Address verification service will assist in emergencies
Filed under: Blog, News Responses: 4 Comments
Terralink – partners in the Zoodle website, have launched a new free website which will be invaluable for the emergency services and ultimately all NZ’ers.
The New Zealand Address Register which is hosted at www.myaddress.co.nz is a simple tool to allow any home owner to verify their property address against the database Terralink holds for all properties across the country, currently amounting to close to 2 million.
Terralink provide the database services to the emergency services which ensure that when call outs occur the relevant services can locate the property speedily and thereby provide support as required. This is fine if your house is 45 North Street – a street that is clearly marked with a road name and the house has clear single dwellings on single sections. However say you live in a subdivided section or on the corner of 2 roads or out in a rural area, these scenarios may result in you having a different street address than is registered or even different for mail delivery.
Terralink’s new service allows you to locate your property and then ‘report’ the added information which you feel will help the emergency services find your property with ease – especially if you normally call your address one name and the postal service calls it another.
Clearly the database update is going to be a great benefit – not only for the emergency services, but also naturally for Zoodle as our service of property information relies on an accurate and comprehensive database of property addresses, something that myaddress.co.nz will greatly enhance.
Time will tell if Terralink can cope with the data updates/request from the newly launched website. Terralink’s existing service level with their commercial data customers are appalling – update requests have not been handled in a timely manner.
What a great idea – one that should really have been undertaken by local or central government. Having dealt with many government organisations I can see why it takes a private organisaiton to do this.
I would like to think that the data will be feed back into central government (ie LINZ) datasets so that all New Zealanders can benefit rather than being limited to just terralink and zoodle.
Graham
Paul,
The important thing as you rightly point out is keeping up to date with these changes – time will tell as to how Terralink cope.
They have made a commitment in releasing this website – they want to be seen to be managing this efficiently.
Graham,
The data updates should as you say populate around a variety of sources – after all the data is in essence created by the public for the benefit of the public.
Paul, I am interested in your comment. You have obviously had a unsatisfactory experience with Terralink which I am not aware of, but would be interested to understand further. I would be pleased to discuss this with you if you would like to give me a call at Terralink