PON Codes - a New Geographic Post Code System for Ireland
By Gary Delaney
, GPS Ireland
October 09, 2008
Classified Ads:
In early
2010, the Irish postal market will be opened to competition (until now,
only the government's "An Post" could deliver ordinary mail), and from
that point forward the non- unique addressing system used in Ireland
for hundreds of years will no longer be practical for delivering mail.
To support the demand for more precise addressing from industries
dependent on vehicle navigation, GPS
Ireland, a GPS company in Ireland, has developed a post code system
based on geographic coordinates. The system is referred to as PON
Codes, short for Position Orientated Navigation Codes. PON Codes
are
seven character alphanumeric codes which have a mathematical
relationship to latitude and longitude.
Those outside Ireland find it hard to believe that an address like the
following - an actual address that could be delivered by An Post -
could work:
The Village Inn
Partry
Claremorris
Co. Mayo
Ireland
Partry
Claremorris
Co. Mayo
Ireland
It has no property numbers or post codes, but actually does work and allows mail to be efficiently delivered no matter where it has come from. This address, like most outside urban areas in Ireland, is based on a system which is pretty much unique to Ireland and Northern Ireland, where townland administrative areas are a critical part of the address. In this case "Partry" is the townland. There are approximately 55,000 townland areas in Ireland and each can be several hundred square kilometers in area. Furthermore, a typical address would include a family name which could be repeated several times in one townland - for example, there could be three or four Ganley families in Partry.
So how could this type of addressing system work? It has worked in Ireland until recently because An Post, the National Postal Service, has mostly the same postman on every single route every day and he/she delivers not only on the basis of address but also on the basis of accumulated local knowledge and personal acquaintance with property occupiers, both residents and businesses.
Can this type of addressing system work for the future in Ireland? Unfortunately, the answer is no! For this reason, in 2005, the then Minister for Communications, Noel Dempsey TD (TD is the Irish version of Member of Parliament in the Irish language), bowed to pressure from the business community and proposed the introduction of a post code system by January 2008 to resolve the non-unique address issue and the additional costs associated with it. The initial deadline for implementation has long since passed, and investigations into a suitable system are still ongoing under the new Green Party Minister, Eamon Ryan TD.
In the mean time, emergency services in Ireland report common instances of arriving at the right address but in the wrong location! Couriers reacting to strong growth in deliveries as a result of Internet purchases (approximately 12 million Euro/day in Ireland) still declare an approximate 3% failed delivery rate due to an inability to find an address. Other organizations delivering their services by road and trying to benefit from the use of SatNavs are still wasting fuel and time looking for a specific address within a townland area.
It is for these reasons, and in the absence of a definitive national plan, GPS Ireland has developed and launched PON Codes. They have a resolution of +/- six meters and are mathematically related to the new ITM grid for Ireland, which is in turn linked to latitude and longitude WGS84 data. Each PON Code is engineered by the developed algorithm as it is calculated to ensure that it is always alphanumeric and with letters and numerals in definitive positions, making it markedly different from any NAC code. Because of its geographic relationship, the PON Code solution offers the potential for every property in Ireland to have its own unique code, and is significantly different from other post code systems for that reason.
One of the reasons why Ireland's traditional addressing system will not satisfy current and future demands is that courier companies, such as DHL, are very conscious of their fuel costs and related carbon emissions. Now, new entrants into the postal market could not support the traditional postal delivery model with a dedicated postman on each route. They will be using the courier-based model which involves a van covering a very wide area with potentially sparse delivery points. Local knowledge is not a major part of this model. In fact, it is of no value in the sorting depot, where route optimization and maximization of load factors supported by GPS and GIS technologies are the keys to viability. For this reason, a post code even capable of indicating to a van driver which side of the road the delivery will be on is critical and this is what PON Codes can offer.
DHL has been funding research into these technologies. In this regard, to take full advantage of emerging solutions, post codes must have as fine a resolution as possible and even post codes in the UK, which serve areas rather than individual points, may have to be modified to suit. As PON Codes are geographically related, they can be very easily adopted in GIS and SatNav/GPS systems without the need for an expensive look-up address database, which is costly to update and therefore may frequently be out of date. For this reason they may be adopted outside of Ireland also. Furthermore, non-structures or listed addresses such as musical or sporting events, local or street markets, mobile medical services and emergency water supplies, etc. can all have PON codes - something that is not possible with traditional address database post code systems.
Part of the delay in finalizing the proposed National Post Code system for Ireland is the old post code related argument about where the polygon based divisions will be. In spite of the fact that the most recent consultant's report to the Irish government on this matter has recommended a system which has the potential for a unique code for each property, all Irish government backed proposals to date have been area based and suffer from ongoing arguments about where divisions should or should not be. The Dublin City area has had long standing postal divisions and the possibility of these changing is causing hot debate because in some cases property values may be dependent on them.
When PON Codes were developed, a direct relationship to geographic coordinates was considered essential to avoid the postal areas and divisions debate. This had also been identified by the Irish National Statistics Board (NSB), which in its report on the proposed post code system stated:
"Significant value is added to data when it can be spatially mapped. A point-based postcode system that uses grid reference/GPS technology would provide a relatively clear-cut approach to allocating a postcode to an address ... a geo-coordinates approach would permit an early introduction of postcodes at a relatively low cost. It would also avoid the very difficult task of trying to group households together into small area clusters that are meaningful both to policy-makers and for postal delivery."Many in the GIS industry tend to think of post codes as useful polygons which can be used for analysis. It is often forgotten that post codes are only polygons because in the 1950s when they began to emerge, the technology to manage and take advantage of point based post codes, although ultimately desirable, did not widely exist. Consequently, GIS analysts have become accustomed to using arbitrarily based area codes which could never cleanly define areas of similar income bracket or house type, especially in Ireland since affordable housing is nowadays an integral part of most housing developments. A post code system such as PON Codes is the perfect solution, as PON Codes are point features which can be tested against any administratively, geographically, physically, socially or arbitrarily devised polygons that can be created in a GIS. In addition, with new housing development and changing density, there is no need to move the post code polygons, as is routinely the case in the UK, where a property's post code may change on occasion.
Because PON Codes do not need a database to function, they are inexpensively implemented and can be administered to some degree by users themselves, taking advantage of modern Web mapping and SatNav resources. Garmin, the manufacturer of the most popular consumer GPS receivers in Ireland, has implemented PON Codes for testing on the Garmin Nuvi 700 series of SatNavs and has received extremely positive feedback for navigation requirements by the logistics community and emergency services. Implementation has also been tested using Web map services and GPS coordinates and full implementation could take advantage of the grid coordinates in An Post's Geodirectory to associate PON Codes with the 1.7 million pre-surveyed Irish addresses held therein.
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While the Irish government seems to be digging in for much
more debate on the location of postal area polygons for its long
delayed Post post Code code system - which, if ever implemented, may
still not satisfy the route and load optimization requirements of the
new mail and logistics delivery models - PON Codes are already being
used and routinely now appear on travel and tourism related websites in
Ireland. And finally, the full address for the Village Inn in Partry
with PON Code is now: The Village Inn
Partry
Claremorris
Co. Mayo KTQ 02F3
Ireland
Partry
Claremorris
Co. Mayo KTQ 02F3
Ireland
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Your Comments Post a comment All comments provided in this section are those of the individual who has created the post. These are not the opinions of Directions Media, its editors, staff or owners unless otherwise noted. Directions Media retains the right to edit or delete any comments posted herein.
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| As a foreigner living in Ireland for some time now, I can only appreciate the idea of a PON Codes assigned to a particular property that would be possible to enter into my SatNav and get to the place without having to search for it on the basis of an address, which in many occasions works with the unit I am using, but not always and it would definitely make me very happy if I could type in just 7 characters instead of going into spelling a city, then a street number and then a street name. The question is how soon all commercial places will get their PONC so they could pass it onto their customers if they call to find them and how soon will these codes be facilitated in commonly used navigation devices like Garmin, TomTom, etc. |
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| Fundamentally An Post does not need a postcode system. The British Postal Consultancy Service advised An Post of this fact 25 years ago. Computers that sort the mail ceased to need simplistic postal codes at that time. Statisticians and GIS users, not postal administrations, need a postcode system and have been able to make use of the various postcode systems to be found around the postal world and created at the expense of postal users. I contend that postcodes are simply intermediate technology and once databases are sufficiently developed the British/Irish style of short essay postal addressing will find any location without the need for a dedicated and costly to maintain postcode. Hugh Colton Former Consultant with BPCS. |
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| Hugh, you are indeed correct if you are only talking about delivering mail. However, nowadays, more goods and services are delivered by road/vehicle than mail services - not least Emergency & Civil Defence related services. For that reason a code which removes ambiguity and is easy to implement and remember is required and that is what PON Codes do - i.e. a 7 character code linking GIS/SatNav and logistics optimisation utilities to realworld location without the need for an expensive database which has to be maintained. Few companies can afford the Geodirectory or similar so PON Codes suit better. Furthermore, PON Codes also support non-properties and temporary addresses which also have to be delivered to nowadays and are not supported by traditional Postcodes. We should try and avoid calling them "Post Codes" - hence the use of the term "PON Codes" instead which better reflects modern uses. However, I suppose the literal meaning of Post Code is no longer that for which the term is now employed. PON Codes were not developed for An Post but they are welcome to use them - especially in their GeoDirectory related products! Thanks for the feedback- Gary D |
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| As you pointed out in your article An Post do not need a post code system only new entrants so it is only right that the private sector should develop one and not the public sector at tax payers expense. Ideally the government will simply rubber stamp the findings of an independent consortium of interested businesses once they agree upon a standard and so do not waste any time developing one themselves. |
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| Sorry to be pedantic but the correct spelling in Ireland (and many other countries) for the SI unit of length is metre. A meter is an instrument of measurement. Phew, now that's I've got that off my chest. I find the PONC form too complicated. I feel like I'm applying for something. I believe for PONC codes to take off the algorithm should be freely available and calculators as easy as possible to use. |
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| The measure of a man is in the rhythm of his metre!!! Please do not judge PON codes on the means by which you get them. The current website is a Beta Test and will evolve on the basis of requirements. I'd like to hear your opinions on the system itself. You should note however, that only very few fields in the forms have to be filled in. Please try to fill in a genuine e-mail address though so that if there are changes or modifications we can let you know. Also your PON Code is automically e-mailed to you for future reference. You can also have a look at http://www.travelshopireland.com where PON Codes are being used and if you get a business PONC your data can be displayed there also. Also have a look at http://www.getmethere.ie which is currently under development where you will be able to search for services using PON Codes. Thanks for the feedback... Gary D |
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| Actually the full address is: The Village Inn, Ballynanerroon More, Partry, Claremorris. Co. Mayo But Helen in the post office will make up for the missing infoformation. |
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| So even though the Village Inn is located on the road between Ballinrobe and Castlebar and not technically related to Claremorris at all - "Helen" in in the Post Office can solve the cunundrum!. And likewise if another part of the address is omitted also.. The problem is however, if Interlink were delivering a parcel or Interflora delivering a Bunch of flowers for Valentines Day, the Claremorris bit, introduced into the address to suit An Post sorting requirements, would be the cause of confusion for someone trying to deliver without local knowldege. And "Helen" in the Post Office would not always be able to play cupid to ensure the flowers were delivered. A blossoming romance could come to an abrupt end as a direct result!!!! That is why PON Codes will solve many of these problems - just take the PON Code - KTQ 02F3 - and use it on a SatNav or enter it at the irishpostcodes website and see the exact location on a web map like this: http://www.irishpostcodes.ie/ponc/poncgmmap.php?pc=KTQ%2002F3%20The%20Village%20Inn&heading=Location%20of%20KTQ%2002F3%20The%20Village%20Inn&lat=53.6981039161662&lng=-9.27844762802124 Thanks Gary D |
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| So there you go - as I projected - a National Post Code system was supposed to be introduced by Jan 2008. I have spent the last few hours searching through the budget estimates for 2009 as announced today and there is no apparant allocation for a National Post Code system in 2009 either. In fact, the Dept Of Comms budget in 2009 will be down by 13% - so definitely no obvious provision for the capital cost of a National System or for the compensatory costs suggested for An Post. Outline capital estimates for 2010, also published today, show no obvious allocations either. In fact, as far as I can see, the last official (Government or Departmental) mention of a National Post Code system was in the Green Party statement on the programme for Government last December (2007). Looks like proposals for a National Post Code system have been well and truly shelved for now! Just as well PON codes are in place - they do not require millions of capital expenditure to establish and they are ready to use..... www.irishpostcodes.ie and - at no cost to the state! |
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| You mix letters and numbers: very bad for OCR equipment because of ambiguity (especially in manuscript) between O and 0, I and 1, lower case l and 1; less so 5 and S, 2 and Z. Why not do the same thing with six or seven numerical digits? Neater, and easier to remember. Culturally we should keep the townlands. Assign each house a number within the townland. A three-line international address would look like this and should work just as that from St Petersburg or Brisbane: Example: The Village Inn, 5 Ballynanerroon More, IE KTQ 02F3 Claremorris |
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| Donnchadh, addressing your points; 1. Letters and numbers as you suggest have already been removed from PON Codes 2. An Post already successfully uses OCR with the best and worst of handwriting - so PON Codes will be no problem - The Royal Mail in all UK including NI have no problem with their alphanumeric code which has not removed letters and numbers as we have done to avoid confusion as you suggest. 3. As our aim is to define address using a Grid Reference in a useable form - if only numbers are used then we would have a minimum of 12 characters - not very memorable and could be a phone number - very confusing!!!! 4.Easy talk off the cuff re the design of a system - we defined a spec and worked to it - the type of code you suggest is arbitrary - what is the design spec/requirements 5.PON Codes do not prevent the use of Townlands and place names - no mail or parcel is ever despatched without a full address even in countries with Post Codes. The adress will always be required as a gross error check. 6. Many houses in Ireland with existing house numbers do not display them - why try impose this on others if it is not working already? 7. There are lots of possible design specs for an Irish Post Code system - PON Codes fullfill a considered spec to define position by coordinates but in a useable and memorable format, with minimum implemtation and maintenance costs, allow every property or nearly so to have a unique code, with the flexibility to be used for SatNav's and Routing systems and to allow moveable and non road related features to have Post Codes. Other specs have been proposed but none can be used as no-one has produced the budget to implement them! What is your design Spec? - other than we should be the same as St Petersburg and Brisbane - what requirements do their codes satisfy??? |
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| In response to Hugh Colton, New Zealand Post used exactly the same arguments as An Post for years, before a new postcode system was introduced in 2006, although only 50 per cent of mail has the new postcode on it - http://www.nznewsuk.co.uk/lifestyle/?ID=13347&StartRow=1 Before that, NZ postcodes were only used for sorting mail in bulk, and there was no need to put them on individual items. Perhaps that's the system that Ireland could follow. |
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| Hi I understand that the PONC will work on a Garmin Nuvi 7xx, ( on trial from GPS Ireland) thats just great, because such a device will cost over €500 But it will never be used unless the codes can be put into the most common device sold that being the cheapest ie Garmin nuvi 255 at about €200. |
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| Ken, not sure what you are suggesting - can you clarify? |
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| its about time we have a common location criteria that everybody can use,however; if you don't make it available on all gadgets/GPS providers then consumers will not drive the impetus required to make a reform of a public relations issue so politicaly sensitive; so roll it out everywhere possible and lets then stop using the old system, after all,this strategy worked for the builders and bankers!!! |
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| F Murphy & Mr Walsh, Very good points that will taken onboard |
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| I think this is an ideal solution for Ireland and also an ideal solution for the modern era given the availability of GPS and the soon to be switched-on EU Galileo satellite navigation system. Irish addresses are exceptionally confusing as there are often umpteen different versions of the same address, never mind non-unique addresses. People also often opt to 'stretch' areas for snob value, or you can find various differing historical interpretations of townland boundaries. All of this leads to confusion. On top of all that you've got the use of house names instead of numbers in many urban areas. Numbers are often removed from houses, or in Cork for example numbering sometimes is not even sequential in some areas due to 'in fill' building over the years between existing buildings! Then you've got to factor-in the use of two languages. Addresses can be written in Irish or English or both simultaneously. This might be easy enough for An Post (the Irish Post Office), but it's a very difficult problem for a non-Irish lorry driver to cope with as the Irish version of the address may bare no resemblance to the English version so you couldn't even hazard a guess. I think this PON code system is ideal because you can add it on to the existing system without disturbing anything at all. People can continue to use their favourite form of their address and keep all of the historical and cultural connotations that it had. It also means that Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking) areas can enjoy far better service as addresses can be located by tourists, couriers and others who may be unfamiliar with the Irish language. There is also no reason why these should replace Dublin postal district number. Those are after all on street signs in the city too and are a useful aid to navigation on foot / in the car. There's no reason why we couldn't have: The Late Late Show RTÉ Donnybrook Dublin 4 W5K 59VN So snobs all over Dublin can rest assured that their house values will not be in anyway impacted upon! The format of the codes is quite user-friendly too. They're not exceptionally long and they are no more cumbersome than UK postal codes to write or remember. Also, with regard to concerns about the codes being used for data collection or marketing purposes. There already is a system in place called Geo Directory. This is a private database that is only made available for a fee. It is owned and operated by An Post and is sold as a commercial service to all kinds of marketing companies. It is not as user-friendly or GPS friendly as PON codes, but it does exist and provides all of those marketing functions that people seem so worried about. At least a PON code is a publicly available code that actually has a purpose other than to serve as a marketing and statistical analysis tool. I feel that Post Codes ought to be a public utility that is something that benefits everyone. Not some secret marketing tool only available to those with enough money to pay for access. My only questions are : 1) Is there any risk of a mix up between a PON code and a UK postal code. They look very similar? 2) What kind of cost would be involved in implementation ? I mean, at the very least teams of people would have to go house-to-house with a GPS machine and a load of post cards dropping PON codes in letterboxes. 3) Who would own this and how would it be paid for ? i.e. would there be an on-going subscription for the use of the technology payable by the state? |
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| David, thank you for your well considered reaction. You have covered all the points that are a matter of usual discussion. And just to add to your comments on direct marketing - PON Codes do not use any database - so it itself it is not a suitable system for direct marketing organisations. Taking Your questions: 1.As you say in your comments - PON Codes are used in conjunction with normal addresses which always require a Country field if moving across countries - this will never change - exactly the same with all other international postcodes. 2. PON Codes by their nature do not need a database and can be associated with Non properties so they offer flexibility above the normal postcodes. Consequently they can be created in several way by the person who wants to use them: Map Display at irishpostcodes.ie, Lat/long from GPS/SatNav's or third party sources and possibly as an additional column in GeoDirectory as the x,y in GD can be mathemetically converted to PON Codes - so lots of options;- most of which have no cost to the user. 3. There is no cost for the user to use PON Codes. There are already free related web services and some more to come. They will be freely available to users on SatNav's also - already tested on Garmins. The PON Codes system is offered as a candidate system for the National Postcode which is currently on indefinite hold. However, the system does not need national backing as it has not got Database related setup and implementation costs. It is a people's system, created as required by the user and features such as events, new houses, car boot sales, grain silos, point to point meetings can all be allocated a PON Code by the user without having to wait for the Government to do it for them. PON Codes will be taking significant next steps in availability shortly |
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| Just a quick addendum so that there is no confusion - the Proper Address and PON Code for RTÉ as mentioned by David Kelly would be RTÉ Donnybrook Dublin 4 MS8 32MX |
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| It is clear that old fashioned dedicated postcodes are no longer options for the globalized and digitized era. Now the question is to adopt PONC or NAC (Natural Area Code, www.nacgeo.com/nacsite/). PONC actually is a national customizaton of NAC (Natural Area Code). Though PONC makes the code shorter (7 characters to 6 meters v.s. 8 characters of NAC to 30 meters), PONC loses the power of globalization. Ireland is not an isolated country without boundaries and connections to the outside world. Republic of Ireland has land boundaries with Northern Ireland which is administrated by UK with huge communications and cooperations between two countries. The use of PONC will make these very difficult. Ireland has long coast lines too with vast interests in water areas. PONC will not be able to handle all the locations in oceans such as: oil wells, emergency rescues, etc. PONC will surely make Irish people difficult to handle all these interests and also confused in using NAC which can universally represent all locations in the world. Is it worth for Ireland to make the code one character shorter (to adopt PONC) at the price of losing all the interests in oceans and the globalization (to be part of the globalized world using the unified code - NAC)? |
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| Xinhang, thank you for your input. I am sorry but I'm afraid it will be a long long time before those who work at sea and exploit, protect or define the location of our offshore resources (Ireland or elsewhere) will ever use anything other than Lat/Long which is the interntional standard for position definition offshore (And in the Air) As a member of the Irish and International professional seafaring community for nearly 30 years, I can assure you that nothing other than Latitide and Longitude will be used for this purpose for a long time to come. If that ever changes - PON Codes, contrary to your statement, will also work in all Irish waters if required. It is a pity that you are not aware that when it comes to position onshore on our Island, we already use the same Grid system in both the Repubic and Northern Ireland. The Common system - ITM (Irish Transverse Mercator Grid) - is the basis for PON Codes. Our respective Ordnance Surveys also cooperate on a day to day basis. We appreciate your concern for us here in Ireland but the common use of ITM grid and its refinement in PON Codes in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland will not prevent us from communicating or working with each other - we do that very well these days. NAC is a good idea - but it has not been refined enough for local use or for the navigation, route optimistaion and load maximisation requirements of modern postcodes. Finally, globalisation is not a good argument to justify anything these days !!! I thank you for thinking of us here in Ireland, advising us of our geography and international realtionships and responsibilities and having our best interests at heart - you are obviously very knowledgable about us and our needs! |
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| Hi Gary, Here are the answers to your comments: One of the purposes for the new code is to overcome the inefficiency of longitude/latitude no matter it's on land or ocean. If PONC is not designed for that purpose, it can't be compared with NAC that is designed to unify all representations of geographic coordinates, postcodes, property identifiers, addresses, map grids and area codes for all kinds of products and services (mail sorting, delivery and emergency services, location based services, GPS navigations, GIS queries, local search engines, map grids for all scales, real estate managements, e-governments, etc. People in UK may use the same grid system, but not PONC which does not have any obvious connection to the grid coordinates, while NAC (a pair of 30-base numbers of lon/lat) can be much more easily converted to and from lon/lat. Eight character NAC has a resolution to 25 meters in Ireland that can uniquely specify almost all individual buildings and houses anywhere in the world. If eight character NAC is not unique, a ten character NAC can be used that can uniquely identify every square meter, enough for every house in the world. Globalization is not something good or bad that you like or dislike. It is the trend that nobody is able to resist. The wise way is to well adapt to it instead of blocking it. Adopting NAC instead of PONC is just such a decision. Do you agree? |
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| Xinhang, on the contrary my friend - seems not only are you having difficulty with local geography but you also do not appear to be understanding what is written here. Let me help you a little........ They do not use the same Grid system in the UK as in Ireland;- just in that part of the UK which is Northern Ireland and which is on the same island as the Republic of Ireland. Secondly, contrary to your statement, PON Codes are not designed to overcome the inefficiencies of Lat/long but rather the less user friendliness of Lat/Long for untrained persons navigatiing on land. Lat/long is plenty efficient for marine navigation purposes as it permits the calculation of great circle spherical trigonometrical calculations necesasry for marine navigation - something that a shortened plane code cannot do. However, an abbreviated code has a place on land and this is the purpose for which PON codes are developed;- minimising accumulated errors by basing itself on the local Grid system which already maximises efficiencies on land over relatively short distances where scale factors in the grid deal with the fact that the earth is an ellipsoid in a locally efficient manner and which supports easier rhumb line calculated distances and azimuths rather than those related to great circles. In addition your talk of easier calculations from NAC to Lat/Long rather than PON codes to Lat/long does not stand up to inspection - unless of course you are suggesting that users would do the calculations themselves! I wish you luck with your NAC code and your Global ambitions - some local knowledge and guidance will always be useful with such ambitions - if you are ever lost in this part of the world -let me know and I can pass you a Lat/Long, a Grid Reference, a PON Code or some light refreshment, depending on what you are doing. Happy New Year! |
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| I've been waiting it seems like for ever for a sensible countrywide reference code system. My daughter is a florist, and I do deliveries for her on a regular basis, and it's all too common to get an address like Mary Smith, Skryne Road, Ratoath, Co Meath. That's our local area, but Skryne Road is over 4 miles long, and has a significant number of houses on it. The thought of being able to do as I can in the UK, enter a PON code into the GPS, and get to within 50 Metres or less of the address I want is something that I regard as essential, and the only reason it's not happening is because of the massive pressure from former semi state bodies that have a vested interest in supressing competition. Having said that, the other thing that's long overdue is some realistic legistlation to force developers to adopt a meaningful numbering scheme on estates, and to insist that a CLEARLY VISIBLE number is displayed on every house, in a colour and position that's visible from the road, at night, in the normal lighting of the area. It's no joke spending 20 minutes searching somewhere like Littlepace at Clonee for a specific number, only to find that as a result of a change of road layout, the numbers go 42,44,46,48,92,94,96,98,50,52! Then there's the estate in Ratoath that got numbered on the basis of the order in which they were connected to ESB! A while back, things like this were a nice little Irish eccentricity, now, they cost significant money, and cause delays. They also add to the costs of providing essential services, as Garda, fire service, ambulance, and other medical services all need to be able to find an address with no delay, and if they each have their own system, that's a significant and avoidable waste of public money in supporting them all, when a common system that's in the public domain would save a huge overhead. Maybe now is the time to suggest to the relevant ministers that the urgent introduction of a sensible coding system would be of significant benefit to the economy, and result in savings of public expenditure. As to if they've got enough sense to take that on board, that's another days discussion! Keep up the good work Steve. P.S. Is there any chance of Garmin producing a GPS that will track the route taken, and if it goes "off road" it can capture the information, so that it can be uploaded to a "local database" that can then be maintained and submitted to NAVTEQ or whoever. It could save a huge level of annoyance with errors that are unfortunately all too common still, even in the latest revision of the database. |
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| Steve, your comment summarises many of the reasons for which the PON Code system was developed. With respect to map errors and ommissions for Ireland - you can report these to Navteq - the necessary link and discussion regarding other matters related to SatNav's and their use in Ireland is contained here: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?s=fdd2d74e5b5e178bda2d27297c2bb9b1&p=58430030&postcount=1 |
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| Personally i think these pon codes are an excellent idea, fair dues to the person who thought of them. |
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| Hey Gary, Well done. Great Idea!! I always remember passing on the (Postal)Address of the Naval Base (Haulbowline, Cobh, Co. Cork) to family members due to attend a function by car. However as the road entrance to the Base is via Ringaskiddy (Over 30KM away by road), There was much confusion & a small launch had to be used to collect them from a pier in Cobh. Hope it catches on. :-) NL |
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| I rent out my holiday house on a permanent basis to two Polish girls working in a Connemara hotel.An Post simply could not deliver any letters to them: "Galway Road, Clifden" with foreign names completly defeats An Post. I had to invent a memorable name for the house and and write it in BIG letters on the gate before any letters were delivered to the house. At last a 21st century system has arrived. |
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| Noel, yes I know that particular one well and again it highlights that the addresses we use in Ireland are for sorting mail not for navigating to. P. Gibson - the days of inventing Names on gates and meaningless "xxxx" postcodes to use on web purchasing forms are almost done. PON Codes are ready for the world and a new full release version of the website and on SatNavs is imminent Thanks all for you support - any other feedback to help us on our way is appreciated here or directly to info@irishpostcodes.ie |
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| Streets and Estates are random in shape and ridiculous in name. The urban sprawl in the last decade made all of this worse - many housing estates don't have names which reflect position to a native even. You can live within a few miles of somewhere and still not find it by logical means. For years, you could ask someone- in the local pub or shop for example. This traditional method is now outdated as the shop assistant can be from anywhere, and have limited local knowledge. Try this and good luck with it. Our roundabouts look similar enough, and can have names which mean nothing useful in terms of navigation. In fact, they only serve to confuse. We now have to get lost, several times before we can learn through experience, only. We put up with it, but shouldn't. Without sat navs, a large tank of gas, the patience of a saint, a disregard the environment and a total disregard for the cost of living; we would need a long life to navigate the country. Any system which helps is a step forward - PON Codes are plenty good enough, and light years ahead of our current "buy more petrol system". The buy more petrol system, supports the buy a new car, one. Ultimately, the cost of living increases. Any promoters of an improved and logical system, deserve a medal. And the best thing is that we now know where to deliver such medals with a degree of accuracy. |
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| Major announcement on PON Code availability on SatNav's coming shortly |
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| Gary, Further to my posting last year, I see that An Post does have a system for pre-sorting volumes of mail - http://address.anpost.ie/PresortLookupWeb/PresortLookup.aspx with two levels. However, yours is a system for a much wider range of purposes. Ken |
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