What are Postally Non Required Localities (PNRLs) and when do QAS prod
Associated product(s): Product name: Data
Views: 150 | Created: 2 years ago | Last updated: 2 years ago
Summary
There is occasional confusion regarding what Postally Non-Required Localities (PNRLs) are and when they are returned from QuickAddress products using UK data. This document aims to address both of these issues.
Solution
Postal Localities
Locality information contained in PAF (as supplied by Royal Mail) is listed against an address where it is required for postal delivery. This is often the case where the same street name appears more than once in a postal town. There are other instances when addresses are listed with localities for historical reasons.
Example of addresses with a dependant locality listed.
1 Back Lane | Holmfirth | HUDDERSFIELD | HD7 1HQ |
1 Back Lane | Clayton West | HUDDERSFIELD | HD8 9PP |
Postally Non Required Localities
By definition, if a locality is not listed against an address in PAF it is postally non-required.
In order to locate addresses more successfully using QASs products Experian QAS have supplemented PAF with a list of PNRL data from Royal Mail. To date this is the most reliable data available.
PNRLs are listed in this file to postal sector boundaries (e.g. SW4 0 if the postcode were SW4 0QL). One of the problems associated with this is that a locality can appear in more than one postal sector and a postal sector can contain more than locality.
Example of PNRL data.
E9 5 | Homerton |
E9 5 | Hackney Wick |
E9 5 | South Hackney |
E9 6 | Homerton |
When are PNRLs returned?
QAS products return PNRLs if they are used in the search expression, however will not suggest it if the search expression does not contain it. This is because there will probably be more than one ‘correct’ possibility.
It is also possible to configure QAS products to never return PNRLs even if they are supplied. This for when people want a ‘pure’ PAF address.
QAS Pro
Examples of searching expressions and the returned address
Search Expression | Returned Address |
63, E9 5SD | 63 Barnabas Road, London, E9 5SD |
63 Barnabas Road, London | 63 Barnabas Road, London, E9 5SD |
63 Barnabas Road, Homerton | 63 Barnabas Road, Homerton, London, E9 5SD |
63 Barnabas Road, Hackney Wick | 63 Barnabas Road, Hackney Wick, London, E9 5SD |
QAS Batch
Search Expression | Returned Address |
63 Barnabas Road, London, E9 5SD | 63 Barnabas Road, London, E9 5SD |
63 Barnabas Road, Homerton, London, E9 5SD | 63 Barnabas Road, Homerton, London, E9 5SD |
63 Barnabas Road, Hackney Wick, London, E9 5SD | 63 Barnabas Road, Hackney Wick, London, E9 5SD |
Where QAS Products return PNRLs
If a QAS product returns a PNRL it will be returned in the field designated for the Double Dependant Locality. Most people however, will not see this as auto-formatting takes care of this to remove unneeded blank lines.
In a formatted address if a Double Dependant Locality is returned and there is no Dependent Locality then in fact a PNRL is being returned.
What if I want to return a PNRL when I haven’t supplied one?
As an addition to PAF the PNRL data may be licensed as a DataPlus set. This can be used with any QAS address capture product or QAS Batch.
If an address capture product is integrated then the DataPlus API should also be integrated to utilise this functionality.
For a given postcode there may be more than one PNRL returned.
