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Eircode - its implemetation (merged)

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Comments

  • #2042
    plodder
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,750 ✭✭✭plodder


    Bray Head wrote: »
    I agree. However Ireland's national statistical institute should know better than to promote their use in such a way.
    Why though? It's useful.


  • #2043
    Bray Head
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 896 ✭✭✭Bray Head


    plodder wrote: »
    Bray Head wrote: »
    I agree. However Ireland's national statistical institute should know better than to promote their use in such a way.
    Why though? It's useful.
    I can think of much more useful spatial presentations of house price and completion data:
    -City, large town, small town, rural
    -Greater Dublin/Cork areas (the local authority boundaries are not relevant)
    -NUTS 3 region

    Eircodes routing keys are none of these things. They have as much informational content as using telephone prefixes or diocese boundaries.


  • #2044
    Sam Russell
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 20,358 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    Bray Head wrote: »
    I can think of much more useful spatial presentations of house price and completion data:
    -City, large town, small town, rural
    -Greater Dublin/Cork areas (the local authority boundaries are not relevant)
    -NUTS 3 region

    Eircodes routing keys are none of these things. They have as much informational content as using telephone prefixes or diocese boundaries.

    Actually, if they used the first four digits (after the zero) of the STD code, it would be a useful area code as they are based on population density, and are contiguous.


  • #2045
    plodder
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,750 ✭✭✭plodder


    Bray Head wrote: »
    I can think of much more useful spatial presentations of house price and completion data:
    -City, large town, small town, rural
    -Greater Dublin/Cork areas (the local authority boundaries are not relevant)
    -NUTS 3 region

    Eircodes routing keys are none of these things. They have as much informational content as using telephone prefixes or diocese boundaries.
    It depends on the purpose. A common question for non statistician users might be something like "what's the average house value in the area where I live (and my eircode is K36 XXXX) ?"

    The answer is very straight forward. You look up the table for K36 and there it is.

    Any other presentation using NUTS codes or anything else has to be mapped from eircode to the other code and then to the table of information. Statistics aren't only used by policy wonks in the public sector. Estate agents for example would be very interested in house price info published by routing key.


  • #2046
    Bray Head
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 896 ✭✭✭Bray Head


    Eircode handle is not a consistently useful geographical unit though.

    They are useful in Dublin as they are small and relatively homogeneous.

    But outside Dublin they take in huge areas which take in different social classes, urban/rural etc. Take a look at H91 which takes Galway city, the whole country west of it and much of the county east of it. Same for Limerick V94.


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  • #2047
    plodder
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,750 ✭✭✭plodder


    Bray Head wrote: »
    Eircode handle is not a consistently useful geographical unit though.

    They are useful in Dublin as they are small and relatively homogeneous.

    But outside Dublin they take in huge areas which take in different social classes, urban/rural etc. Take a look at H91 which takes Galway city, the whole country west of it and much of the county east of it. Same for Limerick V94.
    Indeed. I am aware of all that. I don't see why that should stop its use elsewhere and a little less usefully there. Those mega areas could be split at some point in the future with little disruption also.


  • #2048
    Bray Head
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 896 ✭✭✭Bray Head


    plodder wrote: »
    Indeed. I am aware of all that. I don't see why that should stop its use elsewhere and a little less usefully there. Those mega areas could be split at some point in the future with little disruption also.

    No they won't. The whole point of eircode is that it never changes!


  • #2049
    EdgeCase
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,471 ✭✭✭EdgeCase


    I noticed An Post are using Eircode lookalikes now for business reply / freepost

    SuperValu rewards card mail in for example is:

    PO BOX 618
    FREE POST FCK208
    Cork

    FCK seems a little odd as a letter combination...


  • #2050
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 31,118 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    EdgeCase wrote: »
    I noticed An Post are using Eircode lookalikes now for business reply / freepost

    SuperValu rewards card mail in for example is:

    PO BOX 618
    FREE POST FCK208
    Cork

    FCK seems a little odd as a letter combination...
    I think that is the freepost reference number, for billing the recipient of the mail.


  • #2051
    Carawaystick
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,779 ✭✭✭Carawaystick


    Bray Head wrote: »

    They are useful in Dublin as they are small and relatively homogeneous.
    No they aren't, A45 K45, and A42 are not homogenous, by a long stretch


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  • #2052
    Bray Head
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 896 ✭✭✭Bray Head


    Carawaystick wrote: »
    Bray Head wrote: »

    They are useful in Dublin as they are small and relatively homogeneous.
    No they aren't, A45 K45, and A42 are not homogenous, by a long stretch
    I clearly meant the D postcodes but keep up the pedantry if you enjoy it.


  • #2053
    plodder
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,750 ✭✭✭plodder


    Bray Head wrote: »
    No they won't. The whole point of eircode is that it never changes!
    The whole point of Eircode was to follow An Post's crazy system. If that system changes, then either Eircode changes with it, or if it doesn't then the rationale for following the system goes up in a puff of smoke.


  • #2054
    Sam Russell
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 20,358 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    Bray Head wrote: »
    plodder wrote: »
    Indeed. I am aware of all that. I don't see why that should stop its use elsewhere and a little less usefully there. Those mega areas could be split at some point in the future with little disruption also.

    No they won't. The whole point of eircode is that it never changes!

    Well, it would only mean that the sort code element changed. It could change say, for K05* to be split into three smaller sort codes by from say, K05 to K15, K16 and K17. K05 would remain for a period but would be phased out by placing messages on the mail with the new version Eircode on it.

    *K05 is a fictional zone. If one exists, that may be so.

    That is the flexibility of the Eircode structure, since the random part has been designed to be robust as well as random. Anyway, splitting a sort code poses no problems as the data integrity remains. The weakness of the Eircode structure was that it only used about 140 sort codes instead of about 1,000 to 2,000.


  • #2055
    Bray Head
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 896 ✭✭✭Bray Head


    The boundaries of eircode prefixes will not change. There would be a lot of upheaval for very little gain. An eircode is just an identifer code for a lookup in a database. Even if you change the eircode of a single dwelling you cause confusion as databases don't update instantly.


    The prefixes 087, 086 and 085 used to signify which phone provider you were with. Now they don't. But it would still be a huge upheaval to have mobile phone prefix changed.


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