National Postcodes to be introduced

Impetus

TheBustedFlush wrote: »

Yes - well putting the tiny violins aside for a moment (at some point in our lives we all believe we've been ignored for our genius ) - did you submit it to the Govt for the postcode tender?

I am not looking to be paid. I am not in the postcode business. Given that most countries have had postcodes for many years, I suspect it would not be a very rewarding enterprise.

My motives are purely an attempt to ensure that Ireland, for once, experiences best practice delivered in a cost efficient speedy manner.

Clearly we are unlikely to see such an outcome from the Minister in question, not to mention the people and consultants he employs.

Sam Russell

Deleted User wrote: »

Sounds like you just don't like anything that was developed in the UK. :rolleyes:

It is a pity the Leap Card was not a copy of London's Oyster Card system.

Not all UK systems are bad, just a lot of them.

Sam Russell

Sam Russell wrote: »

It is a pity the Leap Card was not a copy of London's Oyster Card system.

Not all UK systems are bad, just a lot of them.

If you really want to see joined up thinking in action, you need to go to somewhere like Switzerland.

Impetus

Sam Russell wrote: »

It is a pity the Leap Card was not a copy of London's Oyster Card system.

Not all UK systems are bad, just a lot of them.

I searched my mind before posting along those lines to point out something British that is good (in the interests of balance) in terms of infrastructure or systems. I am still waiting for inspiration. Perhaps it will occur in a dream tonight? :-)

Impetus

Deleted User wrote: »

If you really want to see joined up thinking in action, you need to go to somewhere like Switzerland.

The Swiss use good old fashioned tickets make of board (thick paper). They have the highest use of public transport in the world. Almost 80% of journeys in Zurich area are by public transport.

No time delaying access control barriers at stations etc. You keep your ticket in your wallet until an inspector asks for same at random on board. You can even get combined Visa/Master Cards that are also travel tickets. The same ticket is valid on buses, trains, trams, boats, funicular rail, within its zones of validity.

There is no other country like Switzerland in terms of joined up thinking. Because no other country uses direct democracy to the same intensity. Any public project over 10 million CHF in Zurich canton has to be signed off on by electorate in a vote. These votes usually take place after church on Sunday, and the results are out within a few hours - the machine is so well oiled. No metros and other money wasting projects as a result. Instead they enjoy the best public transport system in the world.

And to move back on topic, one can enter the destination using the 4 digit postcode at a public transport ticket machine.

flutered

my address is quite simle, flutered, xxxxx, co limerick. yet i can recieve a package from nj usa in four days, china or hong kong in four or five days, a package from ozz takes a week, will the post code better that, i doubt it says croker,

Impetus

flutered wrote: »

my address is quite simle, flutered, xxxxx, co limerick. yet i can recieve a package from nj usa in four days, china or hong kong in four or five days, a package from ozz takes a week, will the post code better that, i doubt it says croker,

If the code is properly designed and used it will (increase the probability of rapid delivery). Varying numbers of postal packets fail machine recognition in Ireland because the address on the envelope/label can't be machine read. This forces them back to the end of the queue for manual analysis. In the case of post, there are four mechanized sorting offices in Ireland and trucks leave every night at a cut-off point to take the mail to one of the other four sorting centres. If the item has not been manually analyzed and pointed to the correct destination sorting centre by the cut-off point, it must typically wait until the next day.

Digits, be they machine printed or even hand written are far more machine readable. Even if the full address scan fails, chances are a four or five digit postcode at the start of a line will be machine readable and this allows the item to move to the next sorting office on the route. An image of the address label can be read by someone at a VDU - even while the truck containing the item is on the road, and the correct destination put into the delivery record.

The barcode on the envelope/package (eg DHL whatever) is a serial number for that package. The person at the intervention VDU can cause that serial number to be refined in terms of its destination, and when it hits a barcode reader in the next sorting office, it will be put in the correct delivery slot. Most postal administrations in Europe use this system and send the full address and barcode number of items in transit (eg to Ireland from another country) even before the plane carrying the item lands. So when they arrive in IRL the address does not need to be scanned and deciphered. It has been done once in the country of origin, and is past on to the delivery country.

Stuff sent by eg DHL on Monday in NJ should be delivered in IRL on Wednesday. The USPS is like a curates egg. On the continent, stuff posted on Monday is delivered on Tuesday within the same country and in some bordering areas of neighbouring states. Otherwise it is delivered in Wednesday (J+2).

MBSnr

^^^
It's not proposed though.. it's happening. I'm really not sure why everyone is getting worked up about it so much? It's done and dusted. Move on nothing to see here. (Cue the reply posts... spitting fire...) I for one think it's a great idea (yes you could mention the cost and Loc8 etc) - but welcome to the 21st century Ireland.

Come mid 2015 (if it's delivered on time) this thread will be dead in the water...... and guess what ... we'll be using postcodes without thinking about it. Some of us might even be able to rem more than one....

Sam Russell

MBSnr wrote: »

^^^
It's not proposed though.. it's happening. I'm really not sure why everyone is getting worked up about it so much? It's done and dusted. Move on nothing to see here. (Cue the reply posts... spitting fire...) I for one think it's a great idea and welcome to the 21st century Ireland.

Come mid 2015 (if it's delivered on time) this thread will be dead in the water...... and guess what ... we'll be using postcodes without thinking about it. Some of us might even be able to rem more than one....

No, it is yet to be published. All that exists in the public domain is its length (7 characters) and its format LNN XXXX, L is a letter and N is a number (except for D6W) and that Dublin will use existing postcodes designations as in D04 XXXX, and, oh, every postbox will be allocated a unique random code, but not any place else.

Also in the public domain is its huge cost and its ongoing high maintence costs. No information has been published with regards to usage charges or licencing costs.

Dog's dinner.

MBSnr

Well the Irish Gov. is involved - it's always going to be half a dog's dinner at least. Still though, it'll happen and the Gov. aren't going to read these posts and decide differently....

Elmo

MBSnr wrote: »

Well the Irish Gov. is involved - it's always going to be half a dog's dinner at least. Still though, it'll happen and the Gov. aren't going to read these posts and decide differently....

true but there is hope that after the election there will be a new minister. Though he'll have to continue as is. According to The Sunday Times there will be a shuffle with Rabbittee Bouncing on his merry way.

Sam Russell

Elmo wrote: »

true but there is hope that after the election there will be a new minister. Though he'll have to continue as is. According to The Sunday Times there will be a shuffle with Rabbittee Bouncing on his merry way.

Rabbitte is a very ineffective minister. He has yet to be able to get any tax for oil/gas. He has yet to launch the broadcasting charge. He has launched a dog's dinner of a postcode. He launched the Saorview TV twice, at great expense to RTE. He failed to finalise the windfarm deal with the UK.

Overall an under-performance.

TheBustedFlush

Sam Russell wrote: »

No, it is yet to be published. All that exists in the public domain is its length (7 characters) and its format LNN XXXX, L is a letter and N is a number (except for D6W) and that Dublin will use existing postcodes designations as in D04 XXXX, and, oh, every postbox will be allocated a unique random code, but not any place else.

Also in the public domain is its huge cost and its ongoing high maintence costs. No information has been published with regards to usage charges or licencing costs.

Dog's dinner.

Not quite - there's a bit more info than that around various places from blogs and media stuff. around costs, uses, design, etc. The first bit is called a routing key for An Post use and anyone using their services/downstream services - 140 of them altogether. Each address in each routing key gets an unstructured unique identifier (second bit) and neighbouring houses will deliberately not be in sequence to avoid vanity clusters, sequence c0ck-ups, and high maintenance costs; it will have gps co-ordinates mapped to each code based on geodirectory, and it will be available free to public on a website.

recedite

TheBustedFlush wrote: »

and neighbouring houses will deliberately not be in sequence to avoid vanity clusters, sequence c0ck-ups

Oh pleeeease....
That is not deliberate, that randomness in the second part is a design flaw. It means neighbouring properties will have completely random ID numbers.

The vanity label bit is built into the first part; the D04 part. Whether that inbuilt "postcode snobbery" is a flaw or a vital requirement, all depends on ones point of view, ones address, and ones status in life... :pac:

flutered

Sam Russell wrote: »

Rabbitte is a very ineffective minister. He has yet to be able to get any tax for oil/gas. He has yet to launch the broadcasting charge. He has launched a dog's dinner of a postcode. He launched the Saorview TV twice, at great expense to RTE. He failed to finalise the windfarm deal with the UK.

Overall an under-performance.

all one can expect from a pig is a grunt, in opposition all he ever done was use one liners to attack whoever was in power.

TheBustedFlush

recedite wrote: »

Oh pleeeease....
That is not deliberate, that randomness in the second part is a design flaw. It means neighbouring properties will have completely random ID numbers.

The vanity label bit is built into the first part; the D04 part. Whether that inbuilt "postcode snobbery" is a flaw or a vital requirement, all depends on ones point of view, ones address, and ones status in life... :pac:

Of course it's deliberate - you either choose to have something structured which involves time and effort, or you choose to have something unstructured which also involves time and effort. Either is a deliberate design choice. And they won't just be numbers, the examples show letters and numbers.

By not grouping or structuring the second bit you avoid the vanity streets/difficult neighbourhoods stuff. The routing key level is too large a number - D4 is a media driven concept. And the point surely is that assigning anonymous keys to other areas means no such media-driven blather gets created elsewhere. "I live in T22" - "Really - who cares?" it also has the advantage that the location codes won't change when new development happens in an area - new dissimilar codes will be issued instead of getting all the addresses to change.

ozmo

MBSnr wrote: »

^^^
It's not proposed though.. it's happening. I'm really not sure why everyone is getting worked up about it so much? It's done and dusted....

Except it isn't.

1. Its not being driven by the Government - its being put together by Capita UK.

2. Capita have been chosen - that deal is done and EU says its all above board. so thats that.


But - the actual details seem far from sorted.. And this is where we should be asking the politicians now while they are talking to us.

eg.
* we not know yet how the offline (Android, Garmin GPS etc) will be "licenced ". ie. will they allow the full database to ship with each device and app? How will they secure this data - Or will we be the only postcode in the world that requires tethering to the internet to be usable?

Who knows - it may not be too late to tweak the 5 random alphanumeric characters to be a logical grid system with the 140 areas as origins. That would please most people I think.


The only Politician I can think of that off hand that would be capable of considering the ramifications of the currently defined one would be Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport Leo V?

TheBustedFlush

ozmo wrote: »

Except it isn't.

1. Its not being driven by the Government - its being put together by Capita UK.

2. Capita have been chosen - that deal is done and EU says its all above board. so thats that.


But - from what I am hearing the actual details are far from sorted.. And this is where we should be asking the politicians now while they are talking to us.

eg.
* They do not know yet how the offline (Android, Garmin GPS etc) will be "licenced ". ie. will they allow the full database to ship with each device and app? How will they secure this data - Or will we be the only postcode in the world that requires tethering to the internet to be usable?

Who knows - it may not be too late to tweak the 5 random alphanumeric characters to be a logical grid system with the 140 areas as origins. That would please most people I think.


The only Politician I can think of that off hand that would be capable of considering the ramifications of the currently defined one would be Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport Leo V?

Not quite, Ozmo.

It is being driven by Government - or the Dept of Comms specifically - they own and award the licence. The holder is Capita Business Support Ireland, according to Dept website, and they are putting it together with three other Irish companies.

The various apps and device manufacturers will get a database file same way they get it in lots of other countries - there's no big mystery to this - addresses/eircodes/coordinates. How much they're willing to pay is another matter.

However, there are only 4 alphanumeric characters in the unique identifier bit which allowing for sound/look-alike characters would probably mean only a certain amount of usable characters in each position. creating a basic grid system from this would probably mean you couldn't get to the individual house level.

Either way, Leo Varadkar will probably like the fact that eircodes could be assigned to other things in the future, including presumably sport, tourism and other POI places.

ozmo

>Not quite, Ozmo.
??

>It is being driven by Government - .. Dept of Comms specifically - they own >and award the licence.

Award - but Capita Uk specified the random number thing and are designing the databases.

>The various apps and device manufacturers will get a database file same >way they get it in lots of other countries

Nope - explained to you before. Do you think they will let the database go as good as unencrypted to everyone (Garmin is an low power unsecured device - Android is decompilable java) - there is no way to protect our house address's if they ship that database - and no way it will work if they dont

> How much they're willing to pay is another >matter.

Nope - its the whole point of Eircode - how we pay. If they cannot build a business case to get money from us they wont do it.


>creating a basic grid system from this would probably mean you couldn't get to the individual house level.

Nope - Look up the definition of Origin I mentioned.

>Either way, Leo Varadkar will probably like the fact that eircodes could be >assigned to other things in the future, including presumably sport, tourism >and other POI places.

Nope - Howth Head, Dalkey Island, Saint Annes Football pitches, and ALL other POI places that do not have a post box - will not get a Postcode.
I only mentioned him as off the top of my head he is the only one that I've noticed to be any way technical - I m sure there are more.


Anyway - Please - you keep repeating the same stuff - please read up more than what you read on their website.

recedite

TheBustedFlush wrote: »

Of course it's deliberate - you either choose to have something structured which involves time and effort, or you choose to have something unstructured which also involves time and effort.

I must remember that one-liner next time I sleep in, and I need a novel excuse

ozmo wrote: »

it may not be too late to tweak the 5 random alphanumeric characters to be a logical grid system with the 140 areas as origins. That would please most people I think.
The only Politician I can think of that off hand that would be capable of considering the ramifications of the currently defined one would be Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport Leo V?

I agree Varadkar is probably the only one with the competence and the interest in such matters.

4 characters is not going to be enough to create a code for a grid in two dimensions, x and y axis, plus checker digit. Unless the resolution is so low as to make it pointless.
The 4 numbers could only work to show houses in a sequential order if every house in each "D04" type area was on the same road, like some gigantic ribbon, and all houses were on the same side of the road.
And thats without even getting into the third dimension of things (apartments are stacked vertically on top of each other)

TheBustedFlush wrote: »

However, there are only 4 alphanumeric characters in the unique identifier bit which allowing for sound/look-alike characters would probably mean only a certain amount of usable characters in each position. creating a basic grid system from this would probably mean you couldn't get to the individual house level.

Nail on the head. Its a serious design flaw.

Impetus

ozmo wrote: »

>creating a basic grid system from this would probably mean you couldn't get to the individual house level.

Nope - Look up the definition of Origin I mentioned.

All modern sorting systems use the national grid to sort mail in order of delivery. This is done on the basis of a look-up table linking the scanned address which points to the delivery address point which has a grid reference. All that is done and dusted, and has been since mail sorting was mechanised about 20 years ago. The issue is that the postcode should be human-friendly and present a minimum of privacy issues. Eircode is neither.

The objective should at one end to make life easy for the user for the code to be as memorable as possible and at the other end to provide building unique identification from a new Irish addressing system.

I have shown how this may be done in two earlier postings* and **. The Eircode looks as if it was designed by a committee, wearing blind folds, made up essentially of civil servants who have little regard for the other elements of the constituency of users - ie business, technology companies and private customers.
*http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=90425678&postcount=2290

**http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=90431056&postcount=2305

ozmo wrote: »

>Either way, Leo Varadkar will probably like the fact that eircodes could be >assigned to other things in the future, including presumably sport, tourism >and other POI places.

Nope - Howth Head, Dalkey Island, Saint Annes Football pitches, and ALL other POI places that do not have a post box - will not get a Postcode.

Assuming Dalkey Island does not have people writing to it as an entity, it has no reason to have a postcode. However if there were one or more houses or say an hotel on the island, they would need to be included in the postcode system one way or another.

Impetus

Following John Chamber’s (CISCO CEO) letter to Obama about NSA spying stories affecting the global sales of CISCO products, not unsurprisingly other CEOs of American technology companies have been expressing similar fears and concerns.

The issue is also affecting media companies such as LinkedIn and Facebook who aspire to grow in China etc.

One wonders what assurances has the Minister for Communications received that all the work and product of Eircode will not be in the hands of the NSA’s British branch – GCHQ, via Capita or otherwise?

http://www.nzz.ch/finanzen/uebersich...tor-1.18305904

ozmo

recedite wrote: »

4 characters is not going to be enough to create a code for a grid in two dimensions, x and y axis, plus checker digit. Unless the resolution is so low as to make it pointless..

When you work it out - its just about possible....


5 alphanumeric digits gives you a lot of precision(2 1/2 characters per coordinate)

x,y = 34*34*6 * 5m = a grid 35Km square per Routing Code - (accurate to the nearest 5 meters - and Not including letter I or Zero)

As no cell will the bigger than 35Km
- this is plenty to define a house within a routing Code or any point of interest to within 5 meters - with no database needed.
All that's needed to be published are the centerpoint of the 140 routing codes.


Still -
-No checksum(but then Eircode wont have this)
-Would need office/apartment number (but then read somewhere Eircode will do apartment but Will Not be unique per business in an office block either)
-Naughty words are avoided by using the the next point 5m away.
-no database, no internet needed
-sortable and sequential without problems if new houses get built
-bigger areas definable by shortening the code
-and you can still keep the D04 routing prefixes.

Its one starting point to a solution anyway - but OpenPostcode et all would have given this much more thought that would need be considered to make a complete solution-

Sam Russell

ozmo wrote: »

When you work it out - its just about possible....


5 alphanumeric digits gives you a lot of precision(2 1/2 characters per coordinate)

x,y = 34*34*6 * 5m = a grid 35Km square per Routing Code - (accurate to the nearest 5 meters - and Not including letter I or Zero)

As no cell will the bigger than 35Km
- this is plenty to define a house within a routing Code or any point of interest to within 5 meters - with no database needed.
All that's needed to be published are the centerpoint of the 140 routing codes.


Still -
-No checksum(but then Eircode wont have this)
-Would need office/apartment number (but then read somewhere Eircode will do apartment but Will Not be unique per business in an office block either)
-Naughty words are avoided by using the the next point 5m away.
-no database, no internet needed
-sortable and sequential without problems if new houses get built
-bigger areas definable by shortening the code
-and you can still keep the D04 routing prefixes.

Its one starting point to a solution anyway - but OpenPostcode et all would have given this much more thought that would need be considered to make a complete solution-

A simple addition of a check digit would bring the total code to 8. Much better than our car reg plates which can have the form of NNN-XX-NNNNNN which is 14 characters if you count the dashes and is of variable length. Our telephone numbers are also variable length.

You should tell Capita about this invention of yours.

Alun

Sam Russell wrote: »

You should tell Capita about this invention of yours.

I already "invented" that back in Post 2109 ...

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=90142586

I'll see you all in court

Leonard Shelby

The postcode design has been signed off and isn't going to change. Every alternative suggested to date is inferior to the chosen design, time to move along. If there were real design flaws then the stakeholders consulted would have raised concerns. Unless you can provide public pronouncements from An Post or delivery companies or emergency services that they have reservations then all this concern expressed here is simply "I would have done it a different way" rather than describing real issues.

Elmo

Leonard Shelby wrote: »

The postcode design has been signed off and isn't going to change.

I agree

Every alternative suggested to date is inferior to the chosen design, time to move along. If there were real design flaws then the stakeholders consulted would have raised concerns.

Stakeholder would have raised concerns, doubtful again I refer back to Commercial DTT when clear signs were pointed to the BAI in relation to that exercise and they ignored those issues.

Unless you can provide public pronouncements from An Post or delivery companies or emergency services that they have reservations then all this concern expressed here is simply "I would have done it a different way" rather than describing real issues.

I agree, however I don't expect that An Post etc would express reservations publicly. And the black marker would cover those concerns due to the "commercial nature" of those concerns.

My issue is not with the introduction of Postcodes but it is with the money spent on promoting such codes. Can you honestly give me a good reason for such spend?

ozmo

Leonard Shelby wrote: »

... rather than describing real issues.

Pinpointing an address with a postcode is an accident waiting to happen.

Sam Russell

Leonard Shelby wrote: »

The postcode design has been signed off and isn't going to change. Every alternative suggested to date is inferior to the chosen design, time to move along. If there were real design flaws then the stakeholders consulted would have raised concerns. Unless you can provide public pronouncements from An Post or delivery companies or emergency services that they have reservations then all this concern expressed here is simply "I would have done it a different way" rather than describing real issues.

The deal may be done and the design set in concrete. However that does not say it is workable and will be used widely.

Will AnPost abandon their scanning/geodirectory in favour of the few letters that will use the Eircode?
Will the general public use it?
Will Garmin and TomTom incorprate it into their satnavs?
How many courier companies will use it?

If it fails to catch on, will it be redesigned to be workable?

Remember the awful traffic direction signs around Dublin that Minister Brennan (RIP) cancelled as they were being put up. This could get a simillar fate (if Rabbitte has the balls to do it, and he has yet to demonstrate such things).

Impetus

ozmo wrote: »

When you work it out - its just about possible....


5 alphanumeric digits gives you a lot of precision(2 1/2 characters per coordinate)

x,y = 34*34*6 * 5m = a grid 35Km square per Routing Code - (accurate to the nearest 5 meters - and Not including letter I or Zero)

As no cell will the bigger than 35Km
- this is plenty to define a house within a routing Code or any point of interest to within 5 meters - with no database needed.
All that's needed to be published are the centerpoint of the 140 routing codes.


Still -
-No checksum(but then Eircode wont have this)
-Would need office/apartment number (but then read somewhere Eircode will do apartment but Will Not be unique per business in an office block either)
-Naughty words are avoided by using the the next point 5m away.
-no database, no internet needed
-sortable and sequential without problems if new houses get built
-bigger areas definable by shortening the code
-and you can still keep the D04 routing prefixes.

Its one starting point to a solution anyway - but OpenPostcode et all would have given this much more thought that would need be considered to make a complete solution-

This type of code is not user-friendly, and is simply an attempt at compression of existing grid reference systems. One can computer-derive the relevant co-ordinates of any address from the geodirectory.ie. There is very little value added in this type of code - ie it is little different from the proposed Eircode in this regard.

You can't get away from naming each street and giving each building a house number. Multi-occupancy buildings get a range of house-numbers based on the number of occupancy units. Be it an apartment or a business unit in an estate, it is still a house number and it must have a road with a name.

All is left then to to assign each street/road to its parent town/city name and give that a postcode. Larger towns/cities will have multiple codes for each district.

While a hidden code (for administrative and business use) can be standardised for each building, there is no need for it to be mixed up with a postcode, because this would be un-necessary repetition - ie tautological. Keep the public postcode simple as is the case in most countries (aside from GB, CDN, IR (Iran), and the now almost totally obsolete zip+4 code used in the US) - which countries are all Echelon type police states of one sort or another.