Pinpoint your location these holidays for 111 callouts

14 December 2011 MEDIA RELEASE
Kiwis are being urged to check their holiday location address details online to ensure emergency services can find them should the worst happen this festive season.

myaddress.co.nz allows Kiwis to check and confirm that the information used by the New Zealand Fire Service, Ambulance and the New Zealand Police about the location of their property, or the bach, crib or holiday home that they are staying in is correctly known to them.

Terralink, who developed the free website, is the company that provides mapping and location data to the emergency services under a commercial contract.

Terralink managing director Mike Donald says myaddress.co.nz was born out of concern that many properties and addresses in New Zealand are known by more than one name, potentially causing confusion for emergency service dispatchers.

He says there have been a number of incidents where emergency services couldn’t find an address because they had been given a ‘local’ name for a road or an address instead of its official name.

“We live in a country with many remote country roads and out-of-the-way holiday spots so it’s really important that police, fire and ambulance can find a location as quickly as possible in an emergency.”

Mr Donald says with the holiday period fast approaching it’s an ideal time to visit myaddress.co.nz and check the location details currently held on the bach or home you are staying in, as well as its physical location on a high-resolution aerial image. Users can then confirm or correct their address. In addition, users can add specific information such as a building or farm name, or local names for a suburb.

“Often people stay with family or at a holiday home or a friend’s bach which means if they need emergency assistance their knowledge of the local area is likely to be a bit sketchy. Unfortunately the holiday period often brings an increase in the number of accidents. Taking a few minutes to check the details of your home address, the address of your loved ones and the details of the family bach could be the most thoughtful thing you do this holiday season,” he says.

Mr Donald says although people don’t like to think about emergency scenarios, it’s vital that they do.

“You need to think about the easiest way for a fire engine, ambulance or the police to find your property and rural people also need to make sure emergency services have their Rapid Rural Number recorded so they are easier to find in an emergency,” Mr Donald says.

Any new information users submit through the website will be verified by Terralink’s extensive data verification process, before being added to the database accessed by the emergency services.

New Zealand Address Register
When you call 111, the Emergency Services communication centres use information including Terralink International data to search for and locate your address and physical location.

By confirming or updating your address information, you will be helping emergency services to locate your physical address in the event of an emergency, which could help save your life or property or that of someone close to you.

Users can:
• View, confirm or correct their address
• Add a new address
• Provide a physical location for an address if the location indicated against the aerial imagery is inaccurate
• Add local information about the location or property
• Provide suburb aliases
Visit www.myaddress.co.nz
ENDS

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