If they're assigning each domicile its own effective GUID as a post code, this should certainly make delivery unambiguous, but the headache of filling in online order forms would remain, as rural houses would still have no street names nor addresses.
At that point, whatever you put in the form that ends up on the envelope is pretty much going to be irrelevant, since people will just look at the person's name and postcode.
A minor point, but I've hated how postal addresses are always broken up into many fields. It'd be wonderful to be able to copy-n-paste a postal address as easy as an email or, as you said, license plate.
(I'm surprised that Google or Apple hasn't come up with an auto-parser for pasting in a contact's postal address and have it automatically segmented into street, city, zip.)
That's because you can mail a letter with just a name and a zipcode if your name is unique enough. The city, state, and a description of the location also works.
There is some standardization of addresses but even those formats can be troublesome.
I wanted to show a single field for address, because it just seems so much more user friendly... but then I realized I also needed to filter users by state, and I thought better of trying to figure out how to parse the block of text.
I grew up in Ireland and always found the lack of postcodes to be puzzling, with the address of a house often being no more specific than "go back the road there about two mile and hang left".
Can anyone from Ireland comment on "ambulances having trouble finding the right house"? This seems to be the most compelling and succinct argument against the staus quo.
Addendum: I got throttled but I wanted to comment on the "everyone has an iPhone with GPS" idea.
I think "we" need to step out of the tech bubble for a little bit. The GPS alternative assumes that everyone has a cell phone. This is problematic as it is but it also assumes that the cell phone will never damaged in the emergency, always charged, it is not on the second floor of your house that is on fire, never travels within urban canyons or inside buildings that interfere with signal reception, uses an address format that everyone is familiar with and is easy to read/speak unambiguously, etc.
Confirmed. I have stood at the side of the road to flag down an ambulance for a critically ill person. That has at least as much to do with unmarked entrances on semi-rural roads as the lack of a postcode, though.
With all due respect to the proposed postal code system, in the modern era of cheap, remarkably accurate GPS devices, couldn't you just send a service like an ambulance your latitude and longitude?
Quick! Your partner has just keeled over and isn't breathing! Give me your latitude and longitude!
Your phone probably knows what your lat/long are, but can you quickly look it up in a high-pressure situation? Probably not. And emergency call systems such as 911 don't get that information either. Maybe they will in ten or twenty years, but they don't now.
E911 in the U.S. does include lat/lon when it comes from a cell phone, accurate to within 50-300 meters. It's part of the FCC guidelines, phase II, which went into effect at the end of 2005. https://www.fcc.gov/guides/wireless-911-services
Mmm, iPhone > Compass gives it to me easily, though it uses the obnoxious degree-minute-second format and only tells me within a second of arc (on the order of 30 meters, depending on the part of the earth's surface you're on -- at least as good as many verbal directions).
If easy reliable access to that information is really the main barrier, it does suggest an alternative.
Lets assume that everyone owns an iphone (because that is reasonable): What happens when you sustain an injury that has impaired your vision? I call emergency services and tell them my address or the address at the person's house I was working at. What are you going to do?
That's not entirely true... E911 Phase II capable call centers (which is more or less all of them, per FCC mandate) will receive GPS coordinates from cell phone calls.
This works well for things like traffic accidents, where the caller may not know exactly where they are, but if you know the rough location, they're pretty easy to find (just look for the smashed up cars...).
It is a _lot_ less useful for a caller inside a house. We occasionally get dispatched to a geolocated address when a baby-sitter or some other visitor who doesn't know the house number calls from their cell phone. Unfortunately, even with the best accuracy available, it's still anybody's guess which house they are actually in (even in a suburban area, there can be several residences within the geolocation radius).
If they can get outside to flag us down, great. If not, it's a lot of knocking on doors until you find the right place...
In the US, a lot of the road renamings/rationalization and the addition of house numbers to those that didn't have one was driven by E911 services--in part, getting away from local knowledge requirements to find a house.
Oh, the time I spend standing at the side of the road, flagging down Amazon deliveries and tradesmen. And Safari Books Online doesn't want my money because their CC validators won't accept an address without a postcode.
How will people selling to ireland have to update their web forms? lots of US-centric sites have Zipcode as a number or 7 digit serial.
How do irish people fill them out now? I'm really curious.
When I drove around ireland in 2009, I used a trusty paper map + the car had a GPS which sort of worked.
Haha! 90210 is my default fake zip code. I worked at a retail store one summer in college and they started making us put the customer's zip code in before ringing them up. At first I asked them but often time they'd get all annoyed or mad "Why do you need that?" I got sick of it so instead I just decided to enter 90210 for all my orders (on the east coast mind you). Or sometimes to change it up a bit I used Scruff McGruff's zip code of 60652[1]. Hey, it was catchy!
I want to first off say that while on paper US Zip codes are more precise than UK Post Codes, the reality is often very different. The majority of people write their zip code without the "+4" which only gives you a city block, or roughly the same precision as a UK Post Code.
Secondly, I feel like Ireland missed an opportunity here. If they are only adding zip codes now then, yes, going with a US-style system (with the +4) is the correct decision. However why not invent a "person delivery code" rather than a "location delivery code" system?
I know, I know, crazy. But imagine this: Each address is assigned a unique code (e.g. starting with 0-9) and each person is also assigned a unique code (e.g. starting with A-Z) which is this mapped to a address when a letter is routed.
When someone moves house they give the post man a card, which says "Bob Smith (A123456) has moved from 87654 to 838449, please forward my mail indefinitely to that address."
That way when you move house your mail automatically follows you.
PS - I am suggesting that the "people codes" be an add on, so traditional "send to address" mail methods would work (e.g. sending "remember to vote" to every house on a street, rather than every individual would still work).
PPS - Calculating shipping would be no harder than today, just select your city and enter your "person code" or zip-code/house number.
I've always wanted Person Address Codes in the US.
1. No more annoying and temporary change-of-address forms. We just moved, and our mail will be forwarded for 30 days. After that, well, I guess we better become friends with the people who live in our old apartment in case we forget to update an address.
2. Privacy! I can give out a way to mail me something without telling people where I physically live. This is not a big deal for me, but could be a big deal for 'famous' people and victims of domestic violence.
There are already a number of services for #2, including the Post Office itself (PO boxes). There's also an entire industry around offices that exist to accept mail/packages and provide a local physical address for customers.
I suspect they were thinking of a USPS "hold" (where they keep your mail at the post office for 30 days). As you said, a change of address costs $1 (online, free in-branch) and lasts for 6 months with the ability to extend it for an additional 6 months after that (up to 12 months total).
I just did the whole change of address thing and I don't remember having to ask for an "extension" for the second 6 months, just 12 months for everyone.
I had the same thought, but then what about people who have more than one house? Where would you bring the mail for a homeless person? Do they even get a number? What about mailing to a business vs. a person at that business?
No reason businesses couldn't receive a code when they incorporate, and you'd presumably allow homeless people to set their location as their local post office for pickup (just like they have to do currently, I'd imagine).
The problems with the existing system are not insurmountable either.
This proposal, which isn't going to replace the geographical based system, ends up greatly increasing the number of issues, for seemingly little gain. Each objection, and proposed solution, is an example of why there are issues.
Yeah, I'm not sure how that would work for physical mail. Ultimately physical mail is delivered to a location, not a person. Often it's a clean mapping between the two but also frequently not.
Aren't these all issues with the current system also?
I mean if someone has two addresses which one do you deliver to? Right now they manually decide, in this "system" they would just set up their default person routing to either one.
Homeless people would likely get a code, but realistically delivering to them might be difficult with no fixed address. But that is also true today. In both systems they could get a PO Box.
I guess, it won't solve either scenario any better than the current system, but it doesn't make the situation worse either...
As for businesses, there's no reason a business entity couldn't get a code and set the routing however they wished. Just treat them like "individuals."
You would effectively create a personal identification number. If the post office guarantees that every person (not household) has one businesses will start to rely on it for any identification.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_identification_number_...
"The number is an integral part of Danish society, and it is virtually impossible to receive any form of government service without one. Even in the private sector one would be hard pressed to receive services without such a number, unless it is minor daily business."
>
I want to first off say that while on paper US Zip codes are more precise than UK Post Codes, the reality is often very different. The majority of people write their zip code without the "+4" which only gives you a city block, or roughly the same precision as a UK Post Code.
Just checking but a UK post code is roughly 17 delivery addresses. Sometimes more, but not hugely so. There are 22 million delivery addresses and 1.8 million postcodes.
How many addresses are covered by the 5 and 5+4 zip codes?
A little research turns up an estimate of 115 million households in the US, divided into not quite 42000 5-digit zip codes. That's about 2750 households per zip code.
Of course this doesn't account for business addresses or multi-unit buildings, but 2-3000 addresses seems to be a reasonable estimate.
How is it structured? In the US, zip codes starting with 0 are in the northeast, and those starting with 9 (like the famous 90210) are in the southwest.
The article mentions Dublin having codes starting with D1..D24. Will addresses near Limerick start with L?
That's pretty much how the UK's postcodes are organised - the first one or two letters refer to the "postcode area", the first two to four characters including the postcode area refers to the postcode district, and then the rest gets you to the exact street (more often than not).
Signs are on it: http://www.eircode.ie/business/become-a-provider . With enough public support it should be possible to undermine this, though. You could either ask people to submit their EirCodes to OpenStreetMap (and perhaps send them confirmation codes by post), or try to get them to write their 10:10 code http://blog.jgc.org/2010/06/1010-code.html (or something similar) as their postcode instead.
Unfortunately "An Post" have had a GPS location for every address in Ireland for the last 15 years and have happily been charging businesses for this. Called "GeoDirectory" I think. Pressure hasn't made it free yet.
The most important thing about this system ( I guess after the question of whether it succeeds or not ) is whether or not the information is freely available or whether the public get screwed like with the UK post codes?
62 comments
[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 143 ms ] threadNot very charming or easy to remember, but that sounds pretty convenient as far as filling out the form goes.
Kind of like sending mail to your license plate.
(I'm surprised that Google or Apple hasn't come up with an auto-parser for pasting in a contact's postal address and have it automatically segmented into street, city, zip.)
There is some standardization of addresses but even those formats can be troublesome.
once you have a system in place, something like google maps can connect the dots (literally).
I grew up in Ireland and always found the lack of postcodes to be puzzling, with the address of a house often being no more specific than "go back the road there about two mile and hang left".
Addendum: I got throttled but I wanted to comment on the "everyone has an iPhone with GPS" idea.
I think "we" need to step out of the tech bubble for a little bit. The GPS alternative assumes that everyone has a cell phone. This is problematic as it is but it also assumes that the cell phone will never damaged in the emergency, always charged, it is not on the second floor of your house that is on fire, never travels within urban canyons or inside buildings that interfere with signal reception, uses an address format that everyone is familiar with and is easy to read/speak unambiguously, etc.
Your phone probably knows what your lat/long are, but can you quickly look it up in a high-pressure situation? Probably not. And emergency call systems such as 911 don't get that information either. Maybe they will in ten or twenty years, but they don't now.
If easy reliable access to that information is really the main barrier, it does suggest an alternative.
This works well for things like traffic accidents, where the caller may not know exactly where they are, but if you know the rough location, they're pretty easy to find (just look for the smashed up cars...).
It is a _lot_ less useful for a caller inside a house. We occasionally get dispatched to a geolocated address when a baby-sitter or some other visitor who doesn't know the house number calls from their cell phone. Unfortunately, even with the best accuracy available, it's still anybody's guess which house they are actually in (even in a suburban area, there can be several residences within the geolocation radius).
If they can get outside to flag us down, great. If not, it's a lot of knocking on doors until you find the right place...
Of course, it helps with GPS too.
When I drove around ireland in 2009, I used a trusty paper map + the car had a GPS which sort of worked.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XxnSHig0wc
I want to first off say that while on paper US Zip codes are more precise than UK Post Codes, the reality is often very different. The majority of people write their zip code without the "+4" which only gives you a city block, or roughly the same precision as a UK Post Code.
Secondly, I feel like Ireland missed an opportunity here. If they are only adding zip codes now then, yes, going with a US-style system (with the +4) is the correct decision. However why not invent a "person delivery code" rather than a "location delivery code" system?
I know, I know, crazy. But imagine this: Each address is assigned a unique code (e.g. starting with 0-9) and each person is also assigned a unique code (e.g. starting with A-Z) which is this mapped to a address when a letter is routed.
When someone moves house they give the post man a card, which says "Bob Smith (A123456) has moved from 87654 to 838449, please forward my mail indefinitely to that address."
That way when you move house your mail automatically follows you.
PS - I am suggesting that the "people codes" be an add on, so traditional "send to address" mail methods would work (e.g. sending "remember to vote" to every house on a street, rather than every individual would still work).
PPS - Calculating shipping would be no harder than today, just select your city and enter your "person code" or zip-code/house number.
1. No more annoying and temporary change-of-address forms. We just moved, and our mail will be forwarded for 30 days. After that, well, I guess we better become friends with the people who live in our old apartment in case we forget to update an address.
2. Privacy! I can give out a way to mail me something without telling people where I physically live. This is not a big deal for me, but could be a big deal for 'famous' people and victims of domestic violence.
Person codes would allow to-your-door delivery without compromising privacy.
USPS forwards mail for 12 months, not 30 days (the exception being magazines - you get 60 days for them)
Looks like I'm right.
https://moversguide.usps.com/icoa/mailforwarding/change-of-a...
>First-Class Mail®, Priority Mail®, and Express Mail®: All forwarded for 12 months at no charge.
This proposal, which isn't going to replace the geographical based system, ends up greatly increasing the number of issues, for seemingly little gain. Each objection, and proposed solution, is an example of why there are issues.
I mean if someone has two addresses which one do you deliver to? Right now they manually decide, in this "system" they would just set up their default person routing to either one.
Homeless people would likely get a code, but realistically delivering to them might be difficult with no fixed address. But that is also true today. In both systems they could get a PO Box.
I guess, it won't solve either scenario any better than the current system, but it doesn't make the situation worse either...
As for businesses, there's no reason a business entity couldn't get a code and set the routing however they wished. Just treat them like "individuals."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_identification_number_... "The number is an integral part of Danish society, and it is virtually impossible to receive any form of government service without one. Even in the private sector one would be hard pressed to receive services without such a number, unless it is minor daily business."
Just checking but a UK post code is roughly 17 delivery addresses. Sometimes more, but not hugely so. There are 22 million delivery addresses and 1.8 million postcodes.
How many addresses are covered by the 5 and 5+4 zip codes?
Of course this doesn't account for business addresses or multi-unit buildings, but 2-3000 addresses seems to be a reasonable estimate.
The article mentions Dublin having codes starting with D1..D24. Will addresses near Limerick start with L?
The proposed system is tremendously confusing though and I've no idea of the structure behind it (there is one though):
http://eircode.ie/what-is-eircode
The government is supporting a new closed monopoly service! Congratulations "Capita Business Support Services Ireland".