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Eircode design

PDVerse

Hello folks. If anyone has a question about any aspect of Eircode design I'm happy to answer.

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gctest50

Maybe they should've made the Eircode completely random, would've stopped loopers trying to "make sense" of it

19,Underarockoverahill = 178423334322
20,Underarockoverahill = 234123538989

plodder

gctest50 wrote: »

Maybe they should've made the Eircode completely random, would've stopped loopers trying to "make sense" of it

19,Underarockoverahill = 178423334322
20,Underarockoverahill = 234123538989

There's a poster here, who was involved in the project, who argued exactly for that. 100% random. Life would have been so easy, if only the plebs would just accept it

ukoda

plodder wrote: »

Would have been better to say that in the first place, rather than the Dublin postcodes make no sense...

I can say both, they are related, Dublins postcodes make no sense in terms of sequential or grid references and no one cares much. What they DO care about is when you try to tell them which one they belong to. A problem that would have been replicated numerous times across the nation had they decided to relate the codes to county / townland boundaries. Instead they randomised it.

ukoda

If they had used county / townland in the eircodes then imagine this playing out across the country

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/tidy-towns-welcome-signs-spark-a-neighbourhood-turf-war-410413.html

"A sign reading ‘Welcome to Togher’ has been vandalised following complaints from some residents that the new sign has been wrongly erected in the Wilton area.

However, the community group behind the sign is adamant it is in the right place, having looked up maps of the city, and consulted with council officials.

Niall McCarthy, chairman of Togher Community Association, said the community was “frightfully disappointed” with the reaction to the sign, one of a set put up by the group in May."

I don't know much about Cork but I believe Wilton is a more desirable area than Togher and it's likely estate agents sold people houses on the border with the address listed as Wilton because no one could really tell if if was or not

plodder

ukoda wrote: »

I can say both, they are related, Dublins postcodes make no sense in terms of sequential or grid references and no one cares much.

You said apart from the D, Dublin postcodes make no sense period.

What they DO care about is when you try to tell them which one they belong to. A problem that would have been replicated numerous times across the nation had they decided to relate the codes to county / townland boundaries. Instead they randomised it.

So, why not 100% random as the poster above suggests? The same logic would suggest that avoids problems with routing key areas also.

- An Post don't need the routing key as they sort using the entire address
- An Post won't deliver using only the eircode.
- any unique code would satisfy the uniqueness requirement.

I think it was Boatmad who said we should have used a 100% random code. Why didn't we do it?

Seve OB

Dublin codes seem clever enough, stemming from the original code and adding some onto it. Eg D18XXXX, D04XXXX.

But why the hell is a post code in Wicklow A63XXX or one in Cork, P25XXXX

No logic or cop on choosing codes like that. The obviousy and clever way would have been to do something similar to Dublin and use the same a car reg plates to identify the county and work from there.

So for Dublin, the codes are fine

For the rest of the country.... it looks like they were come up by a bunch of thicks in an indian call centre!

ukoda

plodder wrote: »

Why didn't we do it?

I don't know, do you think I can answer that or do you just want me to counter argue against 100% random?

There's a poster on here who actually did design the code. Maybe they might tell us

Sam Russell

plodder wrote: »

.. and the question was why didn't they extend that for the rest of Dublin, instead of using codes that begin with A and K?

Routing key map at http://www.gamma.ie/sites/default/files/RKDraft.pdf

Looking at that map, (is it official?) I note that neither A45 or P51 codes are a single contiguous area but have other codes inbetween the two separate parts - a curiosity. Why would that be?

And why is V95 so big and V15 so small or H91 so big and H71 so small? V95 is Limerick City and H91 is Galway City - presumably both have high populations. H91 also includes a huge chunk of Co. Clare. Coincidence?

Did anyone review the details of this design prior to launch?

ukoda

Sam Russell wrote: »

Looking at that map, (is it official?) I note that neither A45 or P51 codes are a single contiguous area but have other codes inbetween the two separate parts - a curiosity. Why would that be?

And why is V95 so big and V15 so small or H91 so big and H71 so small? V95 is Limerick City and H91 is Galway City - presumably both have high populations. H91 also includes a huge chunk of Co. Clare. Coincidence?

Did anyone review the details of this design prior to launch?

There's no official map.

Eircode didn't create these areas. They are An Posts routing areas so it would be up to them to explain it, although I doubt they ever will, it probably makes sense to them in the way their operations are set up

plodder

Sam Russell wrote: »

Looking at that map, (is it official?) I note that neither A45 or P51 codes are a single contiguous area but have other codes inbetween the two separate parts - a curiosity. Why would that be?

And why is V95 so big and V15 so small or H91 so big and H71 so small? V95 is Limerick City and H91 is Galway City - presumably both have high populations. H91 also includes a huge chunk of Co. Clare. Coincidence?

Did anyone review the details of this design prior to launch?

It's not official. And neither is there any rhyme nor reason to it, except maybe deliberately to be not very useful. I find it hard to believe that the routing key area where I live in North county Dublin has a few hundred inhabitants, whereas H91 is a big chunk of Galway, Clare with maybe > 100,000 inhabitants, that that could be explained by the efficient internal workings of An Post.

ukoda

plodder wrote: »

It's not official. And neither is there any rhyme nor reason to it, except maybe deliberately to be not very useful. I find it hard to believe that the routing key area where I live in North county Dublin has a few hundred inhabitants, whereas H91 is a big chunk of Galway, Clare with maybe > 100,000 inhabitants, that that could be explained by the efficient internal workings of An Post.

The reality is it makes no difference. It has no material effect on your code or how you would use it

We all have a unique identifier for our homes and businesses.

PDVerse

The Routing Key element of the Eircode design allows An Post to manually sort post efficiently. Post that isn't/can't be read by a machine must be manually sorted. Different sort centres have different sorting requirements and the 139 Routing Keys represents the most efficient, future proofed way for Eircode to be designed and provide maximum efficiency to An Post for manual sortation. The first letter and the sequence in the two numbers is designed to make the manual sort as simple as possible.

Occam's razor applies here folks, grandiose conspiracy theories that offer alternative suggestions are simply false.

The more Eircode is used on post, the more An Post will use Eircode.

Red Alert

Put simply, there is no value-add to me to go look up anyone's eircode. A package will still get there in time.

ukoda

Red Alert wrote: »

Put simply, there is no value-add to me to go look up anyone's eircode. A package will still get there in time.

That statement disregards all the instances of packages not arriving on time because the driver had no clue where the house was and had to call for directions, assuming they got an answer that day, they could deliver but would delay the rest of their route. Or more likely they would put the package back out again the next day for delivery and thus adding a day to delivery.

TheChizler

Red Alert wrote: »

Put simply, there is no value-add to me to go look up anyone's eircode. A package will still get there in time.

If the package is addressed correctly and the house is easy to find.

plodder

ukoda wrote: »

The reality is it makes no difference. It has no material effect on your code or how you would use it

We all have a unique identifier for our homes and businesses.

It has a material effect on businesses/organisations who want to use Eircodes for purposes that depend on areas being small and regularly sized, and who don't have direct access to Eircode data.

The recent example mentioned was the group setting up a school who have 5000 families interested and you want to find out how many families live in each local area. With the UK postcode you would take the 5000 postcodes and just sort them on a computer. Count the numbers of people in various relevant low-level and high level areas. Eircode wouldn't be much help for this. You'd be better off just working with people's addresses and doing it manually.

An Post never wanted/needed a postcode. They are just fitting in with it, to be good citizens (and in return for the bucket of cash they are receiving).....

sondagefaux

Hannibal wrote: »

These random numbers make no sense as nobody will ever know them, people associate D24 with Tallaght and D15 with Blanch who will ever remember where K67 is?

50 years ago, if you said you lived in D24 people would have looked at you as if you had 2 heads.

A few years from now, A96 will be as memorable as D24 is now.

sondagefaux

plodder wrote: »

ukoda wrote: »

The reality is it makes no difference. It has no material effect on your code or how you would use it

We all have a unique identifier for our homes and businesses.

It has a material effect on businesses/organisations who want to use Eircodes for purposes that depend on areas being small and regularly sized, and who don't have direct access to Eircode data.

The recent example mentioned was the group setting up a school who have 5000 families interested and you want to find out how many families live in each local area. With the UK postcode you would take the 5000 postcodes and just sort them on a computer. Count the numbers of people in various relevant low-level and high level areas. Eircode wouldn't be much help for this. You'd be better off just working with people's addresses and doing it manually.

An Post never wanted/needed a postcode. They are just fitting in with it, to be good citizens (and in return for the bucket of cash they are receiving).....

How would you know how many people live in a UK postcode? The numbers of addresses attached to each postcode varies considerably (my current postcode covers 39 separate houses, some of which aren't occupied; my previous one covered 18 apartments, the one before that covered 33 flats) and a postcode may include addresses that are mainly residential or mainly commercial. Without knowing the precise number of addresses covered by each postcode (at 50 free lookups per day on the Royal Mail website, 5000 postcodes would take 100 days to cover, unless you had access to postcode data...) and without knowing whether those addresses were all residential, all commercial, a mixture, and without knowing the occupancy profile of each residential address (vacant, 1 occupant, 2 occupants, 3 occupants etc, etc), you'd never know the number of families at each postcode unless you cross-checked with information from the census, as you could do in Ireland with Small Areas...

ukoda

plodder wrote: »

It has a material effect on businesses/organisations who want to use Eircodes for purposes that depend on areas being small and regularly sized, and who don't have direct access to Eircode data.

The recent example mentioned was the group setting up a school who have 5000 families interested and you want to find out how many families live in each local area. With the UK postcode you would take the 5000 postcodes and just sort them on a computer. Count the numbers of people in various relevant low-level and high level areas. Eircode wouldn't be much help for this. You'd be better off just working with people's addresses and doing it manually.

An Post never wanted/needed a postcode. They are just fitting in with it, to be good citizens (and in return for the bucket of cash they are receiving).....

Well as you know, you can indeed do this with eircode.

What exactly is this scenario you talk about? Is it fictitious or a real life one? 5000 parents want to build a school is it? I didn't think that's how it worked when it came to schools. Is it that they want to know how many people are in the local area, or what exactly is it for? Can you explain it. You use it a lot as an example and I don't really understand it tbh

plodder

sondagefaux wrote: »

How would you know how many people live in a UK postcode? The numbers of addresses attached to each postcode varies considerably (my current postcode covers 39 separate houses, some of which aren't occupied; my previous one covered 18 apartments, the one before that covered 33 flats) and a postcode may include addresses that are mainly residential or mainly commercial. Without knowing the precise number of addresses covered by each postcode (at 50 free lookups per day on the Royal Mail website, 5000 postcodes would take 100 days to cover, unless you had access to postcode data...) and without knowing whether those addresses were all residential, all commercial, a mixture, and without knowing the occupancy profile of each residential address (vacant, 1 occupant, 2 occupants, 3 occupants etc, etc), you'd never know the number of families at each postcode unless you cross-checked with information from the census, as you could do in Ireland with Small Areas...

Of course you don't know exactly. But, you can be sure the variation is a lot less than Eircode Routing Keys. I found a CSO statistics dataset that says the variation is from 394 dwellings in area A41, up to 70,566 dwellings in H91.

@ukoda. You can read the conversation again yourself starting at the link below

Post #1247 on the implementation thread. You were involved too

ukoda

plodder wrote: »

Of course you don't know exactly. But, you can be sure the variation is a lot less than Eircode Routing Keys. I found a CSO statistics dataset that says the variation is from 394 dwellings in area A41, up to 70,566 dwellings in H91.

@ukoda. You can read the conversation again yourself starting at the link below

Post #1247 on the implementation thread. You were involved too

Ah yes, the government are doing it for people by asking for their eircode. You think there is value in the parents doing it themselves. What exactly would they do with the data and what would be the outcome of the excerise by the parents?

The outcome of the government doing it is that they can decide the level of interest and see the potential catchment area. What value would the parents get from doing this excerise when ultimately it's the governments call? And they seem to be on top of it already asking for eircode?

plodder

ukoda wrote: »

Ah yes, the government are doing it for people by asking for their eircode. You think there is value in the parents doing it themselves. What exactly would they do with the data and what would be the outcome of the excerise by the parents?

The outcome of the government doing it is that they can decide the level of interest and see the potential catchment area. What value would the parents get from doing this excerise when ultimately it's the governments call? And they seem to be on top of it already asking for eircode?

The value would be in providing ammunitiondata for the parents in their discussions with the government. God bless your innocence if you believe the state just automatically builds schools with no input from local residents. I'm sure we had this exact conversation before ....

ukoda

plodder wrote: »

The value would be in providing ammunitiondata for the parents in their discussions with the government. God bless your innocence if you believe the state just automatically builds schools with no input from local residents.

The government in this example is actively seeking input from local residents and requesting their eircode. My question was, what value would there be in the parents doing this exercise themselves? The government would publish the data in their decision to approve or reject a school.

What would the parents gain from conpliling the same dataset as the government is already doing?

ukoda

ukoda wrote: »

The government in this example is actively seeking input from local residents and requesting their eircode. My question was, what value would there be in the parents doing this exercise themselves? The government would publish the data in their decision to approve or reject a school.

What would the parents gain from conpliling the same dataset as the government is already doing?

What you've actually done here is taken a real life scenario where eircode is helping to plan for schools and created a fictional alternative where you tried to claim eircode couldn't help in because "a group like that wouldn't be able to get a licence" which is not correct, as it's been pointed out to you, they don't need a licence. More to the point, the fictional scenario you made up seems to be entirely unnecessary

plodder

ukoda wrote: »

The government in this example is actively seeking input from local residents and requesting their eircode. My question was, what value would there be in the parents doing this exercise themselves? The government would publish the data in their decision to approve or reject a school.

What would the parents gain from conpliling the same dataset as the government is already doing?

Way off topic now. But, do you not see value generally in citizens being able to compile their own data on any subject that affects their lives? Not least because they don't then have to trust the data produced by the government...

Or perhaps, they might want to do their own feasibility studies before even approaching the state ...

Open societies and all that. If you can do it in other countries (easily using the national postcode without having to pay for access to data, yada yada) ... Yes, btw the situation is hypothetical/fictional. I'm not claiming that this group was actually trying to do this. Postcodes are new here. The population doesn't yet have a strong sense of what you can do with postcodes. Perhaps they never will for that matter.

ukoda

plodder wrote: »

Way off topic now. But, do you not see value generally in citizens being able to compile their own data on any subject that affects their lives? Not least because they don't then have to trust the data produced by the government...

Or perhaps, they might want to do their own feasibility studies before even approaching the state ...

Open societies and all that. If you can do it in other countries (easily using the national postcode without having to pay for access to data, yada yada) ...

It can all be done with eircode. I have no issue with this group having to pay a relativity small fee to access the data, otherwise I'd be paying for it in more taxes

clewbays

PDVerse wrote: »

The more Eircode is used on post, the more An Post will use Eircode.

That's the wrong way around. An Post should be incentivising the use of Eircode to get take-up instead they talk about only 5% of people using it as though it has nothing to do with their business.

Are there financial penalties in the contract for the licence holder around lack of take-up? An Post probably dropped out of the tender process when they realised that they would still get substantial ongoing financial payments for the use of geodirectory and for upgrading their software yet still not have to promote the use of it to benefit their rivals. Seems to me like we have the equivalent of a kind of Rolls Royce back in 1900 but no petrol stations to fill the tank after the first hurrah!

D.L.R.

Eircode worries me in that so much time and money went into it and, well.. thats the best we could come up with as a nation??

Did nobody on that design panel ever hear of the terms user friendly or accessible.

Its just shockingly bad in its utter detachment from any kind of intuitive logic.

oscarBravo

clewbays wrote: »

An Post should be incentivising the use of Eircode to get take-up...

How? And, from their perspective, why?

Remember: An Post didn't want a postcode. It facilitates competition, no matter how many of the competitors are still in the "it's not exactly what we would have designed, therefore it's the worst thing in history" phase.

D.L.R. wrote: »

Eircode worries me in that so much time and money went into it and, well.. thats the best we could come up with as a nation??

Did nobody on that design panel ever hear of the terms user friendly or accessible.

Its just shockingly bad in its utter detachment from any kind of intuitive logic.

Intuitive? You think postcodes should be intuitive?

Let's see: I have an acquaintance with the postcode "8700". What does that tell you, intuitively? How about "SY16 1AD"? Or "80112"? "3343810"?

I can remember my Eircodes for home and work. I have Eircodes noted for several of my family and friends. As I learn more, I'll make a note of those too. I don't feel a need to memorise them, or "intuitively" understand them.

At work, we have Eircodes for approximately half of our customers. Those don't need to be intuitive either; we just need to be able to look them up in a database and get the information we need.

How, precisely, does a postcode go about being "user friendly" or "accessible"? Can you give an example of a postcode that's both?

D.L.R.

oscarBravo wrote: »

Intuitive? You think postcodes should be intuitive?

Let's see: I have an acquaintance with the postcode "8700". What does that tell you, intuitively? How about "SY16 1AD"? Or "80112"? "3343810"?

I can remember my Eircodes for home and work. I have Eircodes noted for several of my family and friends. As I learn more, I'll make a note of those too. I don't feel a need to memorise them, or "intuitively" understand them.

At work, we have Eircodes for approximately half of our customers. Those don't need to be intuitive either; we just need to be able to look them up in a database and get the information we need.

How, precisely, does a postcode go about being "user friendly" or "accessible"? Can you give an example of a postcode that's both?

Not sure why you're so angry that I don't think eircode is a well designed system. But whatever, its my opinion. Design by committee, too many cooks, take your pick.