antoin@eire.com

This article in the Irish Times (now free) is an important description of the problems with the National Consumer Agency and other bodies by Michael Casey, a former assistant director of the Central Bank of Ireland.

UPDATE: Ann FitzGerald of the National Consumer Agency responds.

(more…)

Read this plan for an intercity coach system based on Motorways, conceived for the UK, but very applicable to Ireland.

I’ve written loads about postcodes before. GPS Ireland have published a concept for a postcode system, and Garmin have implemented it in a limited way on their devices. Good for them for publishing their idea.
However, there are a number of big issues with implementing such a system.

- The problem is that it is not much help in and of itself to actually deliver anything, except maybe by helicopter. You need to cross-reference the code against a map database to have any idea of how to effect the delivery or to estimate how long the delivery might take. This means that you are in a proprietary situation right away. There is no free road map database of Ireland.
- Packets and parcels with the code (and packets and parcels will represent 80 percent of delivery items within 20 years) would be practically impossible to sort by hand. You have to key ‘em or scan ‘em to have any idea which bag to put them in. Manual sorting of letters by unskilled workers is still a reality of the Irish postal system at the busiest times. Many other items (like registered letters and packages) are also manually sorted.

- You can have very ambiguous codes. For example, if you have a short back garden, you could end up with a code the same as the guy in the house backing on to you. In some cases, it could be a one-mile drive to the other property.

- The resolution of the system is just not that high for central areas. It’s only 5m. A significant number of houses in Ireland are smaller than 5m on one or other dimension.

- You really need a centralized database of addresses to do most useful tasks with the code (for example, verifying an address as valid). Sorting out this national address database is the big challenge for any postcode implementation. To do the surveys required from scratch for this system would cost at least EUR 15m, and maybe more.

- Google maps is just not an accurate way of determining longitude and lattitude. It is often many inaccurate by tens or even hundreds of metres, because of the way the projections work.

- letters in codes are not a good idea. They make it more likely that the code will be misremembered, misheard or misread. Letters that look alike, or like numbers, such as  ‘S’, ‘Z’ and letters that sound alike, such as ‘N’ and ‘M’ in particular are going to cause confusion and errors.

My own suggestion, which I have worked on with Michael Everson, is to use an all-numbers 5+4 code and base the code on existing administrative divisions, subdividing to road/street and individual delivery point level as necessary, and to number the codes geographically, i.e, the district in the top left of a county is numbered 101 and the district in the bottom right is number 909.

This has the following advantages:
- keeps the implementation costs to a minimum at the outset

- allows items to be be easily sorted manually or by machine

- can be implemented in a basic way without any proprietary databases (although it can conveniently link to proprietary databases)
- integrates well with existing databases (like census, rates office, electoral register and geodirectory)
- does not absolutely require a single address database at the outset (although one may have to be constructed over time on the basis of existing databases)

- allows the system to be extended where necessary (subdivision to provide a unique address for each home is not a big issue in Dublin City for example, but it is a big issue in some rural areas and is more likely to be cost-effective there).
- can cope with certain areas of the country becoming much higher density over time

- makes it obvious for a non-specialist withough special equipment as to where in the country a particular address is located.

This scheme isn’t perfect either of course, but after talking to a lot of people and considering a lot of options, it seems like the best way to do it. We also have a plan for giving the postcode legal backing, without requiring an Act of the Oireachtas.

Fergal Quinn on Crowning the Customer and providing great service

David Allen on  Getting Things Done (via Damien Mulley)

Come for a spin with me on the Swords Express on Saturday 24 November at 11.30 from Eden Quay. It would be great to see a few people from the blog there. You can come back to town at 1pm or 2pm, as you wish. I will pay for the tickets. Intention here is to show non Swords people what the route is all about although if anybody wants to meet us in Swords they are welcome to as well. Let me know if you are coming so that I have an idea of numbers.

My company has launched Swords Express. We have a blog, in fact, our whole website is a big blog, and our customers can (and do) leave comments. Most of them are positive, but some of them are a bit less so. But we post them all up there nonetheless. I will be on the radio over the weekend talking about some of this.

Here’s my latest entrepreneurial venture, the Swords Express, a frequent regular service from Swords (the third-biggest town in Ireland) and Dublin city centre. At present, it can take up to 90 minutes to get to Swords from the city. By using the Port Tunnel, we hope to halve that. I think this service could make a big difference to Swords. I hope I can find ways to get the support of the local community to make this a big success for them and for us. If anyone out there can help or has any comments to make, that would be much appreciated.

Silicon Republic has an article about the Ireland OOXML decision. It is mostly an accurate reflection, but one point needs to be clarified.

(more…)

Berkeley Bike Boulevards from Streetfilms shows some ideas about encouraging bicycle use in Berkeley, California.

Mountbrook: A Vision For Ballsbridge is the video about the urban development planned for Ballsbridge, which is about 10 minutes walk from where I live. There are also some nice pictures of the proposed development.
It’s interesting to look at the way the project is presented and the way that people are reacting to it.

(more…)