Khaleej Times    April 27,  2008     (WAM) - ABU DHABI - The capital is to get a new address system to help everyone from residents to postal workers and emergency services locate streets, offices and houses quickly and logically.

The system, to be designed with the help of a Norwegian company, should replace the traditional Middle Eastern method of identifying locations by their proximity to landmarks or intersections, plus a bit of guesswork and luck, which can make finding an address a frustrating experience.

Juma Mubarak Al Junaibi, the director-general of Abu Dhabi Municipality, said the new system being developed should eliminate misunderstanding with respect to addresses and street directions.

''The aim was to give all areas and streets unique names and logical and sequentially structured numbering, Junaibi said in a statement issued in response to a query by The National.

Norplan, a Norwegian company that specialises in urban planning and development, was selected as the consultant for designing the system after a tender by the municipality, the statement said.

Implementation of the system would begin by the end of the year or the beginning of next year, said Tor Overli, Norplan’s manager for the project.

He said the company was preparing to start work, and the assessment and design phase was expected to be completed by October, but it was too early to say what the new system might look like.

“We don’t know what will be implemented but it will be either an implementation of a new addressing system or upgrading of the existing one,” Mr Overli said.

Abu Dhabi’s Executive Council has established an Addressing System Committee to oversee and approve the project.

Over the next months, representatives of all stakeholder groups will be invited to contribute to the development of the new system. “The main challenge would be getting the public to use the addressing system once it was implemented,” Junaibi said.

“Any system, regardless of how good it looks on screen or paper, is worthless unless it is adopted and used by the public. An important part of the project will therefore be to design a campaign in order to make people aware of the new addressing system and to ensure they understood its importance.”

Junaibi laid out the ‘guiding principles’ for ensuring the new system will be useful for residents and visitors to Abu Dhabi.

The first was that Abu Dhabi’s areas and streets should have unique names and logical numbering.

The system should be simple to learn and remember, accurate and unambiguous, and easy to pronounce in Arabic and English.

It should be flexible for extension to new developments and changes in existing areas. And it should be cost-efficient and implemented consistently throughout urban and rural areas, Junaibi said.