Village assigns GPS coordinates to houses, proves to be helpful

An original idea by Liptovské Revúce village councillor Ján Kura - to assign GPS coordinates to every house - has been making it easier for people to find their way around quickly and accurately for more than a month, TASR found out on Monday. Liptovské Revúce (Ružomberok district, Žilina region) is the first place in Slovakia to introduce this system. "I work as a sales representative. I'm on the road every day, and orientation by navigation is a basic aid for me. Several residents approached me as a councillor, asking whether something could be done with a pressing problem - when emergency services in particular can't get to their houses quickly", said Kura. The local council submitted collected data in the form of precise GPS coordinates to the regional medical emergency service dispatching centre. "In the meantime we've become an inspiration for some other municipalities", said Kura. According to him, this simple and cheap system has wider applications. "Especially in remote and strung out villages, where navigation can lead emergency crews and also delivery services and visits only to an entry sign", said Kura, adding that he's working on how to help other Slovak local authorities with this. "This groundbreaking idea of our municipal council - to assign precise coordinates to almost 800 houses and give them to the integrated emergency system corps - has proved to be of huge practical assistance", agreed Liptovské Revúce mayor Jana Šimová.