Emergency Services find you faster

Rural and lifestyle areas use 'Easy Find' Street Numbers

Knowing your RAPID street number can save time and lives

It's happened - the quad has rolled on you and now you're lying injured in the top paddock. You know it's essential for crush injuries that emergency services get to you within the 'golden hour'. Help is on its way; your mate has run back to the house and is phoning 111. Meanwhile in the emergency services control room, the operator is asking him that all important question "What is your RAPID street number?"

Having a RAPID street number helps emergency services to find you faster

It is in everyone's interest that emergency services can locate fires or medical emergencies fast. Some rural properties do not have allocated numbers and this often means wasted time in an emergency situation.

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What is a RAPID street address?

A rapid address is a street address allocated to a rural property to assist emergency services in locating a property and to assist in keeping your property records in good order. RAPID (sometimes also called Emergency Services number) addresses are based on a Brazilian numbering system and stands for Rural Address Property Identification.

Using the RAPID system your property number is the distance in metres from the start of the road divided by 10. Odd numbers are allocated to the left side of the road and even to the right.

So the number to the right is on a road entrance 6.59km down the road, on the left hand side. If our injured rural property owner has a RAPID number the ambulance will be setting its trip meter to zero at the road intersection, will see the reflective blue and white emergency services number on the mail box and will soon be on site. But if he hasn't it could be a long wait...

Council supports RAPID numbers

RAPID numbers are supported by the Council and allocated by a private contractor, Alan Parker, who arranges the all important accurate distance measurement and supplies you with a standard reflectorised mail box number plate. Alan supplies the allocated number and distance measurements to us at the Council and we then notify all the emergency services, civil defence and other utilities. We also update our own records with your RAPID number. The RAPID number does not affect your rural delivery number; you still retain your RD number for your postal address.

To encourage the uptake of the system, the Council subsidises Alan's charges by $10.00 per property. This reduces the price to about $35.00.

To find out more contact Alan Parker direct on +64 3 547 6552. And don't forget to keep your RAPID number by your house and cell phone - you never know when you might need it!