What postcode for IRL?

DigiMarc

Sorry if this has been mentioned before but I did a search and...

Anyway, I am trying to order Sky+ online but you need to enter a postcode to login. Does anyone know what postcode Sky use for Ireland?

Any help greatfully received.

lazygit

Phone Sky...

There phone support/sales are excellent..

DigiMarc

I did, but I am ordering it as a present for my brother (and me:D ).

The problem is they could only book for the first week of December. They can't book any further in advance than that at the moment. And well I am trying to book it for as close to xmas as possible.

Thought that maybe you might be able to book further in advance online...

SEAMUSD

just put in some made up postcode, I live in Arklowand we dont have a postcode and anytime a postcode is required i just put in ARK 1. NO PROBLEMS

Tony

Originally posted by SEAMUSD
just put in some made up postcode, I live in Arklowand we dont have a postcode and anytime a postcode is required i just put in ARK 1. NO PROBLEMS

I doubt this will work, as far as I know you cannot order on skys website for ROI orders.

Tony

Creamy Goodness

ireland has no post codes unless u live in dublin. where dublin 1 is a postcode

other than that there is no such thing for ireland because there is really no need

DigiMarc

Ok, well thanks for the replies guys... Looks like I'll just have to wait a bit and order it over the phone.

Originally posted by Tony
I doubt this will work, as far as I know you cannot order on skys website for ROI orders.

Tony

correct.

Incidently on websites where you can order for Ireland and they say you must put in a post code - Simply type in NONE as in the word none in that box.

mm

Mike 1972

other than that there is no such thing for ireland because there is really no need

Wouldnt agree with that statement. In rural Ireland especially there is a rather sore need for a proper system of adressing/road naming. How people find their way about using that bizzare system of "townlands" ill never know

Anyway if you want to invent your own postcodes the codes beginning Q V and X are not used in the UK and for the second letter te 26 letters correspond ncely with 26 counties so Dublin 7 could be XD7 Galway city centre could be XG1 etc

Alternatively you could use a system based on the two letter county codes from car registrations although there would have to be a few amendments to avoid clashing with codes already used in the UK

Post Code County
CE Clare
CK Cork
CL Carlow
CN Cavan
DO Donegal
DU Dublin
GA Galway
KE Kildare
KK Kilkenny
KR Kerry
LF Longford
LH Louth
LK Limerick
LM Leitrim
LO Laois
MG Monaghan
MH Meath
MO Mayo
OY Offaly
RN Roscommon
SC Sligo
TP Tipperary North
TY Tipperary South
WE Wexford
WH Westmeath
WT Waterford
WW Wicklow

rlogue

Or better still use the American and French 5 number system rather than slavishly copying what the Brits do...

Mike 1972

a system based on letters gives more possible code combinations though and the UK is the destination for the majority of Irelands International mail so an integrated poscode system makes more sense

Anyway ths is getting a bit off topic :rolleyes:

Cloud

I heard last year that An Post were developing a postcode system, based on map coordinates I think.

Mike 1972

Hope its GPS (i.e. Lattitude and Longtitude) coordinates and not the Ordanance survey grid references (pointless obsolecent system IMHO)

irishgeo

Originally posted by Cloud
I heard last year that An Post were developing a postcode system, based on map coordinates I think.

Of the roadside boxes they want to put up

Greenman

The 4 digit postcode system we have in Belgium works very well. Every address had 3 lines. Name
Street & Number
Code & Townland

No more 7 line AD's easier for the postman.

Of the roadside boxes they want to put up

Thats standard here!!!

Sin e an Fear

Or better still use the American and French 5 number system rather than slavishly copying what the Brits do...

Like watching their TV channels and speaking their language.....
US ZIP codes are prefixed with the two letters for the state, eg: Beverley Hills CA 90210. (The TV show got it wrong, but including the 'CA ' didn't exactly trip off the tongue.)

Canada shares a telephone numbering plan with the USA- try telling them they're Yanks.

If you want to get UTV, Channel 4 and Five, get someone in the North to give you their address (with BT postcode) and order from there, instead of making postcodes up. Otherwise, complain to Sky Ireland.

other than that there is no such thing for ireland because there is really no need

In New Zealand they only use postcodes for sorting mail in bulk, but otherwise they're not needed.

Of the roadside boxes they want to put up

Kiwis have had 'em for years, and companies usually use PO Boxes or Private Bags.

Mossy Monk

Originally posted by DigiMarc
Ok, well thanks for the replies guys... Looks like I'll just have to wait a bit and order it over the phone.

why not buy it in a shop

Skyhater

Still off the Topic - I Totally agree that we need postcodes. Saying that we don't need postcodes is typical of the shortsightness that exists in this country..... But I wouldn't let An Post (or any government org invent them), look at the mess Dublin City Council have made of the new signs in Dublin..... Putting them behind trees and in-front of the existing (larger and more informative) signs!!!

Postcodes work really well in N.Ireland.... All you need is a House number and a Postcode and you'll get your mail. Not like rural Ireland where you are reliant on the postman to know you personally in order to get your mail delivered.

And Dublin 1 is not a true postcode it's a Joke. I would suggest using the UK system over the US one (although It would be nice to differentiate ourselves). The UK one narrows down to a specific street/road and it can be easily implemented to software, etc already used in this country.... It also may mean that someday we'll be able to order our Sky over the net..... you couldn't expect sky to understand that we have a different system to them.... they find it hard enough to handle +353.....

Mike 1972

Postcodes work really well in N.Ireland.... All you need is a House number and a Postcode and you'll get your mail. Not like rural Ireland where you are reliant on the postman to know you personally in order to get your mail delivered.

Plus the fact that EVERY road has a name and a sign telling you the name of the road and all houses are numberd means finding houses in rural areas is far easier

COMREG wants to introdce postcodes but An Post doesnt

The Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg), which has published a consultation paper, claims postcodes could help to reduce confusion and speed up the sorting of mail, as letters would be routed automatically once their postcodes had been scanned.

ComReg points out that every EU country apart from Ireland and Greece uses postcodes.

Direct-mail companies and the ESB are among the organisations that support postcodes. The electricity company claims they would give it more accurate information in emergencies.

An Post has rejected the plan, however, saying postcodes would be expensive and unnecessary in a country with such a small and scattered population. A spokesman for the company said its technology could read addresses in milliseconds, which far outweighed any advantages postcodes could bring.

An Post and Ordnance Survey Ireland have devised a "geo-direct system", containing 1.5 million addresses, that can pinpoint locations more accurately than postcodes can, he said.

In Dublin city, the postal districts from Dublin 1 to Dublin 24 represent sorting offices. This is as much of a system of postcodes as Ireland needs, according to the spokesman, who said An Post would be making a strong case against postcodes to ComReg.

Udaras na Gaeltachta chairman Liam OCuinneagain said postcodes would dilute Ireland's "rich and unique" place names. "We have a policy of using county names and place names in the thousands of letters we send out every week

Sin e an Fear

Udaras na Gaeltachta chairman Liam OCuinneagain said postcodes would dilute Ireland's "rich and unique" place names. "We have a policy of using county names and place names in the thousands of letters we send out every week

Gabh mo leithsceal, an tUasal, but other (genuinely) bilingual/or multilingual countries do just fine, if not better.


1049 Bruxelles / 1049 Brussel

Cape Town 8000 / Kaapstad 8000

1211 Geneve / 1211 Genf

However, in Aotearoa (NZ) you can address letters in Maori - put Tamaki Makaurau on a letter and it gets to Auckland.

ComReg points out that every EU country apart from Ireland and Greece uses postcodes.

Wrong, Greece does, (101 88 Athens) and they don't expect you to call Athens 'Athinai', just as Cyprus expects you to call Nicosia Lefkosia.

AR AON NOS / ANYWAY

The point is that, postcodes or no postcodes, Sky needs to take account of their Irish customers circumstances. (Including a demand for UTV, Channel 4 and Five)

pbirney

Originally posted by Cr3m0
ireland has no post codes unless u live in dublin. where dublin 1 is a postcode

other than that there is no such thing for ireland because there is really no need

Cork City also has postcodes. AFAIK there are four, Cork 1 - Cork 4.

~Paul.

sceptre

Originally posted by pbirney
Cork City also has postcodes. AFAIK there are four, Cork 1 - Cork 4.

Sure they're not just voting wards? Limerick has the same (you can see the little numbers on old signs).

ColinM

Alot of UK systems accept DU8 1IN as a valid postcode.

John R

Originally posted by Man
correct.

Incidently on websites where you can order for Ireland and they say you must put in a post code - Simply type in NONE as in the word none in that box.

mm

DO NOT DO THIS.

I used to and it is ok with some companies, however I ordered some cds from Play.com with this as the postcode, never recieved them. I got a second lot sent out, never recieved them. Then I remembered the postcode thing, changed it to Dublin, got a third batch sent out, a few days later they arrived.

They were addressed to:

name
street
Dublin
Ireland
Dublin

I can only guess that some letter reading software somewhere did something strange with the packages.

Jip

To all the people suggesting we use the UK style of post codes have any of you ever read a report instigated by the Royal Mail AFAIK. Anyway, Royal Mail know that the Post Codes are a disaster in the UK and do not work well at all, are incomprehensible to the public and they're been looking at ways to change them.

Jaysus, we have enough talent over here to come up with our own and who cares if any of ours clash with the UKs, we're a completely different entity, if someone cannot tell the difference between Dublin ZBFHD and London ZBFHD they've serious issues

MadsL

bmi has probably the best online system, the programmer not only knew that there are no Irish post codes, but even wouldn't let me enter a Dublin postcode. I was impressed - sick of dumb**** 'what is your postcode' questions from UK websites and customer service centres.

eth0_

Personally i've always used EIRE as the post code for the same reason as the play.com guy above gives.

watty

Dublin1 etc are Postal AREAS, not post codes. There ARE in fact Irish Post codes, but An Post (for what ever reason) does not want them public. (I know people in the Franking /Postal meter business so know this is true). Also possible is PC printed "E-Postage" stamps or labels on letters/parcels instead of horrenduously expensive franking machines for business. An Post has blocked this for years also.

Anyway if a website wants a UK postcode a made up or Irish one (assuming you knew your "secret" postcode") is no good.

There is less need of (public) postcodes now than 20 years ago. The main benefit would be for databases of Spammers/Direct mailers. Though why An Post should worry I dunno.

eth0_

Originally posted by LurkingIcon

There is less need of (public) postcodes now than 20 years ago.

I honestly don't know how postmen can work without postcodes, considering plenty of addresses outside cities and towns in the UK and Ireland do not have addresses in the form: house number, street name, district, city/town, postcode.

yossarin

livin' in england the postcade system is dead useful - it identifies the side of the street you live in and everything - most of the address is pretty much not needed

DMC

I think this thread has a natural home in Business/Economy/Finance, so moving it there.

pbirney

Originally posted by sceptre
Sure they're not just voting wards? Limerick has the same (you can see the little numbers on old signs).

No. They're actual post codes and are in use. I get occasional correspondence from companies in Cork city who use them.

dahamsta

Originally posted by pbirney
No. They're actual post codes and are in use. I get occasional correspondence from companies in Cork city who use them.

We're just playing with your head pbirney. Cork people are cruel like that.

adam@cork1

Floater

Originally posted by pbirney
No. They're actual post codes and are in use. I get occasional correspondence from companies in Cork city who use them.

They are on the street and road name signposts as well.

Cork 1 is centre
Cork 2 is south east (eg Douglas)
Cork 3 is north west (eg Sunday's Well)
Cork 4 is south / west (eg Bishopstown)

If there was a proper postcode system for the country this might be 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004 respectively.

Floater

Floater

Originally posted by ColinM
Alot of UK systems accept DU8 1IN as a valid postcode.

This really screws up mechanised sorting systems.

I occasionally buy stuff by mail order from a company in GB for delivery to an address in France.

Their computer system make a real dogs dinner of the address and when one is entering the address in their website order form there is no option for forcing proper layout.

Mr Floater
1329 rue Dauphin
F - 83999 Varville

gets mangled into:

Mr Floater
1329 rue Dauphin
F-83999 Varville 83999
Varville O00 0OO O00 0OO
France

The O00 0OO is because their system assumes that everyone has a British postcode - even though they claim to ship worldwide. The "British postcode" is also printed in huge characters a second time and is probably read by the French system as an attempt at 00000 postcode which is invalid.

There is a standard format for postal addressing across continental Europe and people adhere to it. Anything that doesn't comply gets junked.

Why should stamps cost another 10 cents each to pay for people to decypher addresses written by illiterate people or those that want to impose their non-compliant systems on the world? A phone company wouldn't intercept wrongly dialled numbers to offer to look up the correct number for the idiot on the other end of the line.

As a result three our of four shipments never arrives! It costs them a fortune in re-shipping.

Floater

Floater

Originally posted by yossarin
livin' in england the postcade system is dead useful - it identifies the side of the street you live in and everything - most of the address is pretty much not needed

Postcode or no postcode they still have some of the longest mailing addresses in the world! Little or nothing has changed there (or in Ireland) since 1066 when it comes to addressing standards!

If you are thinking in terms of rapid address entry systems where you give your postcode and the street address etc pops up this technology also works with short numeric postcodes such as

1004 Dublin

The operator enters the four digit postcode and the first two or three characters of the street name eg 1004 ME or MER for "Merrion Road" - ie enough data to exclusively identify the street and the rest of the address fills in automatically.

It is far simpler telling everyone in Dublin 4 that your postcode is 1004 than to get people who live between 1 and 9 Merrion Road (odd numbers only) that their postcode is D4 2GX or whatever.

Floater

Floater

Originally posted by eth0_
I honestly don't know how postmen can work without postcodes, considering plenty of addresses outside cities and towns in the UK and Ireland do not have addresses in the form: house number, street name, district, city/town, postcode.

The best system of house number (for use outside the existing urban numbered area) is the metric house number as used in France and some other countries.

If your house is 500 metres from the start of Dublin Road, it will be 500 Dublin Road.

If my house is on the same road on the opposite side, half a km down from you, it will be 1001 Dublin Road.

If someone builds a house half way between the two on my side it will be 751 Dublin Road, or 750 if it is on your side.

It makes searching for houses and business premises simple – even if everyone doesn’t display their house number. All you need to do is reset the odometer in the car to 00000 either at the start of the road or outside someone’s house where they display the house number.

You don’t need a district name in a rationalized mailing address system because the postcode will clearly indicate the “district”.

The postcode should appear before the town for two reasons.

1) It is far easier for optical character recognition systems that read envelopes to find the postcode at the start of the bottom line of the address. This is the European standard format.

2) Mail is now “electronically sorted” on the continent. Eg if you post a letter in Amsterdam for an address in France, the Dutch post office scans and validates the address label against a database of valid French addresses. They then apply a barcode to the envelope which is a serial number – nothing to do with the postcode. The system then sends a message to La Poste advising that they have an envelope serial number NL8938239449823984XX weighing 18g posted in 1121 GW Amsterdam on its way to France and the address on the envelope is bla bla bla.

When this envelope arrives in the French system, they already know where it is going so it doesn’t have to go through the time consuming address scanning and recognition process. Instead it can be dumped in with the mail stream of other letters posted in France.

At each stage in the French sorting process the barcode is scanned on the envelope and the address sent by the Dutch is retrieved to decide where to route the packet to next. At the end of the sorting process, the mail is automatically sorted by house number within each road or street so the postperson has nothing to do other than walk and deliver.

Standardisation provides a more efficient service on an end to end basis.

Floater

Sin e an Fear

There is a standard format for postal addressing across continental Europe and people adhere to it.

Thus spake Napoleon Bonaparte.... buried in St Helena STHL 1ZZ (Yes, that postcode really exists)

Why should stamps cost another 10 cents each to pay for people to decypher addresses written by illiterate people or those that want to impose their non-compliant systems on the world [read 'mainland Europe']?

Yes, in the name of uniformity, everybody in the world should all drive on the right, have telephones that go 'beeep' when they ring, have two-pin plugs, use metric weights and measures, but they don't. And hey, they still speak different languages from one another.

http://www.columbia.edu/kermit/postal.html

Malaysia was once British, but it puts its postcodes on the left, eg: 50100 Kuala Lumpur. Hong Kong doesn't have postcodes at all, even though mainland China does, eg: Beijing 100081. Postcode on the right- shock, horror! Mail to mainland China is still treated as international.

It would make even more sense for the US, Canada, Russia, Australia, Japan, South Africa, etc, etc, to have '00' as their international access code, but they don't see the need to. Having to dial 011, 8-10, 0011, 010, 09 may be a change from what you're used to, but it won't kill you.

To all the people suggesting we use the UK style of post codes have any of you ever read a report instigated by the Royal Mail AFAIK. Anyway, Royal Mail know that the Post Codes are a disaster in the UK and do not work well at all, are incomprehensible to the public and they're been looking at ways to change them.

Not AFAIK. There have been suggestions about having 'personal' or 'non geographic' postcodes, like telephone numbers, but the present system works fine. Channel Islands and the Isle of Man didn't have them until ten years ago, but are fine with them now.

British addresses aren't complicated, in fact they're less so since the requirement for including a county was dropped. I still include 'Surrey' in my address, even though Croydon hasn't administratively been in the county for thirty years.

Okay, IRL can have numeric postcodes (104x or 104xx for Dublin 4) do distinguish itself from GB, just has Canada has alphanumeric postal codes (NOT ZIP codes) to distinguish it from the USA. You can write to Santa Claus at
North Pole, Canada H0H 0H0

In the interim, New Zealand Post's approach would make sense.
They don't even use the old postal zones, Auckland 6, Wellington 1, Christchurch 4 any more.

New Zealand Post

The Post Code Finder allows you to find a Post Code for a street,
P O Box, Private Bag or Rural Delivery address. Post Codes are only required to be used by customers who are lodging mail through our VolumePost options. It is not necessary to use Post Codes when addressing any other mail.

New Zealand Post
Private Bag 39990
WELLINGTON (the 6020 is not required)

Actually, they should use them, and allow OCR to sort Australian mail (and vice versa) so NZ 6001 goes to Wellington and WA 6001 goes to Perth.

Victor

Originally posted by Floater
2) Mail is now “electronically sorted” on the continent. Eg if you post a letter in Amsterdam for an address in France, the Dutch post office scans and validates the address label against a database of valid French addresses. They then apply a barcode to the envelope which is a serial number – nothing to do with the postcode. The system then sends a message to La Poste advising that they have an envelope serial number NL8938239449823984XX weighing 18g posted in 1121 GW Amsterdam on its way to France and the address on the envelope is bla bla bla.

....................

At each stage in the French sorting process the barcode is scanned on the envelope and the address sent by the Dutch is retrieved to decide where to route the packet to next. At the end of the sorting process, the mail is automatically sorted by house number within each road or street so the postperson has nothing to do other than walk and deliver.

This is the way An Post are going, although it is still under implementation and still ivolves an amount of hand sorting - you will often notice and orange bar code printed on an envelope.

Floater

Originally posted by Victor
This is the way An Post are going, although it is still under implementation and still ivolves an amount of hand sorting - you will often notice and orange bar code printed on an envelope.

An Post are in the process of centralising operations on four mechanised sorting facilities located in Dublin, Cork, Athlone and Portlaoise.

As it stands, they have a very poor delivery performance on non machine produced mail. By machine produced mail I mean things like ESB bills. The addresses on machine produced mail can be easily read and require little or no manual intervention during the sorting process.

(Aside from the fact that ESB bills are printed in account number order and the ESB account number is in effect a 9 digit “postcode” down to each individual household and business premises!)

Mail is treated in two ways in the sorting process:

(a) If the address can be machine read and matched against the database of valid addresses, it is barcoded with a serial number and passed on for sorting based on the address stored in the system, referenced by the barcode number.

(b) If the address can’t be machine read and matched to the database, an image of the address is scanned and the item is also barcoded with its serial number.

Sorting staff are presented with an image of each envelope that fails machine recognition on VDU screens and they manually enter routing codes. These routing codes are used for sorting again by reference to the envelope’s barcode. After this manual intervention the type (b) problem envelope that originally failed to machine read can be machine sorted.

Unfortunately large number of envelopes are failing to be machine read and this creates backlogs of items that have to be manually treated – hence delays in delivery. This problem will escalate as the four new sorting centres take over more geographic responsibility.

Take by way of example of a letter posted in Limerick to an address in Dublin. This letter will first go to the Munster sorting centre at Little Island. Let’s say that it arrives there at 8pm – together with 500,000 other letters from all over Munster. Perhaps 100,000 of these will fail to machine read properly and sorting staff will have to work through them manually on VDU screens to assign routing codes to each one.

The “reject” envelopes can’t be sorted until they are manually coded. If they are to make the next day’s delivery in Dublin, they have to be out of the Munster centre by say 11pm for the sake of argument. This gives them a window of three hours to be coded manually and run through the sorting process or they will be stuck in Little Island overnight – adding another day to the delivery time - perhaps more at peak times.

If these items were postcoded the machine sorting process would be simplified, and every other country in Europe that uses this centralised sorting system with database matching and barcodes has a postcode infrastructure.

A numeric postcode before the town name is the easiest to machine detect and read, because figures have a higher probability of machine recognition than letters of the alphabet, and the postcode will always be at the bottom left of the address block (rather than being buried within text blocks elsewhere on an address line).

More complex postcodes are more likely to be transposed by the customer and misread in the machine recognition process.

If the mail arriving in Little Island was postcoded, even if the mail failed to be machine read properly on each line of the address, there is a high probability that the postcode could be read. A simple 4 digit postcode such as 1004 for Dublin 4 is all that is required to get the otherwise “reject” item on the road – not only to the Dublin mails centre but also from there to the Ballsbridge delivery office.

The large number of bills and other machine produced items in the mail flow has disguised the appalling delivery performance that the current system is delivering because they distort the statistics relating to the mail you really want to receive quickly ie anything but the bills!

Mail posted in Germany or the Netherlands takes two days to get to my address in France – ie posted Monday, delivered Wednesday. Mail posted in Ireland typically takes five days and mail posted in England often takes ten days. Uniform standards are essential for automated mail sorting to work efficiently across Ireland and across the rest of Europe.

The efficient delivery of mail in any country plays a vital part in the global competitiveness ranking of that country.


Floater

eth0_

That metric postal system has to be one of the dumbest things i've ever heard of. Regular post codes like those in use in the USA and UK are far easier to use and i'd imagine enable postmen to sort all their deliveries efficiently. So they could have a pile of post for BT9 4JA (the left side of the road) and one for BT9 4JB (the right).

Also, postcodes (in the UK at least) are used for more than just mail! Credit checks are run on your post code, I don't see how they can do this as easily with a system like France's....

Floater

Originally posted by eth0_
That metric postal system has to be one of the dumbest things i've ever heard of. Regular post codes like those in use in the USA and UK are far easier to use and i'd imagine enable postmen to sort all their deliveries efficiently. So they could have a pile of post for BT9 4JA (the left side of the road) and one for BT9 4JB (the right).

I was talking about metric house numbers – not postcodes. Odd metric house numbers are on the left of the road and even metric house numbers are on the right. You don’t need the postcode to tell you which side of the road they are on.

Speaking of which Ireland already has a "metric postcode" system - called the national grid reference. The address and location of every property in the state is stored in the An Post database used in the four sorting centres, together with its grid reference to an accuracy of 1 metre – i.e. a 12 digit number.

When the letter is scanned and matched to the national address database the precise location of the delivery address to a one metre square accuracy is known. Far more accurate than a British postcode with is typically shared by about 20 houses. This allows mail to be sorted if required into the delivery sequence used by the postman.

The British postcode was developed in the 1960s when optical character recognition systems were not as advanced as they are today and computing power was limited. The same goes for the zip+5 system in the USA, the latter part of which is often ignored by people. This is second generation technology.

If a postman had to manually sort letters into delivery order for a street, it is far more user-friendly for a human being to simply refer to the house numbers.

Postcodes have a limited function in a country that uses third generation technology, and I have described that function in a previous posting – ie to get the largest possible amount of mail hitting a mechanized sorting office on the road quickly.

Also, postcodes (in the UK at least) are used for more than just mail! Credit checks are run on your post code, I don't see how they can do this as easily with a system like France's....

Someone’s credit rating is not a function of where they live. It is a function of their individual identity, borrowing capacity and credit performance track record. It can only be done properly using their name and date of birth.

While I am aware that postcodes are used for this type of purpose in GB, I have heard it referred to as “postcode blight”. If you have a few bad neighbours who don’t pay their bills and who share the same postcode with you, why should that affect your credit rating in any way?

Software that provides rapid address lookup and entry is available for countries that use European standard postcodes.

Floater

Further Information on An Post's address database and related software and mapping applications

Victor

Originally posted by Floater
Take by way of example of a letter posted in Limerick to an address in Dublin. This letter will first go to the Munster sorting centre at Little Island. Let’s say that it arrives there at 8pm – together with 500,000 other letters from all over Munster. Perhaps 100,000 of these will fail to machine read properly and sorting staff will have to work through them manually on VDU screens to assign routing codes to each one.

The “reject” envelopes can’t be sorted until they are manually coded. If they are to make the next day’s delivery in Dublin, they have to be out of the Munster centre by say 11pm for the sake of argument. This gives them a window of three hours to be coded manually and run through the sorting process or they will be stuck in Little Island overnight – adding another day to the delivery time - perhaps more at peak times.

My brother's sister-in-law works there part-time and they start at 16:30 (in tiem for the start of the business post) and are invariably finished by 19:30. The part-timers are paid up to 21:00, but she has never had to work the "full" shift.

Victor

Originally posted by Floater
Postcodes have a limited function in a country that uses third generation technology, and I have described that function in a previous posting – ie to get the largest possible amount of mail hitting a mechanized sorting office on the road quickly.

But DHL and UPS would really like it so they can charge people in the sticks a fortune.

Floater

Originally posted by Victor
My brother's sister-in-law works there part-time and they start at 16:30 (in tiem for the start of the business post) and are invariably finished by 19:30. The part-timers are paid up to 21:00, but she has never had to work the "full" shift.

The automated centres are only doing a fraction of the global workload at the moment. The phase in is over a two year period to 2005.

I suspect that they don't want to repeat the disaster they had when they opened the Dublin Mails Centre and threw virtually everything at it day one.

Floater

Only 64-70% of mail delivered next day in IRL if you remove ESB bills and similar - ComReg

Floater

Originally posted by Victor
But DHL and UPS would really like it so they can charge people in the sticks a fortune.

They don't vary tariffs based on postcode in any country I know of.

Floater

Victor

Originally posted by Floater
They don't vary tariffs based on postcode in any country I know of.

Well they certainly do want it. Perhaps it's more on a routing and cost management basis then.

Floater

Originally posted by Victor
Well they certainly do want it. Perhaps it's more on a routing and cost management basis then.

I've seen postcodes on either DHL or UPS tariff booklets. However they related to delivery lead times. i.e. if you live in 8200 to 8999 the express package will take 2 days rather than one.

Floater

Victor

Originally posted by Floater
Only 64-70% of mail delivered next day in IRL if you remove ESB bills and similar - ComReg

http://home.eircom.net/content/irelandcom/topstories/2006620?view=Eircomnet

An Post fails to hit delivery targets
From:ireland.com
Saturday, 22nd November, 2003

Only 76 per cent of regular post reached its destination within a working day during the third quarter - 18 per cent behind the target set by the telecommunications regulator ComReg. Edward Power reports.

While this represents a marginal improvement over the 73 per cent rate achieved in the previous three quarters, it is now statistically impossible for An Post to reach the 94 per cent target laid down by ComReg for 2003.

It is vital that An Post improves its performance during the busy pre-Christmas period, said ComReg chairwoman Ms Etain Doyle.

The regulator has also asked An Post to revise its code of practise for reimbursing customers in the event of loss, damage or undue delay of post. It has given the company a month to come up with new proposals.

An Post acknowledged that while progress has been made in delivery time, further improvement is necessary. "We are pleased to see that the quality of service figures are moving in the right direction but they remain far below what we want them to be. We are confident we can change this next year," said a spokeswoman. The other recommendations would be studied, she added.

An Post is in serious financial difficulty, with an expected trading loss of €47 million for 2003, and a further €39 million deficit predicted next year.

The company has implemented a recovery plan, requiring 1,000 to 1,500 redundancies, which it hopes will return it to a break-even position by 2005.

Earlier this month, An Post took the unprecedented step of assuring the public there will be no repeat of last year's pre-Christmas delays when teething troubles with new processing equipment in December caused widespread disruption.

ro_G

have to agree with much of floater's comments on this. what i would say is that their geo-encoded directory is becoming more important, and slowly but surely spatial data is hitting home with them.

They could, with a moderate amount of effort role out a postcode system based on this, the database and IT technology is there, but its a big program, and well, i'd say it will happen in time.

Floater

Originally posted by ro_G
They could, with a moderate amount of effort role out a postcode system based on this, the database and IT technology is there, but its a big program, and well, i'd say it will happen in time.

One individual with access to that database could run up a simple four digit postcode system in a day or two. Mailshot everyone from the same database - this is your new postal address. Please update your document templates and printed stuff as soon as you can.

Use of your postcode will greatly help us to improve the service we provide.

Old address/ New Address

Dublin 1 is replaced by 1001 Dublin
Dublin 2 = 1002 Dublin
Dublin 3 = 1003 Dublin
Dublin 4 = 1004 Dublin

[If you wanted to give a separate postcode to PO Box address and CEDEX addresses use]

Dublin 4 PO Boxes 1041 Dublin
Dublin 4 Regular deliveries 1040 Dublin
Dublin 4 RTE (example) 1044 Dublin CEDEX
etc etc

Dublin 24 = 1240 Dublin or 1024 Dublin depending on structure decided upon.


Cork 1 = 2001 Cork
Cork 2 =2002 Cork
Cork 3 =2003 Cork
Cork 4 =2004 Cork.

Limerick City = 6001 Limerick
Waterford City = 5001 Waterford
Galway City = 9001 Galway
Kilkenny City = 5601 Kilkenny
Wexford town 5301 Wexford

Many people can guess what their postcode might be already.

That's nearly half the population of the country done in two minutes with no fancy software!

While country addresses without house numbers might take a bit longer to allocate each addressee with a metric house number (which can be done by geo software) a large part of the mail flow could be postcoded by hitting the urban areas with postcodes first - and moving onwards on a phased rollout basis.

Floater