National Postcodes to be introduced

conolan wrote: »

The problem with any system introduced by a private company is that they don't have a database of addresses. Therefore they can't automatically work out the code for every house and send everyone their code.
Only An Post can do that because they are the only people with a suitable database to start the matching process.

If so it wouldn't be a huge thing for the government to cooperate with this company. Perhaps this company has tendered for the government contract and this is a tester to see if it succeeds. I don't know how government tendering works but surely if you have a proven system it helps.

conolan wrote: »

As I understand it, Loc8 requires the householder to find their code by using an address followed by tweaking on a map. Therefore only a small percentage will have codes. Postcodes require an almost universal acceptance to be useful.

Universal accptance only comes about by the system working. I heard I think earlier in this thread of some country where the postcodes weren't originally accepted by the people cos they weren't easily understood and had to be tweaked. Can't remember what country though.

conolan wrote: »

Secondly, the codes are difficult to remember. This is the one for my local pub Y7M-43-5QK. We need An Post to do it and to send us all a postcard with our code printed on it.

You'd remember the one's you need to after using them a few times. Especially if part of the code bears some correlation to your street or townland. After all most of us remember our phone numbers and those of some of our friends and maybe a car reg or two. Hell I even remember my leaving cert number (don't ask me why (it's boards someone will so I don't know), can never remember it in those nightmares though!).

I'm getting bit confused here now. I read the PON stuff and thought it sounded really good. I even registered my address.

Then along comes loc8 which is apparently the new name for PON but which has an entirely different format (one for which I apparently am not allowed to publish a simple regex string).

I know loc8 is Gamin-funded and not a Government system. I have only just become aware of GoCode, though, (http://www.gocode.ie/) which seems to be associqated with TomTom.

It feels like Ireland is going from being the only Western country with no postal or zip code system to one with more than all the others put together.

I guess no one knows whether the Government will adopt one of these commercial systems or develop their own...?

Condi wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

If this could be done with perhaps the system recently launched wouldn't it save millions in a Govt contract!

And no you don't have too much time. If more people were willing this is just the sort of volunteer spirit that we hear in the media periodically is apparently absent from society.

Good idea!

Richiecats wrote: »

Forget Go Codes and GPS, You don't need to worry what the number is, It's simple the the Post work what the code is and send you a letter telling you, when you deal with a business of friends you add your postcode and business should be able to buy a list from Post over time postcodes become part of your address.

Simple

Unless you work for a software company that needs to know ahead of time what the system will be, and what the codes look like

GoCoder wrote: »

Hi. As my user name implies I work for GO Code. So interest declared up front.

Certainly it seems confusing that suddenly the country is awash in location codes/postcodes. The reality is that some of the code designs have been around for a few years. We started a beta trial on the web in late 2006, and named the GO Code about 18 months ago.

If people would like an explanation of how it works, purpose, etc. I'm happy to do so. You can view the system at www.gocode.ie and it's also working on mobile phones and with satnav software.

Feedback welcome, if people want to give it or to discuss.

Thank you.

Thanks for the explanation. I confess to 2 interests here - the obvious one being the use of a real post code system for accurate addressing, but also because I work for a software organisation that parners with mapping organisations to help locate banking resources in a person's vicinity.

I just had a very heated conversation with the loc8 people because I wanted a regex string that described the pattern their codes make. I was greated with veiled threats of legal action and told it was a breach of copyright which is rather silly for a single piece of text like this. I went ahead and produced one but when I published it on these boards, a complaint was made and the post was pulled.

I'm just preying that this was a "one off" and that other organisations are more understanding :-)

ACProctor wrote: »

Thanks for the explanation. I confess to 2 interests here - the obvious one being the use of a real post code system for accurate addressing, but also because I work for a software organisation that parners with mapping organisations to help locate banking resources in a person's vicinity.

I just had a very heated conversation with the loc8 people because I wanted a regex string that described the pattern their codes make. I was greated with veiled threats of legal action and told it was a breach of copyright which is rather silly for a single piece of text like this. I went ahead and produced one but when I published it on these boards, a complaint was made and the post was pulled.

I'm just preying that this was a "one off" and that other organisations are more understanding :-)

Hi ACProctor - what are you looking to achieve with requesting this information? Is it a way to convert geo-coordinates to a location code? Or do you want to know the layout/coverage of the area levels within the location code design e.g. Loc8, GO Code, etc.

In a GO code, there are 7 levels of precision - starting with the first primary area, and then with each successive character providing further levels of accuracy within that primary grid area. I'm not sure if we can assist you in the problem you want to solve, but if you want to PM me, feel free.

conolan wrote: »

By regex string do you mean working out the conversion of a LatLong to their code? Presumably easily reverse engineered unless they have encrypted it.

No, not at all. That's the silly aspect of this. I merely needed a "regular expression" pattern that described whether each character position was a alphabetic, alphanumeric, numeric, or punctuation so that a code would be parsed in a command string.

I was interested in the way the codes were encoded or check-summed at all

ACProctor wrote: »

No, just a "regular expression" that described the pattern the characters make in the code so that a program can recognise them in the context of other data, e.g. how many letters, numbers, punctuation characters, etc.

It only took me a few minutes to poduce one myself but the loc8 didn't want me or themselves to publish it. Very odd!

We'll try and not be as equally odd if you ever come asking.

Though it won't be me who'll be able to give you the answer anyway, so I'm safe on that one.

ACProctor wrote: »

It's early days yet since our software is not sold in Ireland. I just want to be prepared ;-)

As far as I understand, GoCodes are variable length (i.e. longer => more precision). I can't see anything on your web site that says whether the codes are composed of all letters or alphanumerics. Is there anything you can point me to?

Yes to variable length. The GO Code currently resolves to 7 characters though sometimes 5, or often 6, characters is sufficient for identifying particular things.

Based on the structure we currently have, it uses both numbers and letters. There's some combinations we've already prevented.

Furet wrote: »

Actually, I'm going to call a halt to this very particular line of discussion, garydubh and ACProctor.

This thread has veered off-topic: it is primarily about the postcode system about to be introduced by the government.

This is true, although, to be fair, the issue will affect the one adopted by the goverment too. There are very specialised software products that have to be able to recognise whether any particular item in an address is a code or not

GoCoder wrote: »

Meanwhile..... getting back on topic.

One of the issues the Dept of Comms has to consider is whether they want to have a code that is designed primarily for postal delivery and some area analysis, and has some added functionality to give precision to particular elements OR are they interested in having a more dynamic code such as GO Code or Loc8 which are digital location codes as defined by Garydubh above?

The public tender when it emerges could either seek only to have implementation of the ABC 123 design, or it could also provide for tenderers submitting an alternative design.

Which would people want in terms of design approach? A Location Code design or traditional Post Code design? And of course, there may be other designs out there that people may be aware of, so am not excluding those from consideration.

I'm not really clear what additional details a pure postal code would require over a digital location code.

In principle, it should be possible to devise a single digital scheme that would apply in many countries. If the internal encoding used longitude and latitude in a similar manner to HHCODEs used in databases then the resulting location codes may even support some basic "vicinity" type queries where a simple difference calculation would yield something proportional to the geographic separation.

GoCoder wrote: »

Hmm.. the key phrase is "in principle". Does the current code design promoted by the Dept have the above qualities you talk about?

In your view, will a cluster-based code - identifying 10-20 properties depending on whether its urban or rural location according to the Dept - have sufficient functionality or will it be limited by the size of the polygon it defines i.e. number of buildings?

Can you give an example to illustrate what you're talking about re HHCodes and the use of a difference calculation to give something "proportional to the geographic separation"? In plain English?

Hi GoCoder.

I have no knowledge of the internal formats of either loc8 or GO codes. It was really just an observation based on my previous experience in other IT fields.

Having thought about the postal code versus digital code a little, I assume a pure postal code would also need to identify a sorting/distribution office somewhere rather than just a point on a map. I would understand if a "vicinity" query cannot provide exactly the same functionality.

HHCODE is a clever way of unwinding the bits in one or more coordinates, and then clustering them together to make a single key that can be interrogated in a database. For example, if you had X and Y coordinates that each had just 3 computer bits: [x0, x1, x2], and [y0, y1, y2] (where x0 & y0 are the most significant), then the composite might be formed as [x0, y0, x1, y1, x2, y2].

There are 2 main advantages here. 1) It means that a database query only has to interrogate a single key rather than one for each coordinate - thus making it a lot more efficient, and 2) when the keys are sorted, it effectively groups neighbouring locations. That is, if 2 points A & B are close together - in any direction - then their composite keys will be numerically close together. This means a single database query can easily select all stored points which are within a given range of a specified point (i.e. a "vicinity" query).

Such databases can easily handle 2 coordinates, or 3 (as when including elevation), or even include time (as in spatio-temporal databases).

Hence, in principle (ignoring political and commercial barriers), it would be possible to devise a global location code that had similar characteristics. It doesn't matter whether it was numeric or alphanumeric (although alphanumeric would result in a shorter code), as long as the format was 'open' then a simple calculation could yield the key mentioned above. Also, if you had an arbitrary list of such codes then it would be very easy to test which ones are close together on a map, or close to some fixed point of reference such as a sorting office or your current location.

GoCoder wrote: »

Thanks for that. Should we expect to see the Proctor Code emerge soon?

No thanks GoCoder - far too many politics of one sort or another for me. Even if I could provide some valuable, and objective, technical input, that's not what Ireland needs right now.

The whole postal code subject should have been decided upon years ago.

I only got into this subject because I tried to offer my help to someone :-(

P.S. if anyone is interested, my old regex post has now been resurrected