"Wrong Side of a 6 Foot Wall" with Eircode

More Examples of Eircode Misrouting

We have been reporting on Eircode Misrouting for years and the issue has neither gone away by itself nor been resolved by those behind Eircode. The issue is a design one and resolving it would involve admitting that the problem exists in the first place.
More public reports of Eircode Misrouting continue to appear and the pattern is consistent with what this NewsBlog has been warning about.
A new report posted today states that the Eircode “brings you to a different estate” and that delivery drivers often end up “the wrong side of a 6 foot wall” when they rely on the Eircode. The person posting warns that if it was an emergency “it could a lot more serious”.

This is not a “minor inconvenience”. It is a predictable navigation failure: routing to a single “address point” is not the same thing as routing to the correct access point. As navigation professionals explain, getting this wrong can land vehicles on the wrong side of a physical barrier, at the wrong driveway, or somewhere that simply cannot be accessed. 

And crucially, this is not something that could not have been foreseen. As we have previously stated here, the potential for misrouting was well known to navigation industry experts before Eircode was ever conceived, and the designers of Eircode could and should have taken it into account.

The core problem: Eircode’s main public use is navigation; - but navigation requirements were never treated as primary.

Whatever Eircode may have been originally framed as, the reality is that the public now uses Eircode primarily as a navigation input and it has been promoted for life-saving use cases. We have previously highlighted how Eircode advertising has encouraged people to use an Eircode when calling an ambulance, even though well documented misrouting can cause delay. 

If navigation (and emergency access) had been treated as a primary design requirement, the system would have had to accommodate access/entrance realities & not just a single fixed point at the centre of buildings. Instead, people are repeatedly being put in the position of discovering, often under pressure, that “Where it points to” and “Where it leads to” are not always the same.

In the last few weeks alone we have noted more public examples including this one:

Ambulance delay (~10 minutes) due to wrong directions when using Eircode

We repeat what we have always advised:

1. Check where your Eircode points to (map location).
2. Then check where it leads to by starting navigation as if you have never been there before.
3. If it leads you the wrong way, wrong entrance, wrong estate, or wrong property: do not assume it’s "just Google” or “just your phone.” The same error can exist across multiple navigation products, including those used by service providers and emergency responders.
4. Record and share the correct access instructions and remember that Loc8 Code can be used as a solution

If you have an example of misrouting, please contact us and pass on the details.