Eircode - its implemetation (merged)

oscarBravo · 17-12-2015 08:17PM

Deleted User wrote: »

How many of those "what's an eircode" would have answered correctly if you had asked for the postcode?

I don't know. We'll be following up with them to explain what we're looking for.

GJG · 18-12-2015 12:20PM

Sam Russell wrote: »

The first step is quite obviously to appoint an 'Address Regulator' which should be the local planning office, or alternatively, the Revenue Commissioners as they collect property tax.

The next step is to define what an 'official' address is. Historically, it is, for rural addresses, House name (if it has one), Townland, Barony, County. This could of course be modernised, but a road name and house number would be relatively easy to add. Addressee offers a suggestion (in conjunction with others on the same road) and 'Address Regulator' agrees or suggests an alternative - for example should it be a duplicate.

To do this a start has to be made, and for a start to be made there has to be political will and that is sadly lacking.

Two observations:

Perhaps you aren't aware, but there are intense disputes about such naming both in rural and urban Ireland. One salesperson I knew said he felt his safety was at real risk when (because of the nature of his product) he used the real address on customer forms, rather than a more desirable one - he mentioned the border between Foxrock and Tallaght as being particularly problematic. In rural areas, issues such as what GAA club you play for generate a particular amount of heat. For example, county boundaries were revised in the 1890s, in particular to eliminate islands and exclaves, and there still areas where the right of some townlands in one county to play for the neighbouring county are both defended and attacked with ferocious passion. I mention these just to illustrate that such an authority that you mention would likely be paralysed by deeply-seated resistance.

Secondly, what you suggest seems excessively bureaucratic and expensive, and it's not clear that the return on investment would make it worthwhile, although to be fair to you I haven't examined the issue much.

But my main question is what relevance is this to Eircode? The existence of Eircode doesn't in any way inhibit the project you suggest. I suppose if your project was completed beforehand, it would have made Eircode easier, but it is a massively more difficult and complex project than Eircode, and has no certainty of being completed ever, let alone in a reasonable time, so the idea that Eircode should be postponed until it is completed is, to me, not viable.

I have to say that, in my opinion, the people who were demanding that postcodes be deferred until the completion of long and uncertain projects were doing so for no reason other than to derail the project entirely for private commercial reasons.

hans aus dtschl · 18-12-2015 04:03PM

oscarBravo wrote: »

We got another reply today, containing an Eircode but also the message: "Please don't use Eircode. Nobody else is. There are much better systems."

Are there? In the sense of technically more useful for various reasons, it could be argued that there are. But "better" for me ultimately boils down to "more useful".

The level of response from our customer base to the question "what's your Eircode?" has been, on balance, pretty impressive. If the question had been "what's your Loc8 code?" or "what's your GoCode?", or even "what's your what3words code?" - would we have received such a response?

We're up to four "what's an Eircode?" responses. You think we'd only have received four "what's a Loc8 code?" replies? For better or worse, people have been informed of their Eircode.

What's the best system? The one that gives me the information I need.

I understand the main point you're making, but you're not making it with a valid data set.

If you were to send a letter to each premises in the country with a Loc8 code, and follow it up with national radio and TV ad campaigns, you may end up with a similar response. You're saying that awareness exists for Eircode, and I don't think that's an invalid argument at all.

But don't confuse that with acceptance of Eircode, for which we don't have as solid a metric.

I don't mean to criticise, as I know it's just one simple indicator, but I'm saying I wouldn't be reading into it a whole pile either.

oscarBravo · 18-12-2015 06:06PM

hans aus dtschl wrote: »

I understand the main point you're making, but you're not making it with a valid data set.

If you were to send a letter to each premises in the country with a Loc8 code, and follow it up with national radio and TV ad campaigns, you may end up with a similar response. You're saying that awareness exists for Eircode, and I don't think that's an invalid argument at all.

But don't confuse that with acceptance of Eircode, for which we don't have as solid a metric.

I don't mean to criticise, as I know it's just one simple indicator, but I'm saying I wouldn't be reading into it a whole pile either.

I understand your point in turn, but let's look at two specific quotes I'm arguing against.

The first is from this very forum: "Eircode is dead. End of." The other you quoted: "Please don't use Eircode. Nobody else is. There are much better systems."

My counter-arguments are that Eircode is far from dead, that lots of people appear to be using Eircode, and that the allegedly "much better systems" that very few people are even aware of are not better in any meaningful way.

I asked people for their Eircodes, and got nearly five hundred responses so far. If I had asked people for their Loc8 code, I honestly expect that that number would have been a couple of orders of magnitude lower.

So far, I've received three responses expressing hostility toward Eircode, and about five expressing ignorance. Compared to five hundred useful replies (and, let's not forget, two of the hostile responses contained Eircodes also), I don't think it's unfair to infer a degree of acceptance.

hans aus dtschl · 21-12-2015 01:06PM

Yep I definitely don't think "Eircode is dead" is a valid comment. As I said, I don't mean to criticize, just pointing out that your informal test is a great indicator of awareness, but "acceptance" kind of falls between "awareness" and "usage". Acceptance is a very fuzzy metric, we could have high acceptance and low usage , or high awareness and low acceptance (like Irish water).

Hopefully we'll get another solid metric like usage stats from An Post, DHL, etc, it'd help paint a fuller picture.

gizmo555 · 21-12-2015 01:52PM

hans aus dtschl wrote: »

Hopefully we'll get another solid metric like usage stats from An Post, DHL, etc, it'd help paint a fuller picture.

DHL has said (in common with many other major courier firms) that it will not be using Eircode.

Why We Won’t Use Eircode:

To implement Eircode in its current format, the DHL Express IT infrastructure will require bespoke software development on many internal and external (customer-facing) systems. Unlike the rest of the world’s postcodes, Eircode doesn’t fit into our global IT platform.

In particular, the granularity of the routing key is inefficient due to its large geographic coverage based on the national postal sort centres and in turn becomes redundant. Also the non-sequential unique identifier creates significant logistics and IT challenges. To put this into context, DHL currently has 3.4m postcode-ranges in its databases for all countries in the world that operate a postcode. With Eircode we would need to add a minimum of 2.2m entries just for Ireland which adds its implementation costs as well as risk.

Furthermore, with Eircode’s current format it is not possible to identify an address from just ‘reading’ the postcode. On that basis it will be easier to use the address lines we currently use to-day.

http://www.ftai.ie/export/sites/ireland/.content/downloads/FTAI_Presentation_to_Joint_Oireachtas_Committee_on_Transport_and_Communications.pdf

With such criticism of the Eircode system from the very organisations you'd expect to enthusiastically adopt it, and An Post essentially saying it makes no difference to them whether people include Eircodes in addresses or not, it's very hard to see what the point of it is at all.

anothernight · 21-12-2015 02:23PM

gizmo555 wrote: »

Why We Won’t Use Eircode:

To implement Eircode in its current format, the DHL Express IT infrastructure will require bespoke software development on many internal and external (customer-facing) systems. Unlike the rest of the world’s postcodes, Eircode doesn’t fit into our global IT platform.

That's just embarrassing.

MBSnr · 21-12-2015 02:54PM

gizmo555 wrote: »

DHL has said (in common with all the other major courier firms) that it will not be using Eircode.

That report is from Nov 2014, way before Eircode was in official use. Now that it is here, perhaps they (and others) may change their stance on it.

They also contradict themselves (from saying they won't use it) in the paragraph afterwards saying that maybe they will use it...

"As things stand given the very strong likelihood that we will not use Eircode, at least in the medium term, no benefits will accrue to our business"

gizmo555 · 21-12-2015 03:15PM

MBSnr wrote: »

That report is from Nov 2014, way before Eircode was in official use. Now that it is here, perhaps they (and others) may change their stance on it.

They also contradict themselves (from saying they won't use it) in the paragraph afterwards saying that maybe they will use it...

It's not much of a contradiction. They are very clear that from their point of view Eircode is highly unsatisfactory, that they have no current intention to use it and that it's very unlikely they will in future.

TheChizler · 21-12-2015 06:06PM

gizmo555 wrote: »

DHL has said (in common with many other major courier firms) that it will not be using Eircode.

Why We Won’t Use Eircode:

...

Furthermore, with Eircode’s current format it is not possible to identify an address from just ‘reading’ the postcode. On that basis it will be easier to use the address lines we currently use to-day.

Isn't that true of ALL national postcodes?

hans aus dtschl · 21-12-2015 06:22PM

TheChizler wrote: »

Isn't that true of ALL national postcodes?

They possibly mean that Eircode seemingly never created a public-facing grid showing the public all the routing keys at once.

I believe in a lot of other countries, the road signs have the basic routing on them. So when you're in London SW1, SW1 is on the street signs, that kind of thing.

It'd be a no-brainer IMO for Eircode to have had a little image on the letter they sent out, showing all the major routing keys on it. I'd possibly remember that limerick is 061, or whatever it is in Eircode terms.
It'd be simple to do it now on their website.

But that's not the way they've approached it, and I presume they've a good reason for that.

TheChizler · 21-12-2015 06:27PM

hans aus dtschl wrote: »

They possibly mean that Eircode seemingly never created a public-facing grid showing the public all the routing keys at once.

I believe in a lot of other countries, the road signs have the basic routing on them. So when you're in London SW1, SW1 is on the street signs, that kind of thing.

It'd be a no-brainer IMO for Eircode to have had a little image on the letter they sent out, showing all the major routing keys on it. I'd possibly remember that limerick is 061, or whatever it is in Eircode terms.
It'd be simple to do it now on their website.

But that's not the way they've approached it, and I presume they've a good reason for that.

Maybe, but there are plenty of countries that don't publish a map, and that's a very specific thing to be referring to, why didn't they just say that if it's the case? I'd be surprised if that's what they were talking about.

my3cents · 21-12-2015 06:31PM

Unofficially my postman uses Eircode, talking him today about it. He has a few of the same surnames living at different locations with the same address so now that some people have started using Eircode he looks them up on his own mobile phone.

hans aus dtschl · 21-12-2015 06:41PM

TheChizler wrote: »

Maybe, but there are plenty of countries that don't publish a map, and that's a very specific thing to be referring to, why didn't they just say that if it's the case? I'd be surprised if that's what they were talking about.

Yeah, I'm putting words in their mouths, that's just how I read the statement.

I'd know where D6, D4, etc are, because I've seen them on a map. Same as I know where Manchester is because I've seen it on a map.

21-12-2015 07:21PM

my3cents wrote: »

Unofficially my postman uses Eircode, talking him today about it. He has a few of the same surnames living at different locations with the same address so now that some people have started using Eircode he looks them up on his own mobile phone.

Well just goes to show that it does have a use, despite the wishes of some here.

ukoda · 22-12-2015 02:45PM

http://correctaddress.anpost.ie/pages/Search.aspx

An Post website address checker updated to use eircode.

Can we change the thread title now....

ukoda · 22-12-2015 02:47PM

anothernight wrote: »

That's just embarrassing.

What's embarrassing is DHL are still using a technology designed for use with the 1960's UK postcode and that they refuse to modernise their technology. That statement from them is pure arrogance.

ANY postcode that isn't the UK one would require new software. They need to suck it up and invest in Ireland.

ukoda · 22-12-2015 02:55PM

I thought we were getting a thread for this when the National Postcodes thread was closed, but apparently not. So I've started one.

Where have you seen eircode being used?

Today I noticed the An Post address checker has been updated to include eircode

http://correctaddress.anpost.ie/pages/Search.aspx

I asked Electric Ireland today when I was talking to them and they said it will be on the bills "shortly"

DCENR asking for it if you want to check the national broadband rollout:

http://www.dcenr.gov.ie/communications/en-ie/Broadband/Pages/National-Broadband-Plan-Map-.aspx

Anyone have other examples of its use?

plodder · 22-12-2015 03:46PM

TheChizler wrote: »

Isn't that true of ALL national postcodes?

I think what they mean is that they can sort their deliveries just by looking at the postcode in other countries, but not here without licensing the ECAD and writing special software to map the random codes into usable areas.

moyners · 22-12-2015 06:04PM

ukoda wrote: »

http://correctaddress.anpost.ie/pages/Search.aspx

An Post website address checker updated to use eircode.

Can we change the thread title now....

Finally! It only took them 5 months - still better late than never. I see DCENR have utilised it to allow people to see if they're in an area targeted by the National Broadband Plan (although that's no guarantee either

)

http://www.dcenr.gov.ie/communications/en-ie/Broadband/Pages/National-Broadband-Plan-Map-.aspx#

anothernight · 22-12-2015 06:49PM

ukoda wrote: »

What's embarrassing is DHL are still using a technology designed for use with the 1960's UK postcode and that they refuse to modernise their technology. That statement from them is pure arrogance.

ANY postcode that isn't the UK one would require new software. They need to suck it up and invest in Ireland.

Wtf? Did you read the same thing I did? "Unlike the rest of the world’s postcodes" means "unlike the UK postcode" now?

ukoda · 22-12-2015 06:55PM

anothernight wrote: »

Wtf? Did you read the same thing I did? "Unlike the rest of the world’s postcodes" means "unlike the UK postcode" now?

Yes. It would be easier for them to be lazy if it copied the UK model. What do the rest of the worlds postcodes look like?

I'll give you a clue. They are all different.

anothernight · 22-12-2015 06:57PM

ukoda wrote: »

Yes. It would be easier for them to be lazy if it copied the UK model. What do the rest of the worlds postcodes look like?

I'll give you a clue. They are all different.

I know they're all different. I've lived in a bunch of different countries, all of which had their own postcodes (Ireland excepted, when I lived there).

DHL are saying that their system works with all other postcodes, UK or not, except the Irish one. I honestly can't see how you're interpreting "Unlike the rest of the world’s postcodes" to mean "Unlike the UK postcode".

ukoda · 22-12-2015 07:03PM

anothernight wrote: »

I know they're all different. I've lived in a bunch of different countries, all of which had their own postcodes (Ireland excepted, when I lived there).

DHL are saying that their system works with all other postcodes, UK or not, except the Irish one. I honestly can't see how you're interpreting "Unlike the rest of the world’s postcodes" to mean "Unlike the UK postcode".

So what you're saying is that they can cope with every other postcode in the world, all variations, all different set ups, all lengths, all the ones with granular locality and all the ones with none, but when it comes to eircode they are somehow stumped?

Like I said, if it was the same as the UK one, they'd have to do nothing. And it really boils down to them not wanting to spend anything. Their infrastructure is decades old, they are reluctant to upgrade it to add anything new. Bearing in mind all other postcodes are well established for decades meaning they work with their outdated tech. Do you get it now? Don't believe their nonsense.

They are using the anti eircode bandwagon to keep the status quo and as an excuse to do nothing and spend nothing.

Have they turned around to any other country and told them their postcode isn't workable? No they have not.

hans aus dtschl · 22-12-2015 07:07PM

ukoda wrote: »

So what you're saying is that they can cope with every other postcode in the world, all variations, all different set ups, all lengths, all the ones with granular locality and all the ones with none, but when it comes to eircode they are somehow stumped?

Like I said, if it was the same as the UK one, they'd have to do nothing. And it really boils down to them not wanting to spend anything. Their infrastructure is decades old, they are reluctant to upgrade it to add anything new. Bearing in mind all other postcodes are well established for decades meaning they work with their outdated tech. Do you get it now? Don't believe their nonsense.

They are using the anti eircode bandwagon to keep the status quo and as an excuse to do nothing and spend nothing.

Have they turned around to any other country and told them their postcode isn't workable? No they have not.

Any chance they're referring to the fact that postcode lookups in Ireland cost money? Genuine question.

anothernight · 22-12-2015 07:08PM

ukoda wrote: »

So what you're saying is that they can cope with every other postcode in the world, all variations, all different set ups, all lengths, all the ones with granular locality and all the ones with none, but when it comes to eircode they are somehow stumped?

etc etc

*sigh*

Call them liars if you want. Not my problem. I can see how they could cope with other postcodes and not Eircode but if you can't and don't want to believe it, that's your issue. At least I know my reading comprehension is still fine. I was worried there for a sec!

ukoda · 22-12-2015 07:09PM

hans aus dtschl wrote: »

Any chance they're referring to the fact that postcode lookups in Ireland cost money? Genuine question.

Maybe, but large scale look ups in the UK incure a cost too, in fact it's the same model as eircode.

ukoda · 22-12-2015 07:12PM

anothernight wrote: »

*sigh*

Call them liars if you want. Not my problem. I can see how they can cope with other postcodes and not Eircode but if you can't and don't want to believe it, that's your issue. At least I know my reading comprehension is still fine. I was worried there for a sec!

Tell me this so, how can Nightline integrate eircode into their systems and processes and DHL can't?

Doesn't something seem a bit off to you when one courier company can use eircode and publicly say they fully support it and that it will help their business, but another one (DHL) say it's not workable?

What's the difference between the 2?

http://www.nightline.ie/news/item/nightline-group-welcomes-the-introduction-of-eircodes/

Read that

anothernight · 22-12-2015 07:14PM

ukoda wrote: »

Tell me this so, how can Nightline integrate eircode into their systems and processes and DHL can't?

Doesn't something seem a bit off to you when one courier company can use eircode and publicly say they fully support it and that it will help their business, but another one (DHL) say it's not workable?

What's the difference between the 2?

They didn't say it's not workable. They simply stated they're not willing to make it work at this moment because they don't want to change their current system (meaning, they don't feel like spending money on it). If you have a problem with that, fine. I simply don't care.

I was only worried that I was misreading a very simple sentence, since the meaning I took from it was completely different to the (weirdly UK-centric) meaning you took from it. That's all.

EDIT: Sorry, I forgot to actually reply to your question. Correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I'm aware Nightline only operates in Ireland. It'd be a lot easier for them to implement new things as their IT systems are bound to be less complex than those used by internationally-operating companies. Making Eircode optional, rather than a compulsory part of the address could sway international businesses to not bother with the costs of accommodating it. Sure, why would they if they don't really have to use it anyway? Unless there's a profit advantage or they're obliged to make changes, not many businesses want to change.

plodder · 22-12-2015 07:22PM

ukoda wrote: »

Yes. It would be easier for them to be lazy if it copied the UK model. What do the rest of the worlds postcodes look like?

I'll give you a clue. They are all different.

Of course they are different, but what do they have in common that Eircode doesn't have? They are hierarchical down to relatively small areas, and each code refers to an area rather than an individual property.

In particular, the granularity of the routing key is inefficient due to its large geographic coverage based on the national postal sort centres and in turn becomes redundant. Also the non-sequential unique identifier creates significant logistics and IT challenges. To put this into context, DHL currently has 3.4m postcode-ranges in its databases for all countries in the world that operate a postcode. With Eircode we would need to add a minimum of 2.2m entries just for Ireland which adds its implementation costs as well as risk.

That's a big difference. You can't claim on one hand that Eircode is unique and the first of a kind etc, and then when people point out the problems with that, then say all postcodes are unique

Eircode - its implemetation (merged)

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