Post/Zip codes and Ireland

Maskhadov

when are we getting zip/post codes ? I know the government signed a contract a while back. There are postcodes and zip codes, although mostly the same.

It should make deliveries with DHL and the like far quicker. I think the government may have to introduce road/street names to all the roads in ireland. House numbers of course will never work in this country with all the one off housing in the countryside we do.

some day we may be able to do the following


http://acg.media.mit.edu/people/fry/zipdecode/

dowlingm

An Post have always opposed it but in my view that's only to protect their direct mailing monopoly since they have their own system - at a price.

dr zoidberg

Wiki says they're to come in at the start of 2008, no idea what format they'll be though.
Click here for link

Hagar

AFAIK An Post have an internal "postcode" system which they haven't made public to protect their monopoly. They will make it available to businesses on a licenced basis 40k per annum 3 years ago. Before you ask I was the IT manager for a major courier company and we were thwarted at ever turn by An Post in our efforts to develop a similar system.

Maskhadov

The lack of postcodes is one of the biggest reasons why post is so poor delivered in this tiny island. An post has to be one of the most inefficent post services in western Europe. Its a shame its another 2 years away. Still its better than never.

When I order anything off amazon it takes up to 10 days to get here but the north has next day delivery or 2-5 day deliver. Why cant we have next day delivery (for a similar reasonable price) or free delivery within 2-5 days on offer to people in the north.

In the north they had similar problems to us in that they used townlands. It meant that the U.K government had to name ALL of the roads in the north. Thinking up thousands of names will be intresting. I dont know if they will be in English or Irish.

corktina

in my home town it isnt a problem, i had a mag posted to me at the address "house with all the Cortinas, Kanturk..." not a prob.....:D

mackerski

An Post doesn't require a Postcode, since, as noted above, they have their own database of all addresses that works just fine without one. Just about anybody else delivering stuff and a bunch of other people would benefit greatly from their introduction, so it's probably in the interest of fairness that they are being introduced.

Some of the more obvious benefits:

* Facilitates address-based verification for credit-card transactions (currently next to impossible to automate for Ireland)

* Makes it easier for couriers to do automated quotes for a particular pickup/delivery point.

* Gives us something to enter in compusory postcode fields on brain-dead e-commerce systems.

* Annoys traditionalists

* May get us over our national obsession with county boundaries (see "Annoys traditionalists")

* Allows the elimination of oxymoronic addresses like "Clonee, Dublin 15".

Dermot

Calina

mackerski wrote:

* Gives us something to enter in compusory postcode fields on brain-dead e-commerce systems.

I don't see why people have a problem with this. I just enter zeroes, end of story. Anyway, because there are different post code formats depending on what country you are in, the presence or absence doesn't necessarily made a difference to simplistic e-commerce systems.

Hagar

If you have Autoroute Europe 2006 just enter 83240 and hit find.
It's so accurate my house is practically in the box it uses to display the 83240.
How Irish business can survive without that is a mystery to me.

murphaph

Postcodes will be a good thing for competition in the mail delivery arena. An Post are great for badly addressed stuff but in all honesty, is that what we want from a postal service? It's ironic that the internet was once seen as the killer blow for the post office (email, online banking etc.) but in fact now it seems it may be the saviour (ebay, amazon). It would be nice if we could somehow integrate our postal service with the UK (not saying the UK has a good QoS, it's gone to sh!t in recent years) so we can avail of the same rates from amazon and so on. If they're shipping to fecking Newry for x, they (in theory) could ship to Dundalk for exactly the same price.

corktina

Maskhadov wrote:

The lack of postcodes is one of the biggest reasons why post is so poor delivered in this tiny island. An post has to be one of the most inefficent post services in western Europe. Its a shame its another 2 years away. Still its better than never.

When I order anything off amazon it takes up to 10 days to get here but the north has next day delivery or 2-5 day deliver. Why cant we have next day delivery (for a similar reasonable price) or free delivery within 2-5 days on offer to people in the north.

In the north they had similar problems to us in that they used townlands. It meant that the U.K government had to name ALL of the roads in the north. Thinking up thousands of names will be intresting. I dont know if they will be in English or Irish.

i would suspect that a postcode will be issued for each townland. Codes in the UK are for batches of houses rather than individual ones so I cant see aproblem there.Streets in built up areas are already named usually I would have thought.

Maskhadov

The towns and cities will be fine its just the countryside that is the problem. There arent too many other countries that have our distributed population like ours.

Were going to have a big postcode then if every town land gets one. I think they should introduce road names. All that road and postcode information can be then put into a computer and any delivery company (using GPS as well) could find the house with complete ease.

Hagar

It's not that simple. The only thing that will work is an unambiguous postcode.

Take the following example

Saint Anne's Park
St. Anne's Pk.
St Annes Pk
St Ann's Park

I could do that all day. There is no end to the variations on simple names.
Also there is a snobbery thing. Many people in poorer areas on the borders of well-to-do areas ofter use that area name as their own rather than the correct one.
In my experience half the people in Old Ballymun give their address as Glasnevin.

Only postcodes will sort it out.

corktina

and what about all the similar (or identical names) I dont know how our postmen cope.....they do very well I think....

it is certainly going to be a nightmare to sort it out but I cant think that street names in the countryside will work out

Maskhadov

Do you think they will name all of the roads in Ireland ? I think they may well have to.

MrPudding

Calina wrote:

I don't see why people have a problem with this. I just enter zeroes, end of story. Anyway, because there are different post code formats depending on what country you are in, the presence or absence doesn't necessarily made a difference to simplistic e-commerce systems.

Entering zeros may get you past simple web form validation but it can cause problems on web sites that use address validation for credit cards. Your address of record with your credit card provider will not have the zeros in it. Sites which use address validation or Worldpay may initiall refuse your card.


Have a look at this post from a while ago:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=1219272&postcount=37

This is what An Post use:

http://www.geodirectory.ie/index.html

Floater knows a disturbing amount about posting sh1t. Nice explanation here of CEDEX:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=1231693&postcount=57

The whole thread is actually a good read if you are interested in postcodes.

MrP

Maskhadov

good post MrPudding.

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”.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=1231693&postcount=57

I think that is just a fantastic idea !!

dazberry

Hagar wrote:

Also there is a snobbery thing. Many people in poorer areas on the borders of well-to-do areas ofter use that area name as their own rather than the correct one.

You are right - I think we've all seen it (or done it depending where we came from). But more interestingly there are areas of ambiguity, and areas that have been created by previous disputes.

Since you mentioned St. Annes, just thinking of the D5/D13 split as I would remember there are anomolies, in that parts of D13 jut in to D5 and vice versa, and it probably has more to do with when they were built (or who built them) then where they actually are. As my mother said to me - it was all country roads in 1968!

The latter for example would be say bits of Leopardstown that have a postcode of Blackrock Co.Dublin. The reason for this is related to old postal disputes and union issues etc...

I now live on a road with a little curve. In the middle of the curve, the street name changes from terrace, to street(answers on a post card please ) and all the house numbers start again. You have no idea of the confusion this causes. I doubt postcodes will fix this - but definitely its the way forward.

D.

johnnyrotten

If it's not broken , dont fix it

MrPudding

johnnyrotten wrote:

If it's not broken , dont fix it

I think the point is that most people think, in fact, that itis broken and therefore requires fixing.

MrP

Maskhadov

just one problem with the french system for house numbers. What happens when you are coming from the other direction on the road.

weehamster

While this may be a interesting debate, can the mods please tell me what has this topic got anything to do with Commuting/Transport ???

Calina

MrPudding wrote:

Entering zeros may get you past simple web form validation but it can cause problems on web sites that use address validation for credit cards. Your address of record with your credit card provider will not have the zeros in it. Sites which use address validation or Worldpay may initiall refuse your card.

You are probably right - but it has never happened to me, and I order from sites in several different countries - all of which have postcodes.

corktina

weehamster wrote:

While this may be a interesting debate, can the mods please tell me what has this topic got anything to do with Commuting/Transport ???

easy one to answer that is.....any Couriers want to comment on how useful in TRANSPORT circles a postcode would be?

Sarsfield

It would also be useful to the emergency services. If a caller to 999/112 can give a postcode, there's less room for error. The location can also be brought up immediately on a map and the services directed to the correct location.

This would work for pizza delivery too!

shotamoose

mackerski wrote:

Some of the more obvious benefits:

* Facilitates address-based verification for credit-card transactions (currently next to impossible to automate for Ireland)

* Makes it easier for couriers to do automated quotes for a particular pickup/delivery point.

* Gives us something to enter in compusory postcode fields on brain-dead e-commerce systems.

* Annoys traditionalists

* May get us over our national obsession with county boundaries (see "Annoys traditionalists")

* Allows the elimination of oxymoronic addresses like "Clonee, Dublin 15".

Dermot

It'd be good for services like this, too.

corktina

This would work for pizza delivery too![/QUOTE]

very valid point!!!!!:cool:

Victor

mackerski wrote:

* Allows the elimination of oxymoronic addresses like "Clonee, Dublin 15".

Rathoath, Dublin 15 is much "better".

mackerski

Victor wrote:

Rathoath, Dublin 15 is much "better".

Have you seen that used? I haven't.

Dermot

corktina

Maskhadov wrote:

just one problem with the french system for house numbers. What happens when you are coming from the other direction on the road.

i guess you subtract instead of adding.......

Victor

weehamster wrote:

While this may be a interesting debate, can the mods please tell me what has this topic got anything to do with Commuting/Transport ???

Its legit, postcodes are "paper" (or is it virtual) infrastructure.

Victor

Victor wrote:

Rathoath, Dublin 15 is much "better".

mackerski wrote:

Have you seen that used? I haven't.

I spent the morning searching Rathoath for Dolly Heffernans. Its on Rathoath Road, north of Blanchardstown.

Victor

Hagar wrote:

Saint Anne's Park
St. Anne's Pk.
St Annes Pk
St Ann's Park

Thats the beauty of computers. The computers can be programmed once and from tehn on will know that Saint Anne's Park = St. Anne's Pk. = St Annes Pk bit not = St Ann's Park

Much better is:

Liffey Street Upper (Dublin 1)
Liffey Street Lower (Dublin 1)
Liffey Street West (near Collin's Barracks)
Liffey Street South (Chapelizod)

Maskhadov

corktina wrote:

i guess you subtract instead of adding.......

But you have to know the length of the road ! lots of driving about

Victor

Maskhadov wrote:

But you have to know the length of the road ! lots of driving about

I propose putting street numbers on buildings / front doors .....

corktina

Victor wrote:

I propose putting street numbers on buildings / front doors .....

bit radical that:D

Hagar

Victor wrote:

Thats the beauty of computers. The computers can be programmed once and from tehn on will know that Saint Anne's Park = St. Anne's Pk. = St Annes Pk bit not = St Ann's Park

It doesn't work as well as you might think. There are too many variations. Also almost every town in Ireland has a "Dublin Road" or a local equivalent. There's a Blackrock in Dublin, Cork and Louth. All the town names repeat all over the place.

Trust me, I was IT Manager for a major courier company and we spent a fortune developing a system to cater for this. Irish people are not very disciplined when it comes to addresses.

ctrl-alt-delete

dowlingm wrote:

An Post have always opposed it but in my view that's only to protect their direct mailing monopoly since they have their own system - at a price.

didnt bother reading through the rest of the thread so dont know if it's been said already, but i think its more that they have one of the most sophisticated postal reading systems in the world, doubt there are many places they could sell it on too if we did get postcodes (advanced systems not needed to read these).

mackerski

Victor wrote:

I spent the morning searching Rathoath for Dolly Heffernans. Its on Rathoath Road, north of Blanchardstown.

That's legit - it's just around the corner from my office and is very definitely in Dublin 15, which by now must extend to the Meath border.

Dermot

Maskhadov

Victor wrote:

I propose putting street numbers on buildings / front doors .....

Street/road names will be needed all over the countryside then. Plus with all the one off housing in this country trying to put house numbers to houses in the countryside will end up a diaster since people can build in between number 1 and number 2.

Victor

Maskhadov wrote:

Street/road names will be needed all over the countryside then. Plus with all the one off housing in this country trying to put house numbers to houses in the countryside will end up a diaster since people can build in between number 1 and number 2.

Not if you use the metric system that was pointed out earlier. http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=1219272&postcount=37

Maskhadov

Thats the system Im in favour of (the french system with the house measured in metres from the start of the road). Its better than the english house number system.

My only qualm is that if you are coming from the other end of the road/street then you dont know how far it is to the house. Maybe they could put street/road names at the start and end of every road with the length of the road underneath the name. Then all you would need to do is a simple subtraction.

That would work as long as you werent at a junction which was in between the beginning and end of the road.

****edit

I just thought, they should put how far you are from the start of the road at every junction instead of the full length of the road. That way you can work out which way to go.

spacetweek

Maskhadov wrote:

Thats the system Im in favour of (the french system with the house measured in metres from the start of the road). Its better than the english house number system.
...
I just thought, they should put how far you are from the start of the road at every junction instead of the full length of the road. That way you can work out which way to go.

I lived in Australia for a while and in Aussie cities, at every intersection, on the signs giving the names of the streets they have the range of addresses along that section too. For example, Pitt St. 180-240. (I know they aren't using metres here, but it doesn't matter). Unfortunately in Ireland we don't even always have the name of the street displayed.

Plus we'd have to name every road in the country that could potentially have a house on it (which is all of them.) In Australia every road does indeed have a name (all neatly displayed!), even back country roads. However as we all know the road density is extremely high in Ireland and naming and displaying every individual boreen would be a mammoth task. Plus the layout isn't in a grid, so it's inefficient and requires far more names.

Every road does, though, have a numbering. They're in the form Lxxxxx, i.e. a unique 5-digit (I think) number. Maybe we could use these? Your address would be in the form 150 L87667, i.e. 150 m from the start of the road L87667. Not user friendly though, so a bit of a non-starter.:rolleyes:

Victor

How does the American system work? Is it each street block adds 100, i.e. the corner building, 4400 Northwest Avenue is one block up from 4300 Northwest Avenue

spacetweek wrote:

Every road does, though, have a numbering. They're in the form Lxxxxx, i.e. a unique 5-digit (I think) number. Maybe we could use these? Your address would be in the form 150 L87667, i.e. 150 m from the start of the road L87667. Not user friendly though, so a bit of a non-starter. :rolleyes:

Four digit, in the series L1001-9999. Up to 1000 is taken up by the M/N/R series.

Litcagral

Maskhadov wrote:

Street/road names will be needed all over the countryside then. Plus with all the one off housing in this country trying to put house numbers to houses in the countryside will end up a diaster since people can build in between number 1 and number 2.

Many people will take exception to having a number on their house and will probably not use it. In the greater Dublin area, it's considered to be a bit of a status symbol to have a house with no number.

MrPudding

Fcuk 'em then. They don't get post.

MrP

dr zoidberg

mackerski wrote:

That's legit - it's just around the corner from my office and is very definitely in Dublin 15, which by now must extend to the Meath border.

Dermot

Rathoath's a long distance from D15. The borders of Dublin haven't changed
As for Clonee, part of it is D15 but really it shouldn't be even called Clonee, the village itself is very definitely in Meath whereas the new estates are really Hartstown/Clonsilla.



Calling these estates Clonee is like calling the Weston estates of Lucan Leixlip. There's about the same distance between them. But noone ever does that. I might start putting Leixlip Co. Dublin on my address, see if the value goes up

corktina

MrPudding wrote:

Fcuk 'em then. They don't get post.

MrP

monument

Victor wrote:

How does the American system work? Is it each street block adds 100, i.e. the corner building, 4400 Northwest Avenue is one block up from 4300 Northwest AvenueFour digit, in the series L1001-9999. Up to 1000 is taken up by the M/N/R series.

Whatever ever about the numbering, the US system works better because, using Dublin as an example, where we would have the Quays, or maybe the streets running practically parallel to them, broken up into ten or more sections, similar kind of main streets in the US would be all one, spanning the city. Of course, this works best when a city is mostly squared grids.

Maskhadov

Litcagral wrote:

Many people will take exception to having a number on their house and will probably not use it. In the greater Dublin area, it's considered to be a bit of a status symbol to have a house with no number.

I dont want any house numbers in the countryside either. I think it would look stupid and is too Anglo Saxon for my liking.

I came up with the idea that they should put how far you are from the start of the road at every junction instead of the full length of the road. That way when you see a sign, you can see straight away how far you are up a road and figure out which way to go easily.

So, if you came to a T junction or cross roads you would see a sign saying
" Westmorland road 450".

The 450 would represent 450 meter from the beginning of the road. If you had an address called 850 Westmorland road you would know you would have to travel another 400 meters further along the road.

(a small point, the signs would have to be on the side of the junction which is closest to the start of the road so you know where the road starts).

One fact that cant be escaped is that they will have to name ALL the roads in the country and have them stored into a database. A unique name would be great instead of lots of similar names. Something related to the townland if possible.

Also the street names in Irish should be a REQUIRMENT!!!

The cities should be easy to do in comparision to the countryside.

mackerski

Maskhadov wrote:

I dont want any house numbers in the countryside either. I think it would look stupid and is too Anglo Saxon for my liking.

Do you want to explain what you mean here? There's a whole world full of people happily naming their roads. You want us to refrain from it because some of them are the next door neighbours?

Dermot