the sea.

Your intuitive assessment of where those locations are, relative to each other, was spot on. ...

The three locations I gave you will probably have the same Eircode routing key. After that, if you want to decide on your route, you need to be looking at a road map anyway.

Right, so you picked one exceptional situation where there is an estuary or something dividing the two adjacent areas.
And that exception would be well known to locals operating in the area.
And that is supposed to be the exception that proves your rule that a hierarchical location code which can be worked out intuitively "nearly all of the time" is not as good as a random number system?

recedite · 11-07-2015 9:56am

If there is block of apartments or a house in bedsits at location ED7-91-7NJ, all the letterboxes are probably in the same hallway anyway.
Whats wrong with addressing as Apt. 1, Skyrise House, ED7-91-7NJ ?

TheChizler · 11-07-2015 10:07am

recedite wrote: »

If there is block of apartments or a house in bedsits at location ED7-91-7NJ, all the letterboxes are probably in the same hallway anyway.
Whats wrong with addressing as Apt. 1, Skyrise House, ED7-91-7NJ ?

That's no longer a unique property identifier, it's a collective one, which doesn't satisfy the requirements.

TheChizler · 11-07-2015 10:08am

SpaceTime wrote: »

A very small % of Irish addresses are in the same building anyway. We've one of the smallest uptakes of apartments in the world.

It's hardly a massive problem we have here!

EU average 46% apartments/flats.

Ireland 4% !!

It's still something that has to be addressed.

ukoda · 11-07-2015 10:19am

Jack180570 wrote: »

Lucky there isn't a penalty for pretending to be knowledgeable and then making an even bigger ass of oneself by broadcasting here.

Please explain why Loc8 Code doesn't solve the issue of non unique addresses?

Also, can you state what professional or practical experience or qualifications you have on this matter that would encourage the general public to believe the strong opinions you appear to express as fact?

Loc8 is just a square box, my house could cover 4 squares, it could even be disected by a loc8 code square box grid. Therefore my house could have multiple loc8 codes, therefore not one code unique to my property.

ukoda · 11-07-2015 10:36am

recedite wrote: »

Right, so you picked one exceptional situation where there is an estuary or something dividing the two adjacent areas.
And that exception would be well known to locals operating in the area.
And that is supposed to be the exception that proves your rule that a hierarchical location code which can be worked out intuitively "nearly all of the time" is not as good as a random number system?

"Nearly all of the time" is where that falls down, because you will always have to check a map or other route planning to make sure there's not a river in between them, a one way street meaning the route gets jigged around, what about 2 parallel roads that are really close on the grid but miles apart via the roads. So even with loc8 type code you still need more than the code.

And yes you could argue local knowledge, but in that case no code is needed at all as eyeballing the address is all you need.

GJG · 11-07-2015 10:51am

Jack180570 wrote: »

Lucky there isn't a penalty for pretending to be knowledgeable and then making an even bigger ass of oneself by broadcasting here.

Please explain why Loc8 Code doesn't solve the issue of non unique addresses?

The Loc8 code would solve part of the non-unique address issue, in that (if it were used consistently on post) it would allow a postman to distinguish between two addresses with identical addresses and allow ambulaces or fire brigades do the same.

The problem with it is that, according to themselves, five years or more after its launch, only 100k of them have ever been generated, compared to the 2.2m Eircodes that will go out next week. I suspect that a large portion of them have been does as tests by enthusiasts like me - I've certainly generated more than 20, but never used any in real life.

Since Loc8s can only be done on a self-service basis, relying on the user finding their house on Google Maps, I really can't see how it would be practical for Social Welfare to ring up every pensioner to ask her to get online, generate a code and tell them what it is. Asking someone to do the same while they are calling an ambulance or a fire engine is even less practical.

Loc8 has been around for seven or eight years now. The proof that it doesn't work for these applications is that it doesn't work for these applications. If it hasn't happened yet, it never will.

In addition, it is unacceptable in a modern society that we can't verifiably identify each unique property. There is no prospect of Loc8 doing this for apartments, and small terraced houses where the front doors are right beside each other. This would still have to rely on property numbers. But in rural areas where houses with no unique address have anything up to 100m or road frontage, it is easy (I've done it) to generate a dozen or more Loc8 codes that refer to that property, allowing a whole range of tax and insurance frauds to fall through the net.

Loc8 boast how anyone can generate a code online, and that's great for some applications, but it's not a postcode, and there are other applications that it is not suitable for, precisely because there are billions of vacant codes, and no way for anyone to verify which are which.

recedite · 11-07-2015 10:57am

TheChizler wrote: »

That's no longer a unique property identifier, it's a collective one, which doesn't satisfy the requirements.

Depends how you interpret "the requirements".
With the prefix "Apt.1" it is a unique identifier.
The building is one single building anyway.
They won't have individual water meters, but they will have individual property tax.
All post and deliveries, and any ambulances called will be looking for the main entrance.

All the above identity requirements are satisfied.

Compare that to the eircode for UCD. One single eircode for the whole sprawling campus. What a farce.

recedite · 11-07-2015 11:12am

GJG wrote: »

Loc8 boast how anyone can generate a code online, and that's great for some applications, but it's not a postcode, and there are other applications that it is not suitable for, precisely because there are billions of vacant codes, and no way for anyone to verify which are which.

I posted a link earlier to a govt. agency website (SEAI) where they had cross referenced BER Certificates, MPRN numbers and eircodes of listed properties. They could have added in a loc8 code (or any officially sanctioned location code) instead of an eircode, and that's all you need for the unique identifier.
It doesn't matter that there are vacant codes. There are probably an even greater number of "vacant" eircodes. How many random combinations can you get out of the same number of digits, compared to using actual GPS based location codes?
For "official" purposes, only the "officially registered" ones matter.

GJG · 11-07-2015 12:04pm

recedite wrote: »

I posted a link earlier to a govt. agency website (SEAI) where they had cross referenced BER Certificates, MPRN numbers and eircodes of listed properties. They could have added in a loc8 code (or any officially sanctioned location code) instead of an eircode, and that's all you need for the unique identifier.

Unfortunately, that isn’t correct. It doesn’t make a unique identifier, because, even for my little inner-city end-of-terrace, there are three valid Loc8 codes. I could give one to SEAI, one to the ESB and have one to spare, so there would be no way to link the two, even with a well-intentioned person just looking it up more than once picking a different one the second time.

If I wanted to commit insurance fraud, I could just use a different spelling of my name, change the locality name and use a different Loc8 code, and there would be no systematic way to check whether two policies referred to the same property.

recedite wrote: »

It doesn't matter that there are vacant codes. There are probably an even greater number of "vacant" eircodes. How many random combinations can you get out of the same number of digits, compared to using actual GPS based location codes?
For "official" purposes, only the "officially registered" ones matter.

You are confusing vacant and redundant. Of course there is a high degree of redundancy in all coding systems, unless they just start counting up from one. Rendundancy means codes within the system that don’t refer to an entry.

Vacancy is different. There are no vacant eircodes, but there are billions of vacant Loc8 codes – real, correct codes that exist in the system, that refer to a real, existing place, but that place contains no property, or contains a property that is already referred to by another Loc8 code.

If someone by accident or for the purpose of fraud gives one of those vacant codes to an insurance company, the tax man, or anyone else, there is no way that the recipient has to verify that it represents a real property, or does not refer to a property that is already referenced in the system under a separate Loc8 code.

Loc8 make a big thing that their system doesn’t need a database, and that is great for some purposes (although it was far more relevant in the days of dial-up internet) but that is a weakness for anyone who needs to uniquely refer to a property.

dr.fuzzenstein · 11-07-2015 12:05pm

ukoda wrote: »

"Nearly all of the time" is where that falls down, because you will always have to check a map or other route planning to make sure there's not a river in between them, a one way street meaning the route gets jigged around, what about 2 parallel roads that are really close on the grid but miles apart via the roads. So even with loc8 type code you still need more than the code.

And yes you could argue local knowledge, but in that case no code is needed at all as eyeballing the address is all you need.

Eircode will not be the end of local knowledge. I'd guess that most of the time the way postie delivers the mail will not change, he doesn't need to look at the code.
Its more for sorting, names he doesn't know yet, ambivalent or badly spelled addresses and so on.

Trouwe Ier · 11-07-2015 12:15pm

recedite wrote: »

How many random combinations can you get out of the same number of digits, compared to using actual GPS based location codes?

24 x 24 x 24 x 24 = 331,776. I think that they said that when they filtered for possible obscene combinations, the figure came down to 300,000. That's plenty for each routing key area for our lifetimes anyway.

I repeat - Extract from http://www.rte.ie/radio1/today-with-...clipid=1926566

"Loc8 did not bid for the contract, either on its own or as part of a consortium."

Yes they may well have felt or been advised that they were disqualified from tendering and they may well have been trumped in that regard but just as with the voter who never bothered to cast his ballot and complains about the election result, their right to complain about the result of the tendering process is questionable at best and their use of social media to snipe at community groups is distasteful and professionally unbecoming.

GetLostEircodes Jul 10, 8:15pm via Twitter for Android
@Annascaul_Inch Are you going to give everyone a free computer or smartphone because without you will not be able to read an #Eircode

In fact the whole social media circus is obsessive and pitiable.

I wonder who long it is going to go on for?

recedite · 11-07-2015 12:45pm

GJG wrote: »

Unfortunately, that isn’t correct. It doesn’t make a unique identifier, because, even for my little inner-city end-of-terrace, there are three valid Loc8 codes. I could give one to SEAI, one to the ESB and have one to spare, so there would be no way to link the two, even with a well-intentioned person just looking it up more than once picking a different one the second time.

Similarly, you could make up two additional eircodes for the house.
Under an ideal system, the way for SEAI or ESB to verify a code, would be to check against a central State database to see which one is officially registered. Any unofficial code would be rejected. It would not matter whether it was entirely bogus (as in a false eircode) or just invalid (as in spare location code).
There are also plenty of times when the property owner might want to give one of the unofficial codes instead, eg deliveries direct to the rear entrance. That would be a matter of trust between the owner and the delivery company, and would occur outside of the "official code" realm.

Under the eircode system, the central postcode database is not managed directly the State, it is managed by a foreign firm; Capita. And the deal is that they can sell the contents of the database on the open market.
None of which is ideal. Because now the State will have to maintain separate confidential databases anyway, for such items as water meters (WPRN numbers) taxable buildings for property tax, BER Certs and then keep cross referencing them.

moyners · 11-07-2015 12:46pm

recedite wrote: »

Depends how you interpret "the requirements".
With the prefix "Apt.1" it is a unique identifier.
The building is one single building anyway.
They won't have individual water meters, but they will have individual property tax.
All post and deliveries, and any ambulances called will be looking for the main entrance.

All the above identity requirements are satisfied.

Compare that to the eircode for UCD. One single eircode for the whole sprawling campus. What a farce.

I keep hearing this thing about UCD only having one eircode. Presumably because, like most universities, mail comes into a central delivery point and is distributed from there. Eircodes refer to delivery points. UCD probably want all their mail to come to their own mailroom. It would be the same in most large institutions. Even in the UK, they make an effort to only use the one postal address with the one postcode even though their campus may stretch over several postcodes.

I'm assuming they could ask for another eircode for different buildings?

recedite · 11-07-2015 12:55pm

Its entirely possible that in an emergency situation, somebody might want to call an ambulance to one of the other buildings at UCD, and not just the mailroom.
That's where the versatility of a location code system comes in.

AFAIK you cant just "ask" for extra eircodes, but I'm not in a position to answer that definitively.

SpaceTime · 11-07-2015 1:04pm

I think developing a GPS based Irish 112 app would be very useful!

I can call a taxi to where I'm standing with a couple of touches on icons yet I have to give directions to an ambulance ... Seems a bit daft!

Most of the population already carries GPS enabled smartphones in their pocket at all times

You could even oblige mobile carriers to allow traffic to a particular server on an obscure port at all times regardless of credit balance so Prepay phones could always connect to the emergency app servers or just ask them to host something locally on their own networks.

oscarBravo · 11-07-2015 1:04pm

recedite wrote: »

Right, so you picked one exceptional situation where there is an estuary or something dividing the two adjacent areas.
And that exception would be well known to locals operating in the area.
And that is supposed to be the exception that proves your rule that a hierarchical location code which can be worked out intuitively "nearly all of the time" is not as good as a random number system?

My point, which I'm sure you'll figure out yet another way of refusing to understand, is that the supposed usefulness of a grid-based code as a way of plotting sequential deliveries along non-grid-based routes is deeply flawed.

I could spend some more time finding dozens of examples of how apparently adjacent codes are in fact separated by almost an hour's drive, or how LRZ-05-WY9 and FR0-34-X23 are about 100m apart on the same street, but I'm not going to convince you, because you have apparently bought into the propaganda that you can reliably load a van in delivery sequence by merely reading Loc8 codes.

The bottom line is: you can't. Loc8 codes are useful for precisely one reason: because they can be converted by a computer to latitudes and longitudes. But, you'll exclaim, they also show which areas are close together and which are not, so you can group deliveries! Sure. Just like EF5-96-7MJ and EF5-80-DP7 are immediately adjacent, but you'd load different vans for LRZ-05-WY9 and FR0-34-X23.

Sam Russell · 11-07-2015 1:08pm

moyners wrote: »

I keep hearing this thing about UCD only having one eircode. Presumably because, like most universities, mail comes into a central delivery point and is distributed from there. Eircodes refer to delivery points. UCD probably want all their mail to come to their own mailroom. It would be the same in most large institutions. Even in the UK, they make an effort to only use the one postal address with the one postcode even though their campus may stretch over several postcodes.

I'm assuming they could ask for another eircode for different buildings?

Not so. In the UK, large organisations have the equivalent of the routing key, and use the rest of the code for internal sorting, for example, the BBC and the DVLA do this.

Eircode have missed a trick, and probably plenty more, by not using this. They could also have used vanity, for want of a description, codes like D04 RTE1, D04 RTE2, etc. For example, they could have given the routing code GOV xxxx to the Government, or TAX xxxx or REV xxxx to the Revenue. The xxxx part is then decided by the appropriate departments to get the mail to where they want it.

Poorly thought out and poorly implemented - that's Eircode. A bit like eVoting and Irish Water.

oscarBravo · 11-07-2015 1:10pm

Sam Russell wrote: »

For example, they could have given the routing code GOV xxxx to the Government, or TAX xxxx or REV xxxx to the Revenue.

So the Revenue office in Castlebar would have a TAXxxxx eircode?

11-07-2015 1:13pm

Sam Russell wrote: »

For example, they could have given the routing code GOV xxxx to the Government, or TAX xxxx or REV xxxx to the Revenue. The xxxx part is then decided by the appropriate departments to get the mail to where they want it.

That won't work, decentralised government would completely break the routing code.

Sam Russell · 11-07-2015 1:21pm

Deleted User wrote: »

That won't work, decentralised government would completely break the routing code.

I thought An Post had a computerised sorting system. It would be trivial to allow this within their sorting system, they do not use Eircodes at the moment because they do not need it and have said so, and even if they did use it, sorting the few such routing codes would be no hardship.

Currently they read the whole address, and will presumably read the whole Eircode, so what could the problem be?

Bayberry · 11-07-2015 1:46pm

GJG wrote: »

Since Loc8s can only be done on a self-service basis, relying on the user finding their house on Google Maps, I really can't see how it would be practical for Social Welfare to ring up every pensioner to ask her to get online, generate a code and tell them what it is.

There's no shortage of ludicrous statements on this thread, but that one must surely takes the biscuit (well, for this week, at least).

Unless you actually believe that Social Welfare is going to ring up every pensioner to ask them to read out the eircode off their postcard too? (Hint - they won't, and exactly the same process could be used to prefill the database with any geo-code as was used for eircodes).

By the way, it's technically possible to calculate a geocode with a pencil, a paper OSI map and primary school arithmetic - no computer necessary.

Try pull that with eircodes!

oscarBravo · 11-07-2015 1:50pm

Sam Russell wrote: »

I thought An Post had a computerised sorting system. It would be trivial to allow this within their sorting system, they do not use Eircodes at the moment because they do not need it and have said so, and even if they did use it, sorting the few such routing codes would be no hardship.

Currently they read the whole address, and will presumably read the whole Eircode, so what could the problem be?

The problem is that it's then not a routing key.

Sure, it would be possible to use it in such a way - it's still a key to a database table that returns a latitude and longitude - but I can already hear the howls of derision from the die-hard opponents.

What's actually quite funny when you step back and look at the aggregate arguments against eircodes is that, taken in their entirety, they're pretty much completely self-contradictory.

For example: an eircode is a key to a database table, and this is a Bad Thing. Loc8 codes would have worked, and the solution to having multiple Loc8 codes for a property is for one of them to be authoritative and stored - wait for it - in a database. Many other such examples abound. It's really quite silly.

Sam Russell · 11-07-2015 1:52pm

Bayberry wrote: »

There's no shortage of ludicrous statements on this thread, but that one must surely takes the biscuit (well, for this week, at least).

Unless you actually believe that Social Welfare is going to ring up every pensioner to ask them to read out the eircode off their postcard too? (Hint - they won't, and exactly the same process could be used to prefill the database with any geo-code as was used for eircodes).

By the way, it's technically possible to calculate a geocode with a pencil, a paper OSI map and primary school arithmetic - no computer necessary.

Try pull that with eircodes!

It is even easier to do it with Eircode. You just do what they did - pluck the random number from the air then you put it in the database. Of course with Loc8 you would not need to pluck it from the air - the information is already in the Geodirectory. Oh, why did they not think of that?

Sam Russell · 11-07-2015 2:05pm

oscarBravo wrote: »

The problem is that it's then not a routing key.

Sure, it would be possible to use it in such a way - it's still a key to a database table that returns a latitude and longitude - but I can already hear the howls of derision from the die-hard opponents.

What's actually quite funny when you step back and look at the aggregate arguments against eircodes is that, taken in their entirety, they're pretty much completely self-contradictory.

For example: an eircode is a key to a database table, and this is a Bad Thing. Loc8 codes would have worked, and the solution to having multiple Loc8 codes for a property is for one of them to be authoritative and stored - wait for it - in a database. Many other such examples abound. It's really quite silly.

Of course it is a routing key if that is what you want to call it. What has a name of part of the randomised code that is Eircode got to do with anything?

Eircode identifies where the piece of mail is going to. The routing code TAX xxxx identifies the piece of mail as being routed to Revenue. The rest of the code identifies where it has to go as much as any random set of characters in any other Eircode.

A Loc8 can be used away from a database, but can be used in a database of official locations to identify postal destinations. Eircode can only be used to identify letterboxes. Note the difference - no contradiction there. I can spell my name in many ways, but my credit card company will only accept the one printed on the card itself, and which matches their database.

I have no experience with loc8, and assume it is derived from the OS map references. I'm not even sure it would make a good basis for a postcode, but it could not be worse than one based on random numbers.

Bayberry · 11-07-2015 2:11pm

oscarBravo wrote: »

For example: an eircode is a key to a database table, and this is a Bad Thing. Loc8 codes would have worked, and the solution to having multiple Loc8 codes for a property is for one of them to be authoritative and stored - wait for it - in a database. Many other such examples abound. It's really quite silly.

Administrator or no, it's a bit sad that you have to deliberately misstate the argument to make your case.

The point is that it's impossible to use eircodes without a database - they're just database lookup keys, after all. GeoCodes have lots of non-database functionality, but there's absolutely nothing preventing you using them in a database if you want to, whether as a primary key or just a unique field.

To go further, though, you don't even need a database of unique "registered" geocodes to deal with the insurance fraud examples constantly being thrown up. Insurance companies can simply use their existing GIS software to decide whether any GeoCode is sufficient to adequately identify any given application. Unless you think they're not smart enough to figure this out for themselves?

threeiron · 11-07-2015 2:11pm

larchill wrote: »

It's official! eircode is launching Monday.

What time is the launch at? Will Eircode Finder be live after midnight on Sunday or after the Minister does the launch?

Bayberry · 11-07-2015 2:18pm

threeiron wrote: »

What time is the launch at? Will Eircode Finder be live after midnight on Sunday or after the Minister does the launch?

Only in Ireland....

(Is there a smiley for "shakes head in despair"?)

National Postcodes to be introduced

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