Eircode - its implemetation (merged)

plodder

ukoda wrote: »

So then Royal Mail must make preciously zero income from their licenced products. Like why would anyone pay for it so? Why do they even have a product you licence.

The frustrating part is how simplistic you try to make it.

The same companies will license the PAF for different things like address validation. But, not all usages of a postcode require address validation. So, why should you have to license something you don't want or need?

The whole point is not aimed at big commercial entities like insurance companies clearly. It's more for small businesses (who in the UK don't likely license the PAF) or voluntary organisations etc.

ukoda

plodder wrote: »

The same companies will license the PAF for different things like address validation. But, not all usages of a postcode require address validation. So, why should you have to license something you don't want or need?

The whole point is not aimed at big commercial entities like insurance companies clearly. It's more for small businesses (who in the UK don't likely license the PAF) or voluntary organisations etc.

Well, actually it IS aim exactly at the big commercial companies in the UK.

gctest50

plodder wrote: »

.........
a) Eircodes are unique per property
b) they are random meaning the patterns aren't discernible without having the database
But you can do it in the UK without having to license anything. You don't need to know the locations or anything else about the postcodes.

you said it yourself - Eircodes identify individual properties - 21st century stuff that

plodder wrote: »

You can glean all of this from the structure of the code and the codes themselves.

how quaint, we have smartphones and nice things here:

The figures indicate that we use our smartphones for internet activity more than any other western country........
The proportion of web traffic on phones here is almost a third higher than the European average.

It is also a quarter higher than in the UK.
It is even higher than mobile-mad Finland, home of Nokia and a birthplace of smartphones.


https://bit.ly/1NVTJN2

Anyway back to future implemetation by An Post and others land

Revenue.ie finding shadowy landlords :

In the first four months of this year the rental sector (€10 million) was responsible for the biggest source of unpaid tax,


The availability of new sources of data, such as the property tax register and the home renovation incentive scheme, is helping Revenue to target those most likely to have tax liabilities.

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/revenue-targets-rental-sector-as-part-of-crackdown-1.2316446

GJG

plodder wrote: »

This is what's so frustrating about this, as I've explained this several times before. A UK insurance company can build up a database of its own customers' postcodes without having to license anything. I really mean nothing at all. Nothing whatsoever, of any description. You do not have to pay anyone to keep a list of postcodes.

Then the company gets claims in the door. If a large pattern of claims emerge from the same postcode, or from higher level areas, these can be assessed and risk levels established for setting future premiums. You can't do this with Eircode without licensing the ECAD (or ECAF) because :-

a) Eircodes are unique per property
b) they are random meaning the patterns aren't discernible without having the database

But you can do it in the UK without having to license anything. You don't need to know the locations or anything else about the postcodes. You can glean all of this from the structure of the code and the codes themselves.

Plodder, I'm acknowledging that the scenario that you outline is correct, but I don't think that you are giving reasonable weight to how narrow the case you outline is, and how broad the implications for the system would be if you sacrificed other features to meet this very narrow requirement.

First, the only advantage that the UK system has (as you see it) is grouping up to 26 properties in a cluster that is rational for post delivery, not necessarily anything else. There is nothing to stop Irish operators from collecting Eircodes in their own database too, just the clustering information isn't evident.

Changing the Irish system to accommodate the subset of insurance companies that won't fork out a few grand to licence the database would mean that (be it with a sequential or hierarchical system) increasing proximity would mean increasing similarity of postcode, to the point that side-by-side addresses have identical postcodes as in the UK.

To me, it is blindingly obvious that is a bad idea in a country with 40 per cent of addresses otherwise non-unique. The reasons have been thrashed out at great length on the other thread, I won't go through them again. Maybe you don't accept them, that's fine, but a decision had to be made and, to me, it would have been grossly perverse to make it any differently.

But the bottom line is that it's not possible for a multi-use system to be optimised for all uses. Finding a single narrow example of a change that would suit one application is not proof of a mistake in the design.

Sam Russell

I was talking to a guy in An Post and I asked if they use Eircode. He said they were trialling the sorting bit but the random design meant the average postie would not be able to memorise all the codes and so would be useless for that. He also said a structured code would have been much better.

I also contacted Garmin and they said:

Does my automotive device support the new Eircode postal code system in Ireland?

08/27/2015
Garmin is aware of Ireland’s new postal code system, called Eircode. This system has not yet been incorporated into City Navigator mapping. We are working to establish a solution in order to provide the Eircode search capability in our devices.

Eircodes are formatted and structured differently than postal codes in other countries. Garmin is collaborating with our map data provider to determine how we can best offer the use of Eircodes to our customers.

From that, I think the collaboration is not with Captiva but Navteq, I presume.

plodder

GJG wrote: »

Plodder, I'm acknowledging that the scenario that you outline is correct, but I don't think that you are giving reasonable weight to how narrow the case you outline is, and how broad the implications for the system would be if you sacrificed other features to meet this very narrow requirement.

First, the only advantage that the UK system has (as you see it) is grouping up to 26 properties in a cluster that is rational for post delivery, not necessarily anything else. There is nothing to stop Irish operators from collecting Eircodes in their own database too, just the clustering information isn't evident.

Changing the Irish system to accommodate the subset of insurance companies that won't fork out a few grand to licence the database would mean that (be it with a sequential or hierarchical system) increasing proximity would mean increasing similarity of postcode, to the point that side-by-side addresses have identical postcodes as in the UK.

To me, it is blindingly obvious that is a bad idea in a country with 40 per cent of addresses otherwise non-unique. The reasons have been thrashed out at great length on the other thread, I won't go through them again. Maybe you don't accept them, that's fine, but a decision had to be made and, to me, it would have been grossly perverse to make it any differently.

But the bottom line is that it's not possible for a multi-use system to be optimised for all uses. Finding a single narrow example of a change that would suit one application is not proof of a mistake in the design.

I disagree and there is a simple explanation. Eircode could have been designed in such a way that it does everything that it does today, but with a hierarchical structure exposing small areas as part of the code.

Please show me some use case that would not be covered by this. Any use case that does not suit the area structure directly provided by the code, does exactly what it has to do today with the ECAD/ECAF

gctest50

Sam Russell wrote: »

I was talking to a guy in An Post and I asked if they use Eircode. He said they were trialling the sorting bit but the random design meant the average postie would not be able to memorise all the codes and so would be useless for that. .......

It'll be great for areas where you have 2 or more with the same name

eg John Russell A23 XH56 and John Russell A23 DF45 and John Russell A23 U76

kind of thing would have prevented this :

Speeding charge dropped after court hears five people had same name as accused

John Boyce says 22 families share his surname in single Donegal townland

He told Judge Alan Mitchell there was an issue with letters sometimes getting mixed up in the area as there were 22 families with the same surname as him living in the same townland.

To make matters even more complicated, up to five different people also had the same first name as him .

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/courts/district-court/speeding-charge-dropped-after-court-hears-five-people-had-same-name-as-accused-1.2391779

so .......... GoSafe need to start using it asap


.

GJG

plodder wrote: »

I disagree and there is a simple explanation. Eircode could have been designed in such a way that it does everything that it does today, but with a hierarchical structure exposing small areas as part of the code.

Please show me some use case that would not be covered by this. Any use case that does not suit the area structure directly provided by the code, does exactly what it has to do today with the ECAD/ECAF

The Eircode design has taken extraordinary steps to make sure that properties with similar addresses have starkly different Eircodes. A one- or even two-character differentiation just isn't enough in real-world settings where things get mumbled, mistaken or scribbled down. This covers all houses in the same street or townland, but also cases like having five Warrentowns (or similar) in Co Meath. Each address in all of them has a starkly different Eircode.

It means that when a bank statement is sent out to J Murphy, Old Bog Road, it goes to the Johnny like it should, not Jimmy down the road a bit. If you genuinely can't see an advantage in that that outweighs the needs of an insurance company trying to re-invent the wheel on the cheap, then there is little more to say. We disagree.

Read what gctest50 says above and think which side of history you are on. Do you really think that all these computers and smartphone yokemebobs are just a passing fad?

ukoda

Sam Russell wrote: »

I also contacted Garmin and they said:


From that, I think the collaboration is not with Captiva but Navteq, I presume.

You asked them in Aug? It would be interesting to go back to them now and ask for an update? If you're so inclined, I'd be interested to see what they say

plodder

GJG wrote: »

The Eircode design has taken extraordinary steps to make sure that properties with similar addresses have starkly different Eircodes. A one- or even two-character differentiation just isn't enough in real-world settings where things get mumbled, mistaken or scribbled down. This covers all houses in the same street or townland, but also cases like having five Warrentowns (or similar) in Co Meath. Each address in all of them has a starkly different Eircode.

It means that when a bank statement is sent out to J Murphy, Old Bog Road, it goes to the Johnny like it should, not Jimmy down the road a bit. If you genuinely can't see an advantage in that that outweighs the needs of an insurance company trying to re-invent the wheel on the cheap, then there is little more to say. We disagree.

First thing. This is not about insurance companies (that only came into the conversation as an example of a sector that used the UK postcode from the start). As I said above they will license ECAD and work with whatever system is provided. This is about small businesses and voluntary orgs. The most common scenario is probably a sole trader or trades person who has a list of places to visit, and wants to organise them by just looking at the postcode. He can't do that with Eircode without some third party "solution".

Second. I have acknowledged before that ensuring unique codes in different townlands is desirable (though essential, I am not sure) But, nevertheless, townlands with the same name can still have very different Eircodes in a hierarchical code.

Read what gctest50 says above and think which side of history you are on. Do you really think that all these computers and smartphone yokemebobs are just a passing fad?

Of course not. I have a problem with forcing people to use and pay for software unnecessarily. I'm also very wary of statements like "which side of history you are on"

xband

Sam Russell wrote: »

I was talking to a guy in An Post and I asked if they use Eircode. He said they were trialling the sorting bit but the random design meant the average postie would not be able to memorise all the codes and so would be useless for that. He also said a structured code would have been much better.

I also contacted Garmin and they said:


From that, I think the collaboration is not with Captiva but Navteq, I presume.

From that I hear "weird, technically complex system in small country. Doing cost / benefit analysis."

gctest50

xband wrote: »

From that I hear "weird, technically complex system in small country. "

stop, ireland is all about the technologiez

• Accenture - headquarters, Dublin
• Analog Devices - headquarters, Limerick
• Amazon.com - world's largest online retailer, Located in Dublin
• Apple Inc. - EMEA Headquarters, Hollyhill, Cork City
• Baltimore Technologies - renamed to Oryx International Growth Fund; quoted on LSE
• Cisco - located in Oranmore, Co. Galway
• Cúram Software - produces social enterprise management software, acquired by IBM
• DCC - quoted on ISE and LSE
• Dell Ireland - subsidiary of Dell, quoted on NASDAQ
• Dropbox - to open EMEA Headquarters in Dublin in 2013
• eBay - EMEA Headquarters, Blanchardstown, Dublin 15
• EMC Ireland - subsidiary of EMC Corporation
• Facebook - EMEA Headquarters, Barrow Street, Dublin 4
• Fineos - headquarters, Dublin
• Glen Dimplex - manufacturer of consumer electrical goods
• Google Ireland - EMEA Headquarters, Barrow Street, Dublin 4
• Havok - acquired by Intel Corporation in 2007
• Hewlett-Packard - Liffey Park Technology Campus (LPTC), Leixlip, Kildare
• IBM - quoted on NYSE[2]
• Infosys[3]
• Intel Ireland - Leixlip, Kildare; largest manufacturing plant outside of the United States
• IONA Technologies - acquired by Progress Software in 2008
• LinkedIn - EMEA Headquarters, Wilton Place, Dublin
• Logitech - R&D, S&M, finance, Cork
• Microsoft Ireland - subsidiary of Microsoft, quoted on NASDAQ
• NewBay Software - acquired by Research In Motion in 2011; sold to Synchronoss in 2012
• Norkom Technologies - now a part of Detica
• Openet - produces software for the telecoms industry
• Oracle - Oracle EMEA Limited; based at East Point Business Park Fairview Dublin 3
• PayPal - EMEA Headquarters, Blanchardstown, Dublin
• Salesforce.com - SFDC Ireland Ltd.; based in the Atrium Sandyford Business Park, Dublin 18, Ireland
• SAP AG - SAP SSC Ireland Ltd.; based in Citywest Business Park, Dublin 24 and Galway, Parkmore Business Park
• Symantec Ireland
• Tata Consultancy Services - Ballsbridge, Dublin 4
• Twitter - EU Headquarters, Dublin
• Xilinx - FPGA and EDA tool company
• Yahoo - EU Headquarters, Dublin
• Zamano - quoted on AIM

BowWow

plodder wrote: »

I disagree and there is a simple explanation. Eircode could have been designed in such a way that it does everything that it does today, but with a hierarchical structure exposing small areas as part of the code.

Please show me some use case that would not be covered by this. Any use case that does not suit the area structure directly provided by the code, does exactly what it has to do today with the ECAD/ECAF

That didn't take long. Thread is now going down that usual road of how the wheel Eircode could have been designed.........

xband

And the long list of companies posted are servicing mostly international customers. Eircode makes zero difference to them.

gctest50

xband wrote: »

And the long list of companies posted are servicing mostly international customers. Eircode makes zero difference to them.

no, my point was there are many tech-oriented companies here

we are not backward here in ireland

i can draw pictures if you want

gctest50 wrote: »

stop, ireland is all about the technologiez

xband

gctest50 wrote: »

no, my point was there are many tech-oriented companies here

we are not backward here in ireland

i can draw pictures if you want

I'm glad you can draw pictures. It's an important skill to have!

I'm not saying we're backward. You're the one who brought that up.

We've produced an over complicated, weird postcode system that's not straight forward to implement as it isn't grid based or even geographically based really. Each code has a unique coordinate and they're not really structured much at all.

It requires ongoing licensing and APIs to connect to databases etc etc

What I'm saying is it's a small market and a lot of companies would have to consider whether the implementation cost is worth it.

The fact that a lot of tech companies are here is totally irrelevant. Companies using this will be serving Irish customers.

BoatMad

xband wrote: »

I'm glad you can draw pictures. It's an important skill to have!

I'm not saying we're backward. You're the one who brought that up.

We've produced an over complicated, weird postcode system that's not straight forward to implement as it isn't grid based or even geographically based really. Each code has a unique coordinate and they're not really structured much at all.

It requires ongoing licensing and APIs to connect to databases etc etc

What I'm saying is it's a small market and a lot of companies would have to consider whether the implementation cost is worth it.

The fact that a lot of tech companies are here is totally irrelevant. Companies using this will be serving Irish customers.

The trend today with the availability of tech is not to create hierarchical " Human readable " coding structures, but to simply generate keys into a database which then when accessed returns all the necessary information, this allows you to add and modify such information , the system is used extensively in things like barcode lookups. A barcode on the back of a product means absolutely nothing to you , but when linked to a database is a very powerful lookup device.

Such strategies are much better and easier to implement in technology.

Let's put to bed the fact that Eircode is in no way " weird " it's actually very modern and the easiest to integrate.

Furthermore it is very clearly geographically based using the sorting code.

BoatMad

Reading the posts , it sounds like Eircode implementations are proceeding nicely. My sources tell me that Google should have it in 2016, Garmin I know will follow their usual upgrade strategies so it could be 2017 unless they decide to change priorities.

plodder

BoatMad wrote: »

The trend today with the availability of tech is not to create hierarchical " Human readable " coding structures, but to simply generate keys into a database which then when accessed returns all the necessary information,

Oh, like Eircode?

this allows you to add and modify such information , the system is used extensively in things like barcode lookups. A barcode on the back of a product means absolutely nothing to you , but when linked to a database is a very powerful lookup device.

Barcodes themselves are designed so they can be read easily by laser scanners. That's a different issue really. But, the product/article numbers encoded in barcodes are hierarchical though. It would be fairly chaotic if they were random.

So, I don't think hierarchical data is going anywhere really.

gctest50

plodder wrote: »

Oh, like Eircode?

Barcodes themselves are designed so they can be read easily by laser scanners. That's a different issue really. But, the product/article numbers encoded in barcodes are hierarchical though. It would be fairly chaotic if they were random.

So, I don't think hierarchical data is going anywhere really.

There isn't that much order to mobile phone numbers and we all get along fine with them, you could have 0871315466 and your wife could have 0838274222

& everyone that needs to know your numbers has them

plodder

gctest50 wrote: »

It'll be great for areas where you have 2 or more with the same name

eg John Russell A23 XH56 and John Russell A23 DF45 and John Russell A23 U76

kind of thing would have prevented this :




so .......... GoSafe need to start using it asap


.

To actually solve this problem, they'll have to make Eircodes mandatory when applying for driving licenses, vehicle tax and registration etc. I wouldn't have a problem with that fwiw.

They should also make it mandatory for entries on the property price register. if it's not mandatory for applications like these, then Eircodes won't be of much use for them.

plodder

gctest50 wrote: »

There isn't that much order to mobile phone numbers and we all get along fine with them, you could have 0871315466 and your wife could have 0838274222

& everyone that needs to know your numbers has them

True, but mobile phones numbers are attached to people who aren't tied to a particular location. I'm not sure how you would code them hierarchically or what benefit they would be. Postcodes are tied to fixed locations though.

ukoda

plodder wrote: »

True, but mobile phones numbers are attached to people who aren't tied to a particular location. I'm not sure how you would code them hierarchically or what benefit they would be. Postcodes are tied to fixed locations though.

Actually one of the benefits they claim in the eircode design is that the geo coordinates can change but the post code remains the same, so essentially you could "move" a postcodes location a few feet up the road or across the road or where ever and the postcode itself wouldn't have to change. Something that can't be done with a pure geo code as a geo code is completely tied to one exact location.

Could be a useful feature in say a campus scenario where they move a department across the campus, it could in theory keep its postcode but the location would simply get updated on the database to new coordinates.

Similarly if a company had a huge site and they moved their main entrance to say another road, the coordinates could be changed but again they wouldn't have the hassle of getting a new postcode like they would if we used Geo based ones.

Sam Russell

ukoda wrote: »

You asked them in Aug? It would be interesting to go back to them now and ask for an update? If you're so inclined, I'd be interested to see what they say

I asked them the other day. They pointed me to a website that gave that response - not very active stance by them.

ukoda

Sam Russell wrote: »

I asked them the other day. They pointed me to a website that gave that response - not very active stance by them.

Ah ok I see. I think until they are actually ready to launch the standard response will always be "we are working on it" companies don't tend to say anymore until they have a launch date

Sam Russell

ukoda wrote: »

Actually one of the benefits they claim in the eircode design is that the geo coordinates can change but the post code remains the same, so essentially you could "move" a postcodes location a few feet up the road or across the road or where ever and the postcode itself wouldn't have to change. Something that can't be done with a pure geo code as a geo code is completely tied to one exact location.

Could be a useful feature in say a campus scenario where they move a department across the campus, it could in theory keep its postcode but the location would simply get updated on the database to new coordinates.

Similarly if a company had a huge site and they moved their main entrance to say another road, the coordinates could be changed but again they wouldn't have the hassle of getting a new postcode like they would if we used Geo based ones.

But Eircodes do not allow a translation from one address to a different one this you have stated many times - (I am not bothered to track down examples before you ask). You use an example of moving from one side of a site to another but what if you move from one side of town to the other? For example, if revenue moved income tax from Limerick to Sligo, then they would need a new Eircode. However, a geo-location code could allow non-geographic codes which do not have locations. [I know Eircode could too but they said they will not] Government, Eircom (eir) and ESB, etc would love these for handling regular post.

ukoda

Sam Russell wrote: »

But Eircodes do not allow a translation from one address to a different one this you have stated many times - (I am not bothered to track down examples before you ask). You use an example of moving from one side of a site to another but what if you move from one side of town to the other? For example, if revenue moved income tax from Limerick to Sligo, then they would need a new Eircode. However, a geo-location code could allow non-geographic codes which do not have locations. [I know Eircode could too but they said they will not] Government, Eircom (eir) and ESB, etc would love these for handling regular post.

I just said "in theory" I'm not saying eircode will or should do this, I'm just simply pointing it out as a feature of this type of code that isn't available in other codes.

And as you know, eircode could offer non geographic options too, like routing key "ESB"

Isn't "a geo-location code could offer non geographical codes" a bit of a contradiction

clewbays

plodder wrote: »

True, but mobile phones numbers are attached to people who aren't tied to a particular location. I'm not sure how you would code them hierarchically or what benefit they would be. Postcodes are tied to fixed locations though.

Interesting analogy plodder. If I understand you correctly you are saying that traditional postcodes and landline numbers are both hierarchical but that mobile numbers and eircodes are not! Your argument reminds me of the relatively recent restructuring of landline phone numbers for some area codes to accommodate expansion - an extra digit was added. That is the danger of a hierarchical eircode - you either make it longer to accommodate An Post sorting offices, small areas, and uniqueness or you risk future revisions to address new builds.

marmurr1916

clewbays wrote: »

Interesting analogy plodder. If I understand you correctly you are saying that traditional postcodes and landline numbers are both hierarchical but that mobile numbers and eircodes are not!

Landlines and hierarchical postcodes are so 20th century...

clewbays wrote: »

That is the danger of a hierarchical eircode - you either make it longer to accommodate An Post sorting offices, small areas, and uniqueness or you risk future revisions to address new builds.

Indeed. Imagine a rural townland with 20 houses. Using a UK style system, you could use one postcode for the entire townland; or a variation of a UK style system with 20 individual postcodes arranged hierarchically. Then someone comes along a builds a new housing estate containing 100 houses in the townland...


OT:

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/handy-new-an-post-delivery-system-ticks-all-the-boxes-374563.html

plodder

clewbays wrote: »

Interesting analogy plodder. If I understand you correctly you are saying that traditional postcodes and landline numbers are both hierarchical but that mobile numbers and eircodes are not! Your argument reminds me of the relatively recent restructuring of landline phone numbers for some area codes to accommodate expansion - an extra digit was added. That is the danger of a hierarchical eircode - you either make it longer to accommodate An Post sorting offices, small areas, and uniqueness or you risk future revisions to address new builds.

I can't envisage any situation where a code would need to be made longer. You need to create new small areas from time to time as new buildings are built. So, you allocate new small area codes to accommodate this. That wouldn't normally affect existing postcodes at all.