Eircode - Why did they bother?

sweetie · 22-10-2017 10:26AM

seamus wrote:

The emergency services are using it. The OP might have just gotten through to an old schooler who doesn't do all dat Googley Maps schtuff, just give us the directions there.

No, they're not all using it.

Mountainsandh · 22-10-2017 10:30AM

Jaylah Low Kidnapper wrote: »

You can't remember a phone number so? Don't know your PPS number, bank account etc.?

Just keep looking for faults and forget about just using the thing so it becomes second nature to people. My 5 year old grandchild will tell you her Eircode for goodness sake.

Mary, there is so much wrong with everything in this country (according to you) I wonder how we function as a nation at all.

Jaylah Low Kidnapper, from what I gather you are a highly academical, open minded and technologically competent user of boards. What seems easy and obvious to you may not be an accurate frame of reference for the rest of the Irish population.

I am academical, reasonably technologically competent, and good with the internet. However, I don't know my pps and bank numbers by heart, I'm not comfortable and don't really see the point in apps so generally use a laptop instead of a phone or even iPad I have access to, and up to 2 weeks ago I did not compute that you could run a route on your phone at home and save it for later.

That's just my example. Now my friends Sean, Betty, Jim, Frank, Biddy... They're active members of society, they count too, right ? They might have internet on their phones but they don't know it. Sean has one of these old Nokia's, he can't text. Betty and Biddy don't have a mobile phone. Jim I'm not sure, I always meet him rather than phone. My mother in law is slightly over 70; she's good at texting and even messaging on Facebook. She might have internet on her phone but doesn't know it. If you ask her for her Eircode she might have a vague notion it's some number you need when filling some forms occasionally, and if you give her a minute she will locate it as it's written on a notepad in the filing cabinet in the spare room.

These people count, Eircodes design and function has not succeeded in making it relevant to them.

irishgeo · 22-10-2017 10:40AM

People would whinge about anything. Christ. The same people would be moaning if it was a sequence per street and then they wouldn't like the code they got. Post code snobbery like happens in the UK.

I had the loc8 guy tweet me because I asked a mapping crowd if they were going to integrate eircode. Sad individual following people on twitter tweeting about eircode.

He didn't reply when I called him out saying was he still sore his system wasn't selected.

BailMeOut · 22-10-2017 10:42AM

sweetie wrote: »

No, they're not all using it.

Ambulance Service now using Eircode to find people faster in an Emergency

tomwaterford · 22-10-2017 10:44AM

irishgeo wrote: »

People would whinge about anything. Christ. The same people would be moaning if it was a sequence per street and then they wouldn't like the code they got. Post code snobbery like happens in the UK.

I had the loc8 guy tweet me because I asked a mapping crowd if they were going to integrate eircode. Sad individual following people on twitter tweeting about eircode.

He didn't reply when I called him out saying was he still sore his system wasn't selected.

Who's loc8 guy?

Mountainsandh · 22-10-2017 10:47AM

Srameen, the link showed that a probably sizeable amount of taxi companies, pizza delivery and courrier companies used the service, with a side note that the customers need not remember their Eircodes since the app would match a postal address to it anyway.

Businesses (for whom it was designed primarily) use Eircodes. This was a business venture masqueraded as a public serving project.

irishgeo · 22-10-2017 10:50AM

tomwaterford wrote: »

Who's loc8 guy?

The guy who used to on here moaning about the setup of eircode. Because his system wasn't selected.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1 · 22-10-2017 11:43AM

tomwaterford wrote: »

Who's loc8 guy?

He had an even more random numbering system - ex navy guy if I recall - that identified your premises. He was quite obnoxious and rude to me when I commented that it was useless as nobody used it. I'd give the number to a courier and they'd say "loc what number?". It never flew.

maryishere · 22-10-2017 11:45AM

Mountainsandh wrote: »

it's no wonder to me that 2 years later when we have a community alert meeting of 80 or so, only 2 will know their Eircodes.

Its no wonder either that most delivery drivers do not use eircodes either.
No businesses advertise with it. Ever.
If they made it easier to remember people would use it.

The people who advocate it are the people who got €50,000,000 to design it....or their friends / relatives.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1 · 22-10-2017 11:48AM

Mountainsandh wrote: »

Srameen, from what I gather you are a highly academical, open minded and technologically competent user of boards. What seems easy and obvious to you may not be an accurate frame of reference for the rest of the Irish population.

I am academical, reasonably technologically competent, and good with the internet. However, I don't know my pps and bank numbers by heart, I'm not comfortable and don't really see the point in apps so generally use a laptop instead of a phone or even iPad I have access to, and up to 2 weeks ago I did not compute that you could run a route on your phone at home and save it for later.

That's just my example. Now my friends Sean, Betty, Jim, Frank, Biddy... They're active members of society, they count too, right ? They might have internet on their phones but they don't know it. Sean has one of these old Nokia's, he can't text. Betty and Biddy don't have a mobile phone. Jim I'm not sure, I always meet him rather than phone. My mother in law is slightly over 70; she's good at texting and even messaging on Facebook. She might have internet on her phone but doesn't know it. If you ask her for her Eircode she might have a vague notion it's some number you need when filling some forms occasionally, and if you give her a minute she will locate it as it's written on a notepad in the filing cabinet in the spare room.

These people count, Eircodes design and function has not succeeded in making it relevant to them.

I think you are being somewhat disingenuous there. I refuse to use apps and rarely even turn on a mobile phone but I still get great value front Eircode and so will those friends who you seem to think can't cope with the modern world. They can quote the number to ensure deliveries are received and they can keep it beside the phone for calling emergency services etc. I'm not sure what you think it is for. It does what it was designed to do. We just need more people to start quoting it on their address. It's neither rocket science nor requires any academic qualification to use or avail of it.

maryishere · 22-10-2017 11:48AM

Jaylah Low Kidnapper wrote: »

You can't remember a phone number so? Don't know your PPS number, bank account etc.?

Numbers with random letters are harder to remember.

They should have used a better system eg WA for Waterford city
WAC for Waterford county etc.

irishgeo · 22-10-2017 11:51AM

maryishere wrote: »

Its no wonder either that most delivery drivers do not use eircodes either.
No businesses advertise with it. Ever.
If they made it easier to remember people would use it.

The people who advocate it are the people who got €50,000,000 to design it....or their friends / relatives.

how much easier to remember does it need to be .

a mobile number is longer and people seem to be able to remember that?

people remember pin codes and passwords.

its going to take a while to get going. i see a lot more websites looking for it now.

this excuse thats its too hard to remenber is bull****.

Sofiztikated · 22-10-2017 12:00PM

maryishere wrote: »

Numbers with random letters are harder to remember.

They should have used a better system eg WA for Waterford city
WAC for Waterford county etc.

Walkinstown, Watergrasshill, Watch Island, Watch House Island, Waterville.

It's not hard to remember. You just don't want to try.

And you claim businesses don't use it. Well, they do. Tesco. Campus Oil. Dominos. Nightline. Fastway. Hell, my local indian takeaway uses them for delivery, because it'll bring them straight to the house rather than **** about trying to tell them "Do you know Paddy's Lane? Well, it's not Paddys Lane on a map, but everyone knows it as Paddys Lane because Paddy crashed on it 20 something years ago, but you wouldn't know that, and anyway, go down it, past Murphys house, and I'm there. On the left."

Mountainsandh · 22-10-2017 12:02PM

irishgeo wrote: »

People would whinge about anything. Christ. The same people would be moaning if it was a sequence per street and then they wouldn't like the code they got. Post code snobbery like happens in the UK.

I had the loc8 guy tweet me because I asked a mapping crowd if they were going to integrate eircode. Sad individual following people on twitter tweeting about eircode.

He didn't reply when I called him out saying was he still sore his system wasn't selected.

Aww... And look at you turning this into an "us" vs "them" situation. Do you not think this might make it worse ? Especially since other people here have made the point that the first 3 digit-letter combination already would allow for the so called postcode snobbery.
Of course people would have to have copped that on which they won't if, like me, it just looks like a meaningless sequence to them.

Ironically, there would have been simple ways to improve uptake of Eircodes, for example by publishing easy local map posters to plaster around communities informing people that they're in the Y96 area, and past the cross it's Y97 (not sure codes are actually that logical), and up the mountain it's Y95, etc...
I tried finding such maps online for my area unsuccessfully. I think I saw one privately made for another area.
I could randomly feel my way around my local Eircodes, input 15 a day and suss it out over a number of weeks of course. Or randomly trying addresses on google, with the help of a phone book perhaps ?

How is it that, if Eircode is so consumer friendly and oriented, there is no such map available ? Or is there, and once again Eircode failed at communicating this ? How was this not part of the roll out, budget and design ?

Something like this :

https://www.gbmaps.com/4-digit-postcode-maps/ba-bath-postcode-map.html

Mountainsandh · 22-10-2017 12:05PM

irishgeo wrote: »

how much easier to remember does it need to be .

a mobile number is longer and people seem to be able to remember that?

people remember pin codes and passwords.

its going to take a while to get going. i see a lot more websites looking for it now.

this excuse thats its too hard to remenber is bull****.

It's 2 years since rollout.

Sofiztikated · 22-10-2017 12:06PM

Mountainsandh wrote: »

Aww... And look at you turning this into an "us" vs "them" situation. Do you not think this might make it worse ? Especially since other people here have made the point that the first 3 digit-letter combination already would allow for the so called postcode snobbery.
Of course people would have to have copped that on which they won't if, like me, it just looks like a meaningless sequence to them.

Ironically, there would have been simple ways to improve uptake of Eircodes, for example by publishing easy local map posters to plaster around communities informing people that they're in the Y96 area, and past the cross it's Y97 (not sure codes are actually that logical), and up the mountain it's Y95, etc...
I tried finding such maps online for my area unsuccessfully. I think I saw one privately made for another area.
I could randomly feel my way around my local Eircodes, input 15 a day and suss it out over a number of weeks of course. Or randomly trying addresses on google, with the help of a phone book perhaps ?

How is it that, if Eircode is so consumer friendly and oriented, there is no such map available ? Or is there, and once again Eircode failed at communicating this ? How was this not part of the roll out, budget and design ?

Something like this :

https://www.gbmaps.com/4-digit-postcode-maps/ba-bath-postcode-map.html

I dunno, I usually find the words and letters before the eircode give me an idea of where a place is.

Mountainsandh · 22-10-2017 12:11PM

Jaylah Low Kidnapper wrote: »

I think you are being somewhat disingenuous there. I refuse to use apps and rarely even turn on a mobile phone but I still get great value front Eircode and so will those friends who you seem to think can't cope with the modern world. They can quote the number to ensure deliveries are received and they can keep it beside the phone for calling emergency services etc. I'm not sure what you think it is for. It does what it was designed to do. We just need more people to start quoting it on their address. It's neither rocket science nor requires any academic qualification to use or avail of it.

Maybe they should, maybe it is easier than it seems, but in my experience they don't. If I didn't feel that would be overkill for an online discussion, or intrusive on their privacy, I would do a vox pop and publish here for credibility.

The only way to get people to really start assigning meaning to it is to relate it to their area with maps as I suggested above, but tbh I couldn't be arsed and I don't see why, with the budget Eircodes swallowed up, local community members should overcome a clunky Eircode website to draw their own maps.

Mountainsandh · 22-10-2017 12:22PM

Sofiztikated wrote: »

I dunno, I usually find the words and letters before the eircode give me an idea of where a place is.

So narky, so smart, and so completely oblivious of the point that people have not adopted Eircodes because it's a meaningless sequence of digits and letters to them.

Businesses use Eircodes, not people. Not enough people rather, 2 years after roll out.

TheChizler · 22-10-2017 12:24PM

maryishere wrote: »

No businesses advertise with it. Ever.
If they made it easier to remember people would use it.

The problem with wide sweeping statements like this is they're entirely refutable with a single example.

Just Google your routing code and area name and you'll be faced with thousands of property and job advertisements that include the Eircode. Round where I live I've seen plenty of new vans with their business details (including Eircode) printed on the side. The odd Google ad on this site includes an Eircode but unfortunately you can't search for these.

All the people advocating a sequential code, exactly what benefit would this bring? You could never have a truly sequential code as at every road junction there's going to be a discontinuity. The only advantage I can see in a non postal/courier setting is if you're in an area trying to find a house you MIGHT be able to figure out which direction it is by knocking on doors and asking for their postcode.

Your phone number is essentially random and there's no problem with this. Street names don't necessarily have a bearing on one other. Why should postcodes?

Eircodes do actually have a bearing on one another and by definition they are not random, they follow specific rules that ensure similarly names properties have codes that can't be mistaken for one another which makes errors very obvious when you compare their lookup values to the address provided. They only LOOK random when you look at a list of yours and your neighbours' codes. How often do you need to do that in real life?

Sofiztikated · 22-10-2017 12:36PM

Mountainsandh wrote: »

So narky, so smart, and so completely oblivious of the point that people have not adopted Eircodes because it's a meaningless sequence of digits and letters to them.

Businesses use Eircodes, not people. Not enough people rather, 2 years after roll out.

I have adopted my Eircode because it relates to my home. I don't know how much more personal you can get.

It took 20 some years for postcodes to come into widespread use in the UK.

I remember the same ****e arguments being used when local phone numbers were 5 digits long, and had to be extended to 7 digits. How could anyone remember them, sure the 55XXX number means it's BallygoBackwards, now it's 4955XXX.

Capt'n Midnight · 22-10-2017 12:49PM

Sofiztikated wrote: »

maryishere wrote: »

My phone number is 10 digits long. Completely random. Well ****, I can remember it."

Phone numbers aren't designed to provide locations.

But for a normal land line only the last 3 digits are random. The numbers in front are specific to the exchange.

Eircode doesn't even provide that level of location without access to their propriety database.

The four alphanumerics in Eircode give 1,679,616 combinations. (36^4)
There are 1,697,665 households in Ireland
Damn close.

5 random characters would give 60m combinations.

7 characters is just a complete waste , too long to remember. Yes the three characters at the front are similar to your neighbours, but outside of Dublin and Cork they are random too.

TheChizler · 22-10-2017 12:54PM

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

7 characters is just a complete waste , too long to remember. Yes the three characters at the front are similar to your neighbours, but outside of Dublin and Cork they are random too.

How often do you need to memorise a list of your neighbours' postcodes? You just remember your own and give it to other people. I've never had reason to look at the number on my neighbour's door never mind find out their postcode.

Also only the characters 0-9 and A, C, D, E, F, H, K, N, P, R, T, V, W, X, Y are used in the unique identifier so 390,625 combinations per routing key.

22-10-2017 12:59PM

Ambulance service uses then. Imagine just giving a few numbers and letters and they arriving at the door in a rural area, without having to give detailed directions while dealing with an emergency.

People hate anything new and will only learn to appreciate it when they need it.

Capt'n Midnight · 22-10-2017 01:00PM

professore wrote: »

Because it's a poorly designed system which to the public is just a collection of random numbers and letters.

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/who-uses-eircode-1.2979622

Perhaps we should be assured by Liam Duggan, of Capita PLC, owners of the Eircode trademark, who told the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport & Communications in November 2014 that “As an exercise, we bought online Scrabble. We looked at all four- and three-letter words and so on”.

online scrabble ??

So we are one of the last countries to adopt a postcode and rather than look at what actually works elsewhere they decide to reinvent the wheel , badly ?

flaneur · 22-10-2017 01:04PM

Phone numbers used to be structured but they’re not really anymore.
The phone network used to work purely by the logic in the phone number structure but nowadays it works more like a URL where the exchange looks up where and what the number relates to using a database.

You have to remember the structured numbering was designed for a network that used hard wired routing and electromechanical exchanges in the 1950s, 60s, 70s and for early 1980s digital switches that wouldn’t have had very much processing power to do any fancy intelligent network services. All that changed in the 2000s as the digital switches became vastly more flexible and now they’re basically servers with voice traffic gradually moving over to VoIP on the network side of things.

For example
021 = Cork
450 xxxx or 455 xxxx usually mean Wellington Road exchange
246 and 242 and all sorts of other prefixes could also be used in that area of the Northeast of Cork due to new operators, business numbers and VoIP.
The old 450 and 455 numbers could also be ported and moved too.
With the pretty huge use of cable VoIP from Virgin, you couldn’t be sure of those prefixes meaning all that much.

So basically all you can tell is that a number *might* be where the old designations were originally assigned that way.

Also mobile numbers, other than a legacy operator prefix which is also now meaningless due to number porting, are basically entirely random.

So, nope phone numbers are also pseudorandom.

Mountainsandh · 22-10-2017 01:05PM

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Sofiztikated wrote: »

Phone numbers aren't designed to provide locations.

But for a normal land line only the last 3 digits are random. The numbers in front are specific to the exchange.

Eircode doesn't even provide that level of location without access to their propriety database.

The four alphanumerics in Eircode give 1,679,616 combinations. (36^4)
There are 1,697,665 households in Ireland
Damn close.

5 random characters would give 60m combinations.

7 characters is just a complete waste , too long to remember. Yes the three characters at the front are similar to your neighbours, but outside of Dublin and Cork they are random too.

Confused.
Here we have 3 digits that are the area code, and then just 5 numbers to remember. I don't remember lots, but the ones I use commonly, maybe 4, 5 at the most ?
Clonmel was one of the trickier ones, they did have to increase numbers, but that was easy, just add 61 after the area code that was already ingrained, then dial normal number. So area code is like 05261, then whatever else (normal 5 numbers). It's easy to just squeeze in 2 extra digits into something you already know.
Edit : the above about phone numbers, not sure what last lines referred to anymore.

server down · 22-10-2017 01:06PM

Jaylah Low Kidnapper wrote: »

I gave up after that.

That 'some else' was wrong. Many people are using it.

Sorry I couldn't face the rest of the rant, as the opening premise was so removed from reality.

Everything else was a deeply unhappy rant about Ireland from a woman who has never left Ireland. Post colonial system.

server down · 22-10-2017 01:09PM

Mountainsandh wrote: »

Srameen, from what I gather you are a highly academical, open minded and technologically competent user of boards. What seems easy and obvious to you may not be an accurate frame of reference for the rest of the Irish population.

I am academical, reasonably technologically competent, and good with the internet. However, I don't know my pps and bank numbers by heart, I'm not comfortable and don't really see the point in apps so generally use a laptop instead of a phone or even iPad I have access to, and up to 2 weeks ago I did not compute that you could run a route on your phone at home and save it for later.

That's just my example. Now my friends Sean, Betty, Jim, Frank, Biddy... They're active members of society, they count too, right ? They might have internet on their phones but they don't know it. Sean has one of these old Nokia's, he can't text. Betty and Biddy don't have a mobile phone. Jim I'm not sure, I always meet him rather than phone. My mother in law is slightly over 70; she's good at texting and even messaging on Facebook. She might have internet on her phone but doesn't know it. If you ask her for her Eircode she might have a vague notion it's some number you need when filling some forms occasionally, and if you give her a minute she will locate it as it's written on a notepad in the filing cabinet in the spare room.

These people count, Eircodes design and function has not succeeded in making it relevant to them.

Yes and it’s still very easy to learn off 7 digits. 4 for those of us in Dublin.

Maybe they should have had some reference to the counties in the rural code, but it’s not that much of an issue.

server down · 22-10-2017 01:17PM

I also don’t get the need for sequential. New houses are being built all the time, do they get to be non-sequential? Also I’m fault glad that my last 4 numbers of code, say aa45 are not close to my neighbours ac91 (both made up) because if they were there would be more mistakes.

Mountainsandh · 22-10-2017 01:18PM

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Ambulance service uses then. Imagine just giving a few numbers and letters and they arriving at the door in a rural area, without having to give detailed directions while dealing with an emergency.

People hate anything new and will only learn to appreciate it when they need it.

That's great, provided people buy in the concept and know their Eircode in case of emergency. IMO that has not happened due to poor design, or at least very poor communication and a complete bypass of a sizeable chunk of the population.

To argue that in 10 or 20 years time it will have happened organically is outrageous IMO. It implies that the portion of the population who have not been reached don't really matter, and the enormous budget was intended to serve businesses first and foremost (not the propaganda we were fed).

Eircode - Why did they bother?

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