Post/Zip codes and Ireland

corktina

Victor wrote:

There is a difference between dropping in flyers with the post and direct mail. Direct mail means I target specific people (by ages, sex, shopping habits, car ownership, etc.) not just every post box in a specific street.

yes a big difference, but both a *%"@#~+ nuisance that I have to pay to get rid of......not as bad as calls from *%$** tele2 though......:)

bandraoi

A grid system won't work well for a postcode. It shows you where the place is, but gives no indication of how to deliver to it (i.e., what road it is close to).

That's bull****, a grid system tells you exactly where the house is on the map, after that all you need is an actual map or a sat nav system.
You'll need a something to work out how to get there no matter what sort of post code system you introduce.

NotInventedHere

I cant believe that nobody has hit on the effect of post codes on House prices. It would have an immediate effect on houses in Lucan for example as some houses coud be in the same post code as Neilstown or elsewhere. Then it would become a political issue. I cant see it happening.

mackerski

NotInventedHere wrote:

I cant believe that nobody has hit on the effect of post codes on House prices. It would have an immediate effect on houses in Lucan for example as some houses coud be in the same post code as Neilstown or elsewhere. Then it would become a political issue. I cant see it happening.

Today they're just next door to Neilstown - imagine having the same postcode as well... Though I think you can take the opposing view of this - the finer-grained a postcode scheme is, the less clearly you can use it to draw relationships between nearby places.

For instance, If the (made up) UK postcode of GU5 9QP is dead posh, does it really imply anything about what GU5 9RC might be like? Or if an it's-not-Neilstown-it's-effing-Lucan address gets 10436, will it matter whole lot if a real-Neilstown address has 10454?

The current postal zones have, by their very coarseness, caused unbelievable ructions in the area of address snobbery, to the extent of deliberate delaying of post by giving out the wrong address. Start-over postcodes of finger grain can fix this, especially if they don't follow the UK migration plan of subdividing existing postal zones.

Dermot

bandraoi

mackerski wrote:

Today they're just next door to Neilstown - imagine having the same postcode as well... Though I think you can take the opposing view of this - the finer-grained a postcode scheme is, the less clearly you can use it to draw relationships between nearby places.

For instance, If the (made up) UK postcode of GU5 9QP is dead posh, does it really imply anything about what GU5 9RC might be like? Or if an it's-not-Neilstown-it's-effing-Lucan address gets 10436, will it matter whole lot if a real-Neilstown address has 10454?

The current postal zones have, by their very coarseness, caused unbelievable ructions in the area of address snobbery, to the extent of deliberate delaying of post by giving out the wrong address. Start-over postcodes of finger grain can fix this, especially if they don't follow the UK migration plan of subdividing existing postal zones.

Dermot

In this case it does, GU5 in a uk post code would represent roughly a suburb in Dublin. The last three number/letters represent the specific bit of the suburb.
English people would look at the first bit of a postcode to influence property prices.

One advantage of basing a system on the national gird is that you're not grouping houses together into clumped post coeds, so it would probably cause less problems with people complaining about being assigned the wrong post code.

MrPudding

Sorry to drag this up again but I have two more experiences from Musicroom. When my first book was so late I phoned them up and told them. They assumed it had been lost in the post and sent another. It took 15 days to arrive.

I order 2 more books off the same site on Wednesday. I asked for them to be delivered to a friend that works in Bracknell during the week and comes home at the weekend. I got an email yesterday telling me the books had been posted. I got a text just now telling me they have arrived with my friend. That is a difference of 2 weeks in delivery.

Seriously, something is very wrong here.

MrP

Maskhadov

MrPudding wrote:

Seriously, something is very wrong here.

MrP

i.e. An Post is complete crap ??? Thats what I think. Roll on 2009 when an failure faces competition. Postcodes in the mean time will help a great deal.

bungeecork

I love boards.ie - only here could a thread about post codes bring in sat nav, union disputes, the use of the Irish language and even a mini-discussion on Anglo Saxons.

Whatever we end up with, could it please apply EU-wide?

And could it please not use letters and numbers. UK post codes always make me uneasy with one and i, zero and o, five and s.

And why are UK addresses so long if the post code identifies a unique string of houses?
Would a letter be delivered if addressed Tony Blair, Numer 10, Lwi1 0io?

MrPudding

bungeecork wrote:

I love boards.ie - only here could a thread about post codes bring in sat nav, union disputes, the use of the Irish language and even a mini-discussion on Anglo Saxons.

Whatever we end up with, could it please apply EU-wide?

And could it please not use letters and numbers. UK post codes always make me uneasy with one and i, zero and o, five and s.

And why are UK addresses so long if the post code identifies a unique string of houses?
Would a letter be delivered if addressed Tony Blair, Numer 10, Lwi1 0io?

I think that technically you can get away with simply the house number and the postcode. Those 2 items are enough to uniquely identify every house falling under the postcode system.

MrP

Victor

bungeecork wrote:

Would a letter be delivered if addressed Tony Blair, Numer 10, Lwi1 0io?

Well you would need to get the postcode right. I imagine you could even get away with "Tony Blair", but not with "John Smith".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postcode

While most postcodes are allocated by administrative convenience, a few are deliberately chosen. For example in Westminster:

* SW1A 0AA - House of Commons
* SW1A 0PW - House of Lords, Palace of Westminster
* SW1A 1AA - Buckingham Palace
* SW1A 2AA - 10 Downing Street, Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury
* SW1A 2AB - 11 Downing Street, Chancellor of the Exchequer
* SW1A 2HQ - HM Treasury headquarters

Slice

Since my last post on this there still doesn't seem to be any answer to the question 'why do we need postcodes?'

Given that it will 1) increase junkmail and 2) not improve An Post delivery times.

Why are we so in favour of postcodes if this is the case?

antoinolachtnai

The benefit of postcodes is that it will allow more accurate and therefore efficient delivery of services to homes and businesses.

It isn't just about letter post. It's also about couriers, home appliance deliveries, electrical and telecomms services, statistics collection and so on.

If you are against junkmail, fair enough. But postcodes in themselves won't cause a rise in junkmail. The drivers of junkmail are a lot more complex (and include union/IR issues, which tend to favour the development of the unsolicited mail business as well as legal issues around privacy).

What you call 'junk mail' is not all a bad thing. I agree, a lot of it is, but the idea of targeting a promotion at a particular group of people who are more likely to want it is not inherently wrong.

We can't know for sure that it won't improve An Post delivery times. This may be the case in the short-term, but in the longer term there are benefits to be had.

It will certainly make other types of delivery easier.

antoinolachtnai

bandraoi wrote:

That's bull****, a grid system tells you exactly where the house is on the map, after that all you need is an actual map or a sat nav system.
You'll need a something to work out how to get there no matter what sort of post code system you introduce.

Well, then you need a computer to determine the routing for every single item, even if you have to deliver it only a short distance.

Strictly speaking what you say is incorrect. You don't need anything to work out the route with a classic UK-style sortcode. Everything you need to deliver the letter is in the UK sortcode. It tells you exactly what tray to put the letter in to get it delivered to the address.

You are hitting near the nub of the issue - do we want a sortcode system or a strictly geographical system. I would say that we need something in between, that reflects the structure of human settlement.

Benster

Slice wrote:

Since my last post on this there still doesn't seem to be any answer to the question 'why do we need postcodes?'

Given that it will 1) increase junkmail and 2) not improve An Post delivery times.

Why are we so in favour of postcodes if this is the case?

[I might be repeating points made earlier, but I ain't rereading all that again, sorry :eek: ]

Is it not because An Post's system is closed (ie. not publicly available unless you're willing to pay a grand sum for it) and a postcode system is known by whoever lives at the address/place of business and can be given out to whoever needs it?
I don't know what the geographical reference is for my house as used by An Post, but I know my parents' postcode back home.

I think junkmail will increase over time anyway, regardless of which system is used.

And I have waited weeks for deliveries to my address in the South, as opposed to a few days at my parents' house up north. If An Post's current system is so great, how come the service is still crap? I doubt a new, more open system will improve them either way, but it will be of use to other delivery companies.

Slice

Well firstly, An Post have said that the introduction of postcodes will not lead to greater effeciency in their deliveries - this is in small part the reason why they oppose it.

Also Irish homes get by far the lowest amount of Direct Mail compared to our European counterparts, we also happen to be the only country in Europe without a post code system. Comreg believes these two fact are not unrelated.

It's true that for rural populations greater speed of deliveries should follow the introduction of postcodes for non An Post deliveries, but by how much remains to be seen. I personally don't think it's worth all the junkmail, and I don't remember the last time I ever responded to 'targeted' junkmail having lived in Ireland or England, where junkmail volumes were much higher

MrPudding

Slice wrote:

Well firstly, An Post have said that the introduction of postcodes will not lead to greater effeciency in their deliveries - this is in small part the reason why they oppose it.

Also Irish homes get by far the lowest amount of Direct Mail compared to our European counterparts, we also happen to be the only country in Europe without a post code system. Comreg believes these two fact are not unrelated.

It's true that for rural populations greater speed of deliveries should follow the introduction of postcodes for non An Post deliveries, but by how much remains to be seen. I personally don't think it's worth all the junkmail, and I don't remember the last time I ever responded to 'targeted' junkmail having lived in Ireland or England, where junkmail volumes were much higher

The fact that junk mail might increase due to the introduction of postcodes is a bit of a sh1t excuse. They should legislate to prevent junk mail instead of depending on the non-introduction of a system to keep it as it is.

This is a bit like not putting an amber light before green because it would cause accidents due to red light runners. I don't think this is valid. We should stop people running red lights not facilitate a safe envioronment for them to do it.

Junkmail will probably be a problem whether or not we have postcodes. If the government or whoever wants to control junkmail then they should control junkmail not block a system which may have other benefits.

Also, what will it take to improve performance in An Post? What do they need? Why are they so sh1t?

MrP

antoinolachtnai

Slice wrote:

Well firstly, An Post have said that the introduction of postcodes will not lead to greater effeciency in their deliveries - this is in small part the reason why they oppose it.

Firstly, to my knowledge An Post does not actively oppose the introduction of a postcode.

The main An Post unions are in favour of introducing a postcode.

Did you ever for a moment think that An Post management might have an ulterior motive for not supporting the introduction of a postcode?

Victor

antoinolachtnai wrote:

Did you ever for a moment think that An Post management might have an ulterior motive for not supporting the introduction of a postcode?

I imagine the have 2 linked reasons (a) it helps their competitiors (b) it looks like An Post's work will be given away free.

antoinolachtnai

Victor wrote:

There is a difference between dropping in flyers with the post and direct mail. Direct mail means I target specific people (by ages, sex, shopping habits, car ownership, etc.) not just every post box in a specific street.

Welll ... it's a matter of degree. Is it really so different? The DM companies would want you to believe that. In the current context, flyer-dropping is likely to be the most immediate effect of postcoding. And I think flyers might be the most disliked type of junkmail.

(I know this isn't necessarily doing my argument in favour of postcodes much good, but I think it's fair to say there'd be more flyers in your mailbox if it were easier to target them to a particular area. On the other hand, having a simple facility to allow local businesses to target local customers isn't a bad thing.)

antoinolachtnai

Victor wrote:

I imagine the have 2 linked reasons (a) it helps their competitiors (b) it looks like An Post's work will be given away free.

Well, that is one way of putting it. Three provisos:

1. The treaty of Rome sections 81 and 82.

2. An Post does not provide its own capital to do this work (by which I assume you mean Geodirectory).

3. An Post is not solely and may not be even mainly responsible for the work.

Slice

antoinolachtnai

Firstly, to my knowledge An Post does not actively oppose the introduction of a postcode.

When Comreg first released its report on the possible introduction of post codes in Ireland there was quite a number pages given to discussing the issue of post codes in national papers. Amongst those who contributed in opinion columns were senior members of An Post clearly coming out against the idea. Although the company may not be against the introduction of postcodes officially - anyone who has read Comreg's report can see that they are definately not endorsing the idea either.

MrPudding

The fact that junk mail might increase due to the introduction of postcodes is a bit of a sh1t excuse. They should legislate to prevent junk mail instead of depending on the non-introduction of a system to keep it as it is.

One of the main arguments for introducing postcodes is to increase junk mail or "direct marketing" - Comreg themselves say that this is a market that is set to double in size as a result of postcodes in Ireland

Go to http://www.comreg.ie/_fileupload/publications/ComReg0507.pdf and see for yourself

antoinolachtnai

Well, it is certainly true that the management isn't endorsing it, no argument with that!

As regards direct marketing or whatever we are happy calling it, the reason increasing it is so important is because the extra mail volume would help sustain An Post. 3 extra addressed items of mail per household per week at 50 cents margin translates into well over EUR 150m per year extra gross profit for An Post. That is basically why the union is in favour of it. The money would also give the government some leeway to dig themselves way out of political problems with An Post.

(Personally I am not completely convinced that there will be a big increase in DM as a result of postcodes. There will certainly be some increase.)

I wouldn't just focus on postal delivery. There is a wider range of services that would benefit and you should take them into account before you make up your mind on this issue.

RahenyD5

I don't see the problem of continuing the same postcoding, currently in use in Dublin, for the rest of Ireland such as:

52 Meadows Park
Dundalk
Co.Louth 6
Ireland

so...
Co.Cork 1
Co.Sligo 7
Co.Waterford 12
Co.Limerick 3

County Dublin is already split up by Fingal, Dun Laoghaire, Dublin and South Dublin - so...

23 Blessington Road, Tallaght, South Dublin 2, Ireland

5 Oak Grove, Dundrum, Dun Laoghaire 7, Ireland

64 Castle Street, Howth, Fingal 8, Ireland

Dublin City's postcoding could continue as normal but could be cut back with the loss of codes such as D14, D24 etc as these are outside Dublin's boundaries.

Or to follow the codes from vehicle resigtration plates such as D for Dublin City, C for Cork, WW for Wicklow etc. - ending with an European style 5/6 numbers so therefore:

1 O'Connell Street
Dublin
D - 12345
Ireland

1 Main Street
Castlebar
MO - 12345
Ireland

probe

RahenyD5 wrote:

1 O'Connell Street
Dublin
D - 12345
Ireland

1 Main Street
Castlebar
MO - 12345
Ireland

The European standard for postcode presentation is to put the postcode before the name of the town on the same line. This format is also used in many other countries e.g. Russia, China. This position provides the highest incidence of successful machine recognition because the postcode is at the start of a line and most of the time is also on the last line of the address. Not unlike the MICR characters which are always at the bottom line of a cheque.

Eg
Mr A Good
123 MAIN STREET
12345 ANYTOWN


The big problem An Post has at the moment is the low level of machine recognition of non-machine processed mail – i.e. individually handwritten or one off computer printed envelopes. Mail is scanned at the start of the sorting process and barcoded with a serial number. If the address can be matched to a database of Irish addresses, the rest of the process is automated. If the address can’t be matched, it has to be manually codes from a scanned image of the address label. The package can’t move from the origin sorting centre until this manual recognition is done. The cut-off deadline for this manual intervention is tight (only a few hours) if the item is to be delivered next day. An all numeric national postcode appearing before the town name has the highest probability of recognition of any element of the address – particularly when it is handwritten as most of the letters failing in the recognition process are. An all numeric postcode would therefore allow otherwise un-machine recognisable letters to be sent on their next stage of the journey based on the postcode, before a human being has time to check the stored copy of the address label on a VDU later.

Modern sorting systems in use across Europe only need to read the address once at the start of the journey. E.g. a letter posted in Paris to an address in Frankfurt is scanned by La Poste when it enters their system, matched to the German street address database and details of the item are sent to Deutsche Post via EDI message. When the letter arrives into the German system, the address doesn’t have to be scanned and recognised again as the Germans use the French barcoded serial number and can look up the full postal address at each stage of the sorting process down to street and house number. There is a huge investment in recognition software for this standardised address format, which has the largest share of the market in the world and it is worth following the same standard precisely. Ireland uses the same system. Britain and North America re-invented their own wheels when it came to addressing structures and systems which are quite antiquated by European standards. The Economist estimates that Royal Mail will have to spend several billion pounds updating their sorting system to the European norm. Even then it won’t work perfectly because their postcode is made up of letters and numbers and appears in any one of several places within the address layout making high levels of machine recognition impossible.

There is little value in putting the 1 or 2 character county code into the postcode because counties have nothing to do with letter sorting and it may cause local political problems in border areas between counties. Punctuation marks such as “-“ should also be avoided as they cause machine recognition failure rates to increase. The French post office addressing specification (SNA) requires you not to use accented characters, not to use punctuation marks and to have the bottom lines of the address in upper case characters to maximise machine readability (ie from the street address down to the bottom line).

97% of mail posted in Luxembourg is machine recognised and processed because the overwhelming bulk of it complies with the European standard all numeric postcode followed by town name format. Under 70% is machine readable in Ireland. Most of the 30% that isn’t machine readable fails to make next day delivery. Ireland has one of the poorest mail delivery performances in Europe as a result.

probe

Victor

RahenyD5 wrote:

I don't see the problem of continuing the same postcoding, currently in use in Dublin, for the rest of Ireland such as:

You forget the country letters to go at the front (as is the international standard).

As it is, some people get "Cork St., 8" (Dublin) mixed up with "Cork 8" (non-existant). Your system invites disaster.

Quite simply because the current system is too broad - urban areas can have tens of thousands of addresses/ees and for rural areas its as easy to introduce "IRL 1701" for Balbrigan as it is for us to introduce "IRL D 70". Likewise Dublin 15 can become "IRL 1150" to "IRL 1159".

mackerski

Victor wrote:

You forget the country letters to go at the front (as is the international standard).

As it is, some people get "Cork St., 8" (Dublin) mixed up with "Cork 8" (non-existant). Your system invites disaster.

Quite simply because the current system is too broad - urban areas can have tens of thousands of addresses/ees and for rural areas its as easy to introduce "IRL 1701" for Balbrigan as it is for us to introduce "IRL D 70". Likewise Dublin 15 can become "IRL 1150" to "IRL 1159".

The practice of including country letters before the numeric part of the postcode is becoming widely deprecated. Germany, for instance, specifically prefers that the D be dropped from before the postcode at least for internal mail. I can't recall whether they prefer it to be used for inbound mail from other countries - there's at least one country that mandates country letters for inbound and doesn't like them used for internal mail.

Dermot

Calina

mackerski wrote:

The practice of including country letters before the numeric part of the postcode is becoming widely deprecated. Germany, for instance, specifically prefers that the D be dropped from before the postcode at least for internal mail. I can't recall whether they prefer it to be used for inbound mail from other countries - there's at least one country that mandates country letters for inbound and doesn't like them used for internal mail.

Dermot

For a while Germany had W before West German (or formerly West German) addresses, and O before East German due to the massive level of duplication between the East and German postcode system. When they re-organised the postcodes system from 4 to 5 digits 12 or so years ago, they dropped the W/O.

When I lived in Belgium, we used the international code before all EU postcodes except Ireland and the UK. So letters going to France would have been F-75000 or D-69000, as an example. But you never used the F or the D if you were actually in France or Germany.

dmeehan

Comreg has confirmed that consultants hired to examine the possible introduction of postcodes have withdrawn from the project.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/0427/anpost.html?rss
also
http://www.rte.ie/business/2006/0427/comreg.html?rss

Pfungstadter

Did anyone notice there is already a post code system if sorts in existance

Did anyone look on their census form?

Eash county has a two digit number

Dublin is 02

and each street has a four digit code (or three digit code can't remember0

so one example would be ===> 020150

So no need for expensive consultants just use that system

Victor

The problem is with rural areas, not urban ones. Rural areas often do not have street names, but rely on townlands. Currently these areas are utterly dependent on local knowledge for delivery.