Melway


Melway, colloquially referred to as Melways or The Melways, is a street directory for Melbourne, Victoria, Australia and its immediate surrounds, including the city of Geelong. Formerly a highly ubiquitous directory, Melway is currently in its 50th edition, the 2024 edition.

History

Melway was conceived by Merv Godfrey and Ray Harrison in the 1950s. After Harrison died in 1961, Iven Mackay was recruited by Merv as the new partner for the project. Godfrey and Mackay developed the first edition of Melway, which was released in May 1966. Melway initially faced skepticism toward its market potential due to its selling price of $2.50, nearly twice that of its nearest competitor. All of the 106 original maps were hand-drawn in ink. First editions of Melway can sell for around $500 on the second-hand market. A reprint of the first edition was released in 2012, and can be purchased from Melway. The original maps from the first edition can be viewed online via a clickable map.
By the early 1980s, Melway was the most popular street directory in Melbourne, holding over 80 per cent of the market, and "Melway" had begun to be used as a generic term for any street directory.
In 1982, after the fourteenth edition of Melway had been released, it was awarded the International Cartographic Association Excellence Award, as well as the inaugural award for Cartographic Excellence from the Australian Institute of Cartographers. Ausway won the Australian award again in 1994 for its first edition of Sydway.
As of 2001, most motorists in Melbourne had a copy of Melway, as did many taxi drivers, bus drivers, and hire cars. The Victoria Police, fire brigade, ambulance service, Victorian State Emergency Service, St John Ambulance Victoria and for the State government car fleet officially use Melway. Its main competitor is UBD-Gregory's, which is the most popular brand in all other states and territories.

Features

While primarily a street directory, Melway editions also contain details on public transport, bicycle paths, suburb and postcode details, public parks and reserves, landmarks, attractions, and also boat mooring details in recognised docks.
In addition to the blue-bordered and red-bordered street maps, there are yellow-bordered maps of university campuses and crematoria. Moreover, there are also green-bordered maps showing routes through the country to Adelaide and Sydney. Many versions of the street directory are obtainable, usually in standard or large-print editions, wall-charts, or an online catalogue.

Grid references

In Melbourne it is common for a Melway reference to be given along with directions on, for example, an event notice or real estate advertisement. It is generally assumed that everyone has, or has access to, a copy of the directory in Melbourne. By comparison, the UBD reference for a particular "Melways reference" can be significantly different, but is rarely provided. It is generally assumed that all such references, regardless of whether it is explicitly stated or not, are from the Melway directory and not from the UBD. The reverse is true in all other states and territories.
Some organisations provide a Melway year of publication in addition to their map reference, to avoid confusion if map references change in newer versions of the directory. However, Melway has kept the need for this to an absolute minimum over the years. It has held off several cartographic features, including a more logical overall tiling of pages across the entire metropolitan area. That is to protect the integrity and continuity of the original 1966 grid references.

Cartography

One of the distinguishing differences of a Melway-style map from other Australian street directories is in the rendering of roads. Rather than the traditional drawing of two lines with the road name printed in-between, Melway maps show a single line with the name above or below the road, in many colours reflecting the identity or usage of the road. This allows for much more detail to fit into the same size map, as well as showing dual carriageways, slip lanes, service roads, speed bumps, roundabouts, and other useful information.
UBD has copied this difference in their Melbourne directory, in a bid to capitalise on the familiarity of Melway. UBD has only attempted this in the Melbourne directory, retaining their usual format for their other directories. The map design was first fully completed by computers in 2000.

Editions

There have been 50 editions of Melway since the mid-1960s. A new edition is typically released late one year and denoted as being for the following year. For example, edition 35 was released in August 2007 and denoted as the 2008 Melway. Despite this discrepancy, numerous roads and other features under construction or proposal are included. Therefore, editions dating up to 5 or even ten years old could still remain useful.

List of editions

Expansion into other Australian markets

Melway has spawned an umbrella company known as Ausway, which started producing directories for other cities and towns from the early 1990s onwards. These other directories include: