Eircode Anomolies

gctest50

All my posts, all i write is in English - like many more - pwned

Impetus wrote: »

It a reflection of the lack of thought, a corrupt government and public service. A third world environment, pretending to be in the first world.

I'd say lots of thought has gone into it , as you pointed out, it "accidently" fits together with the UK system

all that no " B " because it's used in Birmingham and so on

Impetus wrote: »

Tail wagging the dog. Same as the British Eircode contractor devising a so called "postcode" system for Ireland. They had to use alpha codes that did not conflict with British town names, leaving Cork with T and P and parts of Dublin with A and Navan with C etc.

It's too late for many - already more British than the British themselves you know

Impetus wrote: »

Yet another form of Anglo-Saxon stupid terrorism / global domination being given in to.

Impetus

gctest50 wrote: »

All my posts, all i write is in English - like many more - pwned

We could post here in Irish, the second oldest language in Europe (along with other Celtic languages), after Basque... if you wish...

clewbays

clewbays wrote: »

To get a higher success rate for automatic sorting by An Post

Impetus wrote: »

It does nothing to increase the probability of accurate machine sorting.

My reference was in relation to the question that was asked: why continue to use Dublin 2, Dublin 15, etc. Have you confirmed with An Post that the use of the Dublin postal districts does not enhance the accuracy of their machine sorting or are you the bible on this matter?

Impetus

M

clewbays wrote: »

My reference was in relation to the question that was asked: why continue to use Dublin 2, Dublin 15, etc. Have you confirmed with An Post that the use of the Dublin postal districts does not enhance the accuracy of their machine sorting or are you the bible on this matter?

There is no benefit. The scanner reads the entire address. Matches it to a database. It matters not whether Dublin 2 or D2 GW22 is there. Or both. This is bog standard UPU stuff. The ultra stupidity is the mishmash and long address format replete with county name and missing the building/house number.

It still points to the delivery address point and grid ref. So long as it is legible. If not legible the scan is displayed to a human somewhere, who reads the mush and attempts to correct same.

Eircode is a crap add on. A police state attempt. It does not fix the real problem - ie rural addresses don't really deliver a real address product. It is not user friendly. Not Google friendly. Not GPS friendly.

Moron country.

Eircode is a dumbbbbbb, Oirish, mishmash of stupid politicians, stupid permanent government, dumb regulation, and totally incompatible with systems used in the rest of Europe. And a waste of 40-ish million EUR.

Those involved/responsible should be fired...

Carawaystick

Impetus wrote: »

There is no benefit. The scanner reads the entire address. Matches it to a database. It matters not whether Dublin 2 or D2 GW22 is there. Or both. This is bog standard UPU stuff. The ultra stupidity is the mishmash and long address format replete with county name and missing the building/house number.

It still points to the delivery address point and grid ref. So long as it is legible. If not legible the scan is displayed to a human somewhere, who reads the mush and attempts to correct same.

This is exactly the point for addresses which are not unique...

Impetus wrote: »

Eircode is a crap add on. A police state attempt. It does not fix the real problem - ie rural addresses don't really deliver a real address product. It is not user friendly. Not Google friendly. Not GPS friendly.

Moron country.

Eircode is a dumbbbbbb, Oirish, mishmash of stupid politicians, stupid permanent government, dumb regulation, and totally incompatible with systems used in the rest of Europe. And a waste of 40-ish million EUR.

Those involved/responsible should be fired...

Those responsible have earned their companies 30 odd million...

The encoding of positions to not allow fat finger errors could be said to be somewhat user friendly.
Alphabet and its subsidiaries not paying for it is a private sector investment decision.

I'm unsure how it's incompatible with systems used in Europe, britain has a 7 alphanumerical character postcode

Impetus

Carawaystick wrote: »

This is exactly the point for addresses which are not unique...



Those responsible have earned their companies 30 odd million...

The encoding of positions to not allow fat finger errors could be said to be somewhat user friendly.

Eircode is loaded in favour of fat finger errors. Make a random character typo in some meaningless last four character combination and you have a completely different house, on another road, perhaps several km apart from the intended point of delivery. Eircode = FAT FINGER LAND squared.

Carawaystick wrote: »

Alphabet and its subsidiaries not paying for it is a private sector investment decision.

But they don't want to use it either. No more than DHL & co.

Carawaystick wrote: »

I'm unsure how it's incompatible with systems used in Europe, britain has a 7 alphanumerical character postcode

Britain's non-system is totally at variance with the rest of Europe and the world, where numeric codes of 4 to 7 digits are the norm.

The European / civil law countries use a simple addressing system

Name of company/person
Street name/house number
Postcode/town name

It applies in Continental Europe, Russia, Latin America, China etc.

The British system typically needs multiple lines

Name
Street and number
Area name
"Post town"
Sometimes county
Postcode

In Ireland we have four sorting centres. If anything these are the equivalent of British post towns back in the day. ie Dublin, Cork,Port Laoise and Athlone. All mail flows through one of the four. County names are irrelevant. Does anybody who doesn't live in one of these four "post towns" want to have to incorporate the post town name in their address? I suspect not. No more than someone who lives in a different county wants the wrong county to be "postally compliant" according to eircode's dumb system.

The letters used in Eircode have nothing to do with the town (aside from Dublin city). So there is no point in having letters, especially where there is no relationship between the letter and the town/region. One might as well have numbers which are understood by Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Arabs and others who don't use Roman characters.

But Ireland is a clueless, insular, copy the nearest neighbour, dumb wet island that generally takes the dumbest route possible, "lead" by dumb overpaid politicians.....

Given several thousand hours of thought by the brightest experts, I suspect that it would be impossible for them to devise a more stupid addressing, road signage, and postcoding system than is used in dysfunctional IRL.

marmurr1916

Impetus wrote: »

But Ireland is a clueless, insular, copy the nearest neighbour, dumb wet island that generally takes the dumbest route possible, "lead" by dumb overpaid politicians.....

Given several thousand hours of thought by the brightest experts, I suspect that it would be impossible for them to devise a more stupid addressing, road signage, and postcoding system than is used in dysfunctional IRL.

So when are you leaving then? :P

PS: Ireland has the joint 6th best quality of life out of 188 states assessed by the UN:

http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/ranking.pdf

Not bad for a country that was invaded, colonised, suppressed for hundreds of years and only gained its independence in December 1922.

Little things like postcodes aren't all that relevant to the quality of your life - lighten up dude.

ukoda

Impetus wrote: »

But Ireland is a clueless, insular, copy the nearest neighbour, dumb wet island that generally takes the dumbest route possible, "lead" by dumb overpaid politicians.....

The irony is that the only dumb and clueless thing going on in relation to this is people like you and others failing to see the potential of having a unique address / location identifier for every single business and household in the country. Instead you adopt the "everything the government does is wrong and must be ranted about" approach. Yes I agree with you. "Typical Irish dumbness"

Calina

ukoda wrote: »

The irony is that the only dumb and clueless thing going on in relation to this is people like you and others failing to see the potential of having a unique address / location identifier for every single business and household in the country. Instead you adopt the "everything the government does is wrong and must be ranted about" approach. Yes I agree with you. "Typical Irish dumbness"

I don't have an issue with a unique identifier. I have issues with how the one we got was developed.

ukoda

Calina wrote: »

I don't have an issue with a unique identifier. I have issues with how the one we got was developed.

Fair enough. But dwell on that past event or give eircode a chance? Regardless of how it was delevopled it's still a unique identifier

Calina

ukoda wrote: »

Fair enough. But dwell on that past event or give eircode a chance? Regardless of how it was delevopled it's still a unique identifier

Elements of how it was designed make it less useful.

Currently all of one postal item has arrived with it on it.

I am more in favour of writing off the cost of eircode and actually implementing something more effective.

But Ireland has a tendency not to do this but to pretend everything is grand and sure it'll do. We could do with recognising it won't do.

ukoda

Calina wrote: »

Elements of how it was designed make it less useful.

Currently all of one postal item has arrived with it on it.

I am more in favour of writing off the cost of eircode and actually implementing something more effective.

But Ireland has a tendency not to do this but to pretend everything is grand and sure it'll do. We could do with recognising it won't do.

That all boils down to opinion though, "more effective" is subjective. Eircode can be extremely effective in what it was designed to do if people supported it, it will get there eventually anyway, but with wider support it would be faster and the benefits realised quicker.

plodder

ukoda wrote: »

That all boils down to opinion though, "more effective" is subjective. Eircode can be extremely effective in what it was designed to do if people supported it, it will get there eventually anyway, but with wider support it would be faster and the benefits realised quicker.

It doesn't really. Eircode would be objectively better if it were hierarchical. It could do exactly what it does now (unique id etc) but a lot more if it was hierarchical. The reasons for not making it hierarchical are all to do with monetising the system through obfuscating it, and an unproven claim that people "wouldn't like" the idea of a small area based postcode. The latter claim has more to do with making life easy for Eircode rather than making the best system possible.

Unfortunately, and also directly because they didn't do the research beforehand that many people suggested, as to what kind of postcode the public would want, those chickens are coming home to roost through the high level of scepticism about Eircode and the random codes etc.

ukoda

plodder wrote: »

It doesn't really. Eircode would be objectively better if it were hierarchical. It could do exactly what it does now (unique id etc) but a lot more if it was hierarchical. The reasons for not making it hierarchical are all to do with monetising the system through obfuscating it, and an unproven claim that people "wouldn't like" the idea of a small area based postcode. The latter claim has more to do with making life easy for Eircode rather than making the best system possible.

Unfortunately, and also directly because they didn't do the research beforehand that many people suggested, as to what kind of postcode the public would want, those chickens are coming home to roost through the high level of scepticism about Eircode and the random codes etc.

There are pros and cons of hierarchical codes that have been debated at length on other threads.

What I just read there was 2 paragraphs of your opinion.

"Hierarchical would be better" is not an objective fact. It is purely your opinion.

plodder

ukoda wrote: »

There are pros and cons of hierarchical codes that have been debated at length on other threads.

What I just read there was 2 paragraphs of your opinion.

"Hierarchical would be better" is not an objective fact. It is purely your opinion.

But how could it not be better if it does everything that Eircode does, but has extra information in the structure, that can be used?

The only reasons have nothing to do with the code itself. You can argue that those reasons out weigh my "opinion". But, what I said above is fact. The claim that people wouldn't like a hierarchical code has no proof. etc.

ukoda

plodder wrote: »

But how could it not be better if it does everything that Eircode does, but has extra information in the structure, that can be used?

The only reasons have nothing to do with the code itself. You can argue that those reasons out weigh my "opinion". But, what I said above is fact. The claim that people wouldn't like a hierarchical code has no proof. etc.

2 things, it wouldn't be better if it had drawbacks.

The very fact that you are telling me there's no proof that people wouldn't prefer a hierarchical code is proof that you can't possibly claim it's fact they WOULD like a hierarchical. By your own words. No one asked the public that question

plodder

ukoda wrote: »

2 things, it wouldn't be better if it had drawbacks.

The very fact that you are telling me there's no proof that people wouldn't prefer a hierarchical code is proof that you can't possibly claim it's fact they WOULD like a hierarchical. By your own words. No one asked the public that question

It's proof that the system was designed without evidence of what would be acceptable to the public.

ukoda

plodder wrote: »

It's proof that the system was designed without evidence of what would be acceptable to the public.

If you surveyed the public on what type of postcode they wanted, I doubt any significant amount of people would even know what a hierarchical code is.

They claim to have consulted with the industry users before design, a claim that none of them refute. However they do claim they didn't get the exact postcode they wanted. But that goes back to "you can't please everyone"

There are more industries than transport that can benefit from postcodes and I would argue the eircode design is entirely workable for the logistics industry. Their argument is "it's not workable they way we wanted it to work, you know, in a way that we'd to invest nothing in our aging software and systems, so therefore it's useless"

Then you see a younger more innovative company like Nightline saying "we support this and it will greatly help our business"

plodder

ukoda wrote: »

If you surveyed the public on what type of postcode they wanted, I doubt any significant amount of people would even know what a hierarchical code is.

That's certainly an opinion anyway. The general public might not know the terminology but they know the difference between a random code and one where properties in the same small area have very similar codes.

They claim to have consulted with the industry users before design, a claim that none of them refute. However they do claim they didn't get the exact postcode they wanted. But that goes back to "you can't please everyone"

They didn't consult with the public at all.

There are more industries than transport that can benefit from postcodes and I would argue the eircode design is entirely workable for the logistics industry. Their argument is "it's not workable they way we wanted it to work, you know, in a way that we'd to invest nothing in our aging software and systems, so therefore it's useless"

It's the other sectors that would have benefitted more from a hierarchical code.

ukoda

plodder wrote: »

That's certainly an opinion anyway. The general public might not know the terminology but they know the difference between a random code and one where properties in the same small area have very similar codes.

They didn't consult with the public at all.

It's the other sectors that would have benefitted more from a hierarchical code.

The main complaints I see from the public is "it doesn't work with anything yet" i.e. Google maps etc. But that's not a design flaw, it's slow implementation.

I haven't really seen anyone complain in the general public about the design (apart from vested interest people)

I've not actually seen or heard anyone use the complaint "it doesn't look like my neighbours" like I say, the main complaint is "sur what can I use it for?"

plodder

ukoda wrote: »

The main complaints I see from the public is "it doesn't work with anything yet" i.e. Google maps etc. But that's not a design flaw, it's slow implementation.

Many would argue that is a design flaw. If the design was an open one, not based on a database, and not needing to be paid for, then maybe it would work on google maps, satnavs etc by now. The fact that the Irish postcode to geocode database is bigger than the UK's is a design issue if not a flaw.

I haven't really seen anyone complain in the general public about the design (apart from vested interest people)

I'd say most people on here complaining (including myself) are from the general public with no vested interest. I can only think of one poster who I am pretty sure has a vested interest and he hasn't posted for a while.

I've not actually seen or heard anyone use the complaint "it doesn't look like my neighbours" like I say, the main complaint is "sur what can I use it for?"

Lots of people are complaining that the codes are random and meaningless. If the codes actually meant something and referred to identifiable areas they would be easier to remember.

Impetus

marmurr1916 wrote: »

So when are you leaving then? :P

PS: Ireland has the joint 6th best quality of life out of 188 states assessed by the UN:

http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/ranking.pdf

Not bad for a country that was invaded, colonised, suppressed for hundreds of years and only gained its independence in December 1922.

Little things like postcodes aren't all that relevant to the quality of your life - lighten up dude.

If some jokers/vandals removed the house number off every house and building in Ireland, and the street/road name signs, it would increase the difficulty of visiting and delivery. That would be a reduction in the quality of life, under the communications and accessibility heading. You would miss that because you expect it to be.

Just because you have not yet obviously experienced an efficient, transparent, intelligently designed postcode system, does not mean that it does not add to the quality of life and efficiency of a place.

There is no systematic tram system in Dublin, Cork etc. By that I mean say 15 numbered lines in Dublin and say 2 in Cork that induce the bulk of the travelling public to use public transport for most of their journeys. I suspect that most people who live within reasonable connecting time of Luas use the tram - unless they are going to a destination that is off the public transport network. One of the reasons why the M50 is running to saturation levels at peak times. Good infrastructure leads to a sustainable country.

Sorry to say Ireland is not a sustainable country, and has a long way to go before it achieves same.

Impetus

ukoda wrote: »

If you surveyed the public on what type of postcode they wanted, I doubt any significant amount of people would even know what a hierarchical code is.

They claim to have consulted with the industry users before design, a claim that none of them refute. However they do claim they didn't get the exact postcode they wanted. But that goes back to "you can't please everyone"

There are more industries than transport that can benefit from postcodes and I would argue the eircode design is entirely workable for the logistics industry. Their argument is "it's not workable they way we wanted it to work, you know, in a way that we'd to invest nothing in our aging software and systems, so therefore it's useless"

Then you see a younger more innovative company like Nightline saying "we support this and it will greatly help our business"

The code is optimised to make money from selling the data, and be useless to anybody who is not prepared to write a big cheque in favour of certain vested interests in the business.

ukoda

Impetus wrote: »

The code is optimised to make money from selling the data, and be useless to anybody who is not prepared to write a big cheque in favour of certain vested interests in the business.

Yes it is monitised. So what? A self financing piece of infrastructure.

Write a big cheque? I would guess that you make that claim not having one clue what it would actually cost to get eircode.

ukoda

plodder wrote: »

Many would argue that is a design flaw. If the design was an open one, not based on a database, and not needing to be paid for, then maybe it would work on google maps, satnavs etc by now. The fact that the Irish postcode to geocode database is bigger than the UK's is a design issue if not a flaw.

I'd say most people on here complaining (including myself) are from the general public with no vested interest. I can only think of one poster who I am pretty sure has a vested interest and he hasn't posted for a while.

Lots of people are complaining that the codes are random and meaningless. If the codes actually meant something and referred to identifiable areas they would be easier to remember.

Again all opinion, and anyone posting here has a keener than most interest in eircode, not vested, but not general public level of understanding either. and you've made one completely factually inaccurate statement of "it's database is bigger than the UK one" that's simply wrong.

Someone went to the trouble of explaining in a blog in great detail that the entire database for eircode needed for navigation is only a few hundred MB and would easily fit on any smartphone.

I'll try find the blog and link you later.

EDIT: found it here

Eircode and geo's = 20 Mb
Eircode and geo's and all addresses = 88 Mb

In contrast, the same info from Royal Mail database is about 230 Mb

http://www.snoopdos.com/blog/how-big-is-the-eircode-database/

Impetus

ukoda wrote: »

Yes it is monitised. So what? A self financing piece of infrastructure.

Write a big cheque? I would guess that you make that claim not having one clue what it would actually cost to get eircode.

Feel free to post a link to your price list for eircode here. Eircode is copying the British practice of selling postcodes.

In free countries, such as Belgium, you can download the entire list of codes from a website. They haven't made it needlessly complicated either to put the user off codes.

http://www.bpost.be/site/fr/business/customer_service/search/postal_codes.html

That is why DHL etc are not using the Eircode. Go to http://dct.dhl.com and enter Ireland as the origin country, and the postcode/zip gets greyed out.

Impetus

ukoda wrote: »

Again all opinion, and anyone posting here has a keener than most interest in eircode, not vested, but not general public level of understanding either. and you've made one completely factually inaccurate statement of "it's database is bigger than the UK one" that's simply wrong.

Someone went to the trouble of explaining in a blog in great detail that the entire database for eircode needed for navigation is only a few hundred MB and would easily fit on any smartphone.

I'll try find the blog and link you later.

EDIT: found it here

Eircode and geo's = 20 Mb
Eircode and geo's and all addresses = 88 Mb

In contrast, the PAF from Royal Mail is about 230 Mb

http://www.snoopdos.com/blog/how-big-is-the-eircode-database/

Ireland is less than 10% of GB in terms of number of address points. You are not comparing like with like.

ukoda

Impetus wrote: »

Feel free to post a link to your price list for eircode here. Eircode is copying the British practice of selling postcodes.

In free countries, such as Belgium, you can download the entire list of codes from a website. They haven't made it needlessly complicated either to put the user off codes.

http://www.bpost.be/site/fr/business/customer_service/search/postal_codes.html

That is why DHL etc are not using the Eircode. Go to http://dct.dhl.com and enter Ireland as the origin country, and the postcode/zip gets greyed out.

Why don't you go to the eircode website and look at the price list yourself. It's there.

It would be prudent to be actually informed of the topic you're talking about

ukoda

Impetus wrote: »

Ireland is less than 10% of GB in terms of number of address points. You are not comparing like with like.

I'm not trying to. Read the thread conversation in context and you'll see that someone claimed the Irish database was bigger than the UK one and this a design flaw. I'm only correcting that inaccurate statement.

plodder

ukoda wrote: »

Again all opinion, and anyone posting here has a keener than most interest in eircode, not vested, but not general public level of understanding either. and you've made one completely factually inaccurate statement of "it's database is bigger than the UK one" that's simply wrong.

Someone went to the trouble of explaining in a blog in great detail that the entire database for eircode needed for navigation is only a few hundred MB and would easily fit on any smartphone.

I'll try find the blog and link you later.

EDIT: found it here

Eircode and geo's = 20 Mb
Eircode and geo's and all addresses = 88 Mb

In contrast, the PAF from Royal Mail is about 230 Mb

http://www.snoopdos.com/blog/how-big-is-the-eircode-database/

Wrong, I'm afraid.


UK: 1.8 million postcodes

Ireland: 2.2 million postcodes

Therefore the Irish postcode to geocode database is larger than the UK's

I never said anything about the UK PAF. The database I was comparing was specifically the one that maps postcodes to geocodes only since this is the one that is available free of charge in the UK.