Universal Publishers produce the ubiquitous ''UBD-Gregory's'' street directories in
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
. The names of these publications have come to be used as a generic term for street directories in many Australian cities.
Company profile
Universal publishes street directories, guides, maps and road atlases and is Australia's largest mapping and travel-related products publisher. The company distributes travel, language, and cartographic ranges for Berlitz,
Insight Guides
Insight Guides, founded by Hans Johannes Hofer, is a travel company based in London with offices in Singapore and Warsaw. It sells customised package tours as well as guide books for hundreds of destinations worldwide. It also produces guide book ...
,
Michelin
Michelin (; ; full name: ) is a French multinational tyre manufacturing company based in Clermont-Ferrand in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes ''région'' of France. It is the second largest tyre manufacturer in the world behind Bridgestone and la ...
and Marco Polo.
Products
*Australian capital city street directories
*State street directories for each state and territory
*'CityLink' directories containing Brisbane, Melbourne or Sydney street directories and surrounding regional areas
*'Compact' street directories for capital cities and 'mini' street directories for eastern states capital cities
*Regional street directories for each state containing town maps and a road atlas. The Northern Territory town maps and road atlas are integrated into the South Australia directory
*A variety of fold-out maps covering capital cities, regional areas and entire states
*DVD versions of the capital/regional city street directories and regional Cities and Towns directories
*Road atlases covering the whole of Australia
The above products were branded UBD prior to the 2012 editions when production of standalone Gregory's street directories ceased in favour of cobranded UBD-Gregory's directories retaining the UBD format, UBD-Gregory's Darwin 2013, 4th edition The last standalone Gregory's directory was the commemorative 75th Edition Sydney street directory, published in 2011.
2018 directories showed as being issued by UBD as a subsidiary to Hardie Grant Travel while 2019 directories show as being issued by Hardie Grant Travel with no mention of UBD although the Hardie Grant website shows the publisher as UBD Gregory's.
Comprehensive directories
While primarily street directories, UBD and Gregory's also contain details on public transport (
train
In rail transport, a train (from Old French , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles that run along a railway track and Passenger train, transport people or Rail freight transport, freight. Trains are typically pul ...
and light rail, tickets and prices), bicycle paths, suburb and postcode details, public parks and reserves, landmarks (such as commercial buildings,
telephone box
A telephone booth, telephone kiosk, telephone call box, telephone box or public call box is a tiny structure furnished with a payphone and designed for a telephone user's convenience; usually the user steps into the booth and closes the booth ...
es,
pub
A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was ...
s and
restaurants
A restaurant is a business that prepares and serves food and drinks to customers. Meals are generally served and eaten on the premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services. Restaurants vary greatly in appearanc ...
), attractions, and also boat mooring details in recognised docks. They also contain maps of
university
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...
campuses and
crematoria
Cremation is a method of final disposition of a dead body through burning.
Cremation may serve as a funeral or post-funeral rite and as an alternative to burial. In some countries, including India and Nepal, cremation on an open-air pyre i ...
. Prior to the UBD-Gregory's merger the UBD Compact street directories also contained a 'Cityside guide' with tourist information.
Cartography
The rendering of roads in most city and town maps uses the traditional drawing of two lines with the road name printed in between, (known as 'double casing'). In the UBD
Melbourne
Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
directory Universal Press (2003) ''UBD 2003 Melbourne & Surrounds Street Directory 38th Edition'' maps show a single line with the name above or below the road to make it more appealing to people familiar with the
Melway
Melway, colloquially referred to as Melways or The Melways, is a street directory for Melbourne,fictitious streets or buildings or other features, included for purposes of identifying competitor's products that have copied UBD's data without fieldchecking it. For this reason, UBD's and Gregory's products cannot be relied on completely for historical research. An example of a copyright trap is the 'boomerang factory' that appeared for many years on the UBD map of Canberra, in the industrial suburb of Fyshwick, on the corner of Newcastle and Barrier streets, which location was in fact an exgovernment furniture depot. In other cases short dead-end streets or laneways (with or without names), or long-forgotten proposed roads, may appear.
Because of potential legal ramifications, regarding deliberately publishing erroneous information, copyright traps were removed from all mapping products in the 1990s.
As UBD's products are mainly designed for motorists, they do not show all pedestrian laneways in a city, particularly in cities like Canberra which have many footpaths connecting adjacent streets. Particularly for pedestrians and cyclists, the products are less useful.